The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 479

did the enemies of Jeremiah at this time acknowledge him as the true servant 0£ God. But it was too late to secure what they desired. "The door was shut." But as the foolish virgins were bidden go to them that sell and buy for themselves, so the prophet of God has one counsel to give them whereby they might be" saved, yet so as by fire." "Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death" (ver. 8). But when we come to see what that way of life was, we see how far different it was from what the king and his people would have chosen for themselves. Note, therefore- I. WHAT THIS WAY OF LIFE WAS. 1. It was bare life-life only. They were to suffer defeat; their weapons to be of no avail, their strong fortress to be taken, their city and their temple in which they gloried to be burnt with fire, and they themselves led into captivity. '!'hat now was all that was possible for them. It was too late to avert their calamities, much less to gain victory, or honour, or glory in the war which they were waging. A glorious deliverance such as Hezekiah had known was out of the question. 2. And even this bare life on hard conditions. They must surrender them- selves to their enemies when the summons came, and meanwhile they must reform their ways (ver. 12). On these terms they should be allowed to live. Refuse them, as many did, and they perished miserably. It was indeed a salvation" so as by fire." II. lTs MOURNFULNESS. How full of this it was is seen by the plaintive psalms of the Captivity: "By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept," etc. And that which made it so mournful was the remembrance of how different their lot might have been. Had they but hearkened to the pleadings of those prophets of God, whose prayers when it was too late they importunately sought, how happy had it been with them then I Salvation in fulness, a2 their fathers had experienced and rejoiced in again and again, they too might have known. But now- III. lTs PLAIN TEACHING FOB OUBSEL VEB. Life may be rotained, hut made so wretched that only one thing could be worse-to have lost it altogether. This cert1\inly true of the present life, it is probably true of the life after this. Beware of that false doctrine which encourages men to believe, that if only they can get within what they are pleased to call "the door of heaven," they need desire no more. This is not humility, but the evil desire to escape that faithful following of Christ which alone will win "the :prize of our high calling." And since salvation in fulness ia offered to us and God desires it to be ours, let us be content with nothing less, lest we be "ashamed before him at his coming," and have "with shame to take a lower place." To any now suffering under judgment of God this history says, "' Humble yourselves under tlrn mighty hand of God.' Accept his terms, see in them your only hope."-C. Ver. 8.-.A. sad but common necessity. The surrender of a part to save the whole. This was the "way of life" the prophet put before the people. The way of death would be their refusal. "If they would submit to the irresistible pressure of the Babylonian power, then whatever blessings were bound up in the preservation of the house of David and of the holy city would remain intact" (cf. Stanley,' Lectures on the Jewish Church,' Leet. xi. vol. ii. p. 533). But to resist'.would not merely be useless, but mischievous in the extreme. It would rouse the rage of their conquerors and involve the destruction of all they held most precious. It would be "a way of death." At the final siege of Jerusalem the Christians retired, but the Zealots drew down upon themselves the rage of the armies of Vespasian and Titus, and so hurried on the ruin of the whole Jewish state. Stanley saye of Jeremiah, "It was not indifference to his country, but attachment to its permanent interests, with the yet larger consequences wrapt up in them, which induced him to counsel submission. It was his sense of the inestimable importance of that sacred spot, with its sacred institutions, which caused him to advise every sacrifice for the sake of retaining it. He had tho courage, so rare in political leaders, to surrender a part for the sake of preserving the whole-to embrace in his view the complete relations of the great scheme of the world, rather than fix his attention exclusively on the one pressing question of the moment. As there are times when the constitution must be broken to save the commonwealth, when the interests of particular nations or doctrines must give way to the preponderating claims of mankind or of truth at large, so Jeremiah slaked the eternal value of the truths which Jerusalem represented against the temporary evils of the Chaldean dominion. It was a bitter pang, but tho result seemed to him worth the cost." '86 'l'H.E BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAIJ. [en. xx1. 1-14.