Jeremiah 22:29 O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD. On our rugged and water-worn shores you may often see a black wall of stone, as regular as if it had been built by human hands, running across the tide mark from the terrestrial vegetation down to the lip of the water at its lowest. It is a trap dyke, forced up when its matter was molten, through a fissure in the overlying strata, and appearing now a narrow band of rock, totally distinct both in colour and in kind from the surrounding surface. These protruding portions show that the material of which they consist lies in vast masses underneath. So the thin line of our text seems to protrude above a broad field of mingled prophecy and fact. I. The MANNER of this cry. You may measure the danger which a monitor apprehends by the sharpness of the alarm which he gives. The earth itself, and all the creatures on it under man, have a quick ear for their Maker's voice, and, never needing, never get a call so urgent. The alacrity of the creatures that lie either above or beneath him in the scale of creation brings out in higher relief the disobedience of man. Physically, earth is wide awake and watchful. It courses through the heavens without halting for rest, and threads its way among other stars without collision. The tide keeps its time and place. The rivers roll toward the sea, and the clouds fly on wings like eagles, hastening to pour their burdens into the rivers' springheads, that though ever flowing they may be ever full. The earth is a diligent worker; it is not the sluggard who needs a threefold call to awake and begin. Equally alert are the various orders of life that crowd the world's surface. Above our own place, too, angel spirits are like flames of fire in the quickness, and like stormy winds in the power, with which they serve their Maker. The cry of this text is meant for man; he needs it, and he only. When the polar winter threatens to freeze the navigator's blood, rendering constant and violent exercise necessary to keep the currents moving, then it is that the man feels the greatest drowsiness. It is only by the vigilance of experienced chiefs that they are prevented from sinking into a sleep from which there is no awakening. This fact, and the law which rules it, constitute in the moral region the saddest feature in the condition of the world. They sleep most soundly who have most need to be wakeful. The guilt which brings upon a man God's displeasure, so stupifies the senses of the man that he is not aware of danger, and does not try to escape. II. The MATTER of this cry. 1. The speaker is the only living and true God. It is essential that our belief in the first principle of religion should be well defined and real. Religion may be faint and feckless, for want of a foundation in an actual belief that God is. That Christian education is a tally defective which does not leave upon the mind and conscience a practical sense of God's being and presence, as the first principle of all truth and all duty. 2. The thing spoken is the Word of the Lord. It is not enough for us that God is near. He was not far from the men of Athens in the days of Paul, and yet He was to them "the unknown God." He has broken the silence; He has revealed His will The Word of the Lord lies in the Scriptures. (1) The Word of the Lord in the Scriptures is Mercy. If the message brought only vengeance, we could at least understand the voluntary deafness of the world. But it is strange that men will not listen to their best Friend; strange that the lost should shut their ears against a voice which publishes salvation. (2) Still further, and more particularly, "the Word of the Lord" is Christ. The use of the Scriptures is to reveal Christ; if we reject Him, they cannot give us life. 3. The injunction to regard that Word "O earth, earth," etc. (1) The earth so summoned, has already, in a sense most interesting and important, heard the Word of the Lord. Christ's kingdom is even now more powerful on the earth than any other kingdom. The power that lives in the conscience and links itself to God is, in point of fact, the most persistent and effective of all the powers which mould the character and history of the human race. It is great, is growing greater, and will yet be supreme. (2) The earth through all its bounds will one day hear and obey the Word of the Lord. Saving truth lying in the hearts of saved men has a self-propagating power. (3) When the earth hears its Lord's word, forthwith it calls upon the Lord. Those who sail in air ships among the clouds, as others sail on the sea, tell us that every cry which they utter on high is answered by an echo from the earth beneath When the earth, spiritually susceptible, receives from heaven the sound, "O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of the Lord," another cry forthwith arises, "O heaven, heaven, heaven, hear the petition of sinful men upon the earth." God delights in that cry. (4) Earth — that is, men in the body — should hear the Word of the Lord, for to them it brings a message of mercy. Now is the accepted time; this is the place of hope. Beware lest the sound that first awakens you be the crash of the gate when it shuts! (5) Earth — the dust of the dead in Christ — shall hear the Word of the Lord, and shall come forth. (W. Arnot, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD. |
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