Jeremiah 4:14 O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your vain thoughts lodge within you? The text shows us - I. GOD INTENSELY DESIRING MAN'S SALVATION. This is evident from the pleading tone of the text. It is like the pathetic cry of the Savior over the same Jerusalem, when her people rejected him. And this Divine distress over the sinner's rejection of salvation, or in any wise missing of it, is attested not by any one Scripture alone, but by many, and by a multitude of other witnesses beside. How many Divine utterances there are which breathe the like loving concern to that well-known one which says, "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live" (Ezekiel 33:11)! And the Divine words of love are confirmed by the supreme deed of love. "God so loved the world." Surely the remembrance of this Divine yearning for our eternal salvation should touch and subdue our hearts. If we knew of one who, when we were prostrate with disease, out of love came despising all risk of contagion, and watched over us night and day, on the alert turn and stage of the dread foe that was threatening our life, who in every way showed himself heedless of his own comfort or safety, so only as he might win us back to health; how in after years should we regard such a one? Would not even the most selfish cherish a warm regard, a grateful recollection? And most men would take care to let it be known what was their estimate of such self-sacrificing love. "But," saith God, "Israel doth not know; my people doth not consider." II. GOD DECLARING THAT MAN MUST DO HIS PART IF THAT SALVATION IS TO BE WON. If the whole matter rested with God, such language as our text, in which man is charged, importuned to bestir himself, would have no meaning, would he what we will not even suggest. And our text but embodies the same truth as to the need of man's cooperation with God which lies upon the surface of every "Come unto me" uttered by our Lord or by his apostles and ministers in his Name. Our salvation is not a case in which God but speaks and all is done, and commands and all stands fast. The work of grace is not accomplished as one tree is made an oak, the other an elm. We look with delight and wonder at the manifold triumphs of mind over matter which the varied discoveries of science have in this century achieved. But the salvation of a soul has the higher glory of the triumph of mind over mind - that in strict harmony with the laws and liberties of mind, and in spite of inherent and inveterate opposition, the love of God shall conquer and subdue, and the "unruly wills of sinful men" shall cheerfully own and yield to the Divine sway. But in such a salvation man must do his part; he is not left out in the scheme, and here, as in so many other Scriptures, he is called upon to be a worker together with God that he "may be saved." How this truth shatters the delusion and the fatal self-deception of those who comfort themselves in their disregard of God by a wresting of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit's work, as if it were one which absolved them from all endeavor, instead of prompting them thereto and aiding them therein. And some Christian workers need also to be reminded of this same truth; for they are tempted at times to excuse and account for their want of success on the ground of the sovereignty of the Divine working - the Spirit, like the wind, blowing where it listeth - rather than on the ground of their own laggard following of the Divine leading and their failure to co-operate with God. Man must do his part - this is the law writ large over all God's Word and works and ways. III. GOD SHOWING TO MAN WHAT HIS PART IS. "Wash thine heart," etc. Then: 1. Wickedness is a defiling thing. It is to the soul what the mud and mire of the street, what all material foulness, are to the body. Sometimes this is made manifest' even now. On a man's face may be read the moral defilement of his soul. But generally men are too cautious for that, and in this world men take care not to let the inward defilement appear. We are formed to love what is fair-looking and pure and wholesome, and we turn away from its opposite. And wicked men know this, and are careful to maintain appearances. But if hereafter, as now, God "gives to every seed its own body," he shall then, as is plainly taught, give to every soul its own body - a body that will take its nature, shape, and form from the moral characteristics of the soul. Oh, what transformations there may be then! The character of the soul determining what the body shall be. Some then, who here have had no form nor comeliness, shall be seen then as the angels of God; and others who here have lacked no natural beauty, shall be shunned as were those who in our Lord's days on earth were possessed with an unclean spirit. Oh for the purged vision, that we might see our souls as God always sees them! Then surely we, seeing how wickedness ever pollutes and defiles, should turn from it with loathing, as now we too seldom do. 2. And the defilement is such as cleats to the soul. "Wash thine heart," etc. The abode from which the evil spirit went forth for a while, but then in his lordly manner declared he would return to it, as he did - that abode was only "swept," not washed; that defilement which lay loose and light about the house could be thus got rid of, but that which cleaved to it continued there still. He who would be saved must deal thoroughly with his soul. No light, easy, partial amendment will do. This God teaches us by this earnest word, "Wash thine heart," etc. 3. And this cleansing must be of the heart. The whole chapter is a protest against the mere external purifying which the sinful people were seeking to palm off upon God instead of the tree inward cleansing which he demanded, and with which alone he would or ever will be content. 4. And this must do. Had we been told that the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ can alone do or had we been bidden pray like David, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin;" -such declarations and counsels we could readily have understood, but for us to be told to do ourselves what so many Scriptures repeatedly declare God alone can do - how is this? Well, let the story of the blind man whom our Lord bade go and wash in the pool of Siloam, and who because he obeyed won back his sight, - let his story answer the question. It was the grace of the Lord Jesus restored him, but yet this much that he could do he had to do. But never, never on the ground of that washing in Siloam would the restored man claim for himself the credit of his own restoration, and so, although we be bidden wash our hearts from wickedness, yet who does not know that there lies behind these words the promise of the cleansing fountain, in which alone we can wash and be clean? And every one who seeks to obey this word will soon find his own utter powerlessness to rid himself of the clinging, cleaving wickedness of his heart, and the necessity he is under to answer back to this word of the Lord's, "Lead me, then, Lord, to that cleansing stream, where only it is of any avail that I seek to wash my heart from wickedness." IV. GOD ENCOURAGING MAN TO DO HIS PART BY THE PROMISE OF SALVATION. "Wash thine heart... that thou mayest be saved." The promise is contained in the command. We can appeal to experience to verify this implied promise. In the hour when sin would assert its mastery, let the soul turn in instant trust and prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he shall find that he is saved. Sin will slink away, like Satan did at the word of the Lord, and in such experience of Christ's saving power we have the pledge and earnest of the full salvation which shall be ours when he who has begum the work in us has perfected it according to his word. - C. Parallel Verses KJV: O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee? |
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