Jeremiah 20:10-18 For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting… In these verses we have two distinct aspects of human experience. Within this brief section Jeremiah is on the hill top and in the deepest valley of spiritual dejection. How much depends upon circumstances for man's estimate of life! That estimate varies with climate, with incidents of a very trivial nature, and with much that is only superficial and transitory. Life is one thing to the successful man, and another to the man whose life is one continual series of defeats and disappointments. It is well, therefore, that all men should have a touch of failure, and spend a night or two now and then in deepest darkness that cannot be relieved: such experience teaches sympathy, develops the noblest faculties, brings into beneficent, exercise many generous emotions, and in the morning, after a long night's struggle with doubt, there may be tears in the eyes; but those tears denote the end of weakness and the beginning of strength. The year is not one season, but four, and we must pass through all the four before we can know what the year is. So with life: we must be with Jeremiah on the mountaintop, or with him in the deep valley; we must join his song, and fall into the solemn utterance of his sorrow, before we can know what the whole gamut of life is. How impossible it is to realise all the conflicting experiences at once, and to be wise. There is an abundance of information, there is a plentifulness of criticism that is detestable; but wisdom — large, generous wisdom, that understands every man's case, and has an answer to every man's necessity — oh, whither has that angel-mother fled? We need now and again to come into contact with those who know us altogether, and who can speak the word of cheer when we are cheerless, and the word of chastening when our rapture becomes riotous. Consider the vanity of life, and by its vanity understand its brevity, its uncertainty, its fickleness. We have no gift of time, we have no assurance of continuance; we have a thousand yesterdays, we have not one tomorrow. Then how things disappoint us that were going to make us glad! The flowers have been blighted, or the insects have fallen upon them, or the cold wind has chilled them, and they have never come to full fruition or bloom or beauty; and the child that was going to comfort us in our old age died first, as if frightened by some ghost invisible to us. Then the collisions of life, its continual competitions and rivalries and jealousies; its mutual criticisms, its backbitings and slanderings; its censures, deserved and undeserved: who can stand the rush and tumult of this life? Who has not sometimes longed to lay it down and begin some better, sunnier state of existence? And the sufferings of life, who shall number them? — not the great sufferings that are published, not the great woes that draw the attention even of the whole household to us in tender regard; but sufferings we never mention, spiritual sufferings, yea, even physical sufferings; sufferings that we dare not mention, sufferings that would be laughed at by unsympathetic contempt — but still sufferings. Add all these elements and possibilities together, and then say who has not sometimes been almost anxious to "shuffle off this mortal coil," and pass into the liberty of rest. Jesus Christ understands us all. We can all tell Jesus, as the disciples did, what has happened. He can listen to each of us as if His interest were entranced and enthralled. He knows every quiver of the life, every throb of the heart, every palpitation of fear, and every shout of joy. Withhold nothing from Him. You can tell Him all, and when you have ended you will find that you may begin life again. In your hope is His answer. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him. |
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