The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, "The LORD does not call you Pashhur, but Magor-missabib. Sermons
I. THE INFLUENCE HE EXERCISED. 1. Its character. Absolute and despotic. At the suggestion of his own evil heart. Capable of destroying civil rights and character itself. The whole civil and sacred machinery of the laud was at his disposal. The public trusted him. The state of things condemned by Jeremiah it was his immediate interest to support, and in turn he could rely upon official support. He identifies himself with the ruling party and becomes its representative and mouthpiece. Vested rights, traditional religion, etc., are his watchwords, because he owes everything to them. 2. How it was acquired. Family connection - "the son of Immer the priest." Not by striving to reform abuses, but by fostering and upholding the status quo. He who was so oblivious to the wrongs of which the prophet spoke could not have been scrupulous as to the means by which he rose to position and influence. Oriental corruption and intrigue had doubtless had their part in securing his elevation. ("Pashur" probably means "extension," "pride," "eminence.") 3. How it was employed. Hastily, on the passionate impulse of the moment. Without regard to the essential justice of the case. And when the error is discovered no true repentance or effort at amends is visible. Cf. the time-serving policy of Agrippa (Acts 26:32). II. THE CHARACTER AND DESTINY HE EARNED. By making himself the champion of apostle Judah, and insulting the prophet of God, he is sentenced to the same fate, but in a peculiar and aggravated degree. 1. It would be his fortune to be looked upon as the representative and embodiment of the system of falsehood which had ruined his country. He who prophesied falsely will be justly punished by such an association. Instead of saying, "It was Moloch or Astarte that deceived us," the victims of the common disaster, will say, - "It was the prophet of these false gods who led us astray." How readily does personal influence acquire such a representative character! There are many evil forces and influences at work in society, the state, the Church, etc., which would cease to exist were it not for their accidental connection with some personage who becomes their advocate or their bulwark. 2. His character and influence would be exposed. The assurances he had given would one by one be falsified by the fulfillments of Jeremiah's predictions. Instead of being honored and looked up to, he would become a loathing and a byword. He would outlive his credit, his self-esteem, and his happiness. Shunned by others, he would be unable to trust himself. Each fresh catastrophe would deepen his disgrace and remorse. A "terror round about" would be the name he would earn. 3. His exemption from immediate destruction would but enhance his punishment. Like the criminal obliged to stand in the dock and hear all the counts of his indictment made good by the evidence of witnesses, he should outlive the first effects of the national ruin, see all his statements falsified, bear the reproach of his own wicked lies, and yet linger on when life had ceased to be desirable. There is a grotesqueness about this punishment that would make it ludicrous were it not so sad and awful. A more severe punishment could hardly be conceived. And yet it is not more than Pashur deserved. Would that our modern "prophets of lies" could be compelled to witness the consequences of their advice and example! A modified degree of this experience has, indeed, been the sentence inflicted upon many a good man. But Christ takes up the entail of sin and breaks it. We may do better than to stand by and see the evil consequences of former folly; it is for us to strive to rectify them. So the past may be retrieved and the evil days redeemed by those who have been servants of sin "turning many to righteousness." - M.
An 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.) (J. Parker, D. D.) But the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible one. (as a mighty terrible one): — As a strong giant, and mine only Champion on whom I lean. Here the spirit begins to get the better of the flesh, could Jeremiah but hold his own. But as the ferryman plies the oar, and eyes the shore homeward where he would be, yet there comes a gust of wind that carrieth him back again; so it fared with our prophet (vers. 14, 15).(John Trapp.) Cursed be the day wherein I was born. Job and Jeremiah were alike in wishing they had never been born. They were both men of sorrow.I. A PREFERENCE ALIKE IRRELIGIOUS AND IRRATIONAL. 1. Good men should not for a moment think that non-existence is preferable to life and being. These were both good men, children of God; existence was therefore a blessing to be prized, not an evil to be mourned over. Had they been versed in the design and results of Divine dispensations, as Paul, they would have said, "Our light affliction," etc. With such a destiny before them, instead of cursing the day of birth, they would have blessed it as the dawn of an eternal existence, to be hereafter crowned with a glory that fadeth not away. 2. Ungodly men may with some degree of reason prefer non-existence; because in trouble they have no Divine support, in death no good hope, in eternity no expectation but the penalty of sin. II. NON-EXISTENCE IS PREFERABLE TO EXISTENCE UNLESS EXISTENCE POSSESS MORE PLEASURE THAN PAIN. 1. If every ungodly man lived out threescore years and ten, and the whole was spent in pleasure, yet, as that period is but momentary as compared with his eternal existence, and as that existence is to be one of pain, he might curse the day of his birth. 2. Existence, eternal existence, is a blessing to all unfallen ones, and also to such fallen ones as are redeemed by the death of Christ. 3. But perpetuity of existence can be no blessing to "the angels who kept not their first estate," nor to those of the human race who by impenitence and unbelief reject the great salvation and bring upon themselves the double condemnation of the law and the Gospel. III. HELL AND HEAVEN ARE TWO GREAT TEACHERS. 1. Hell teaches — the folly of wickedness, the full enormity of sin in the penalty it has entailed, and leads all its victims amid the consequences of their depravity to curse the day they were born. 2. Heaven teaches — the wisdom of holiness, the full benefits of redemption in the felicity it has secured, and leads all the ransomed to bless the day of their birth as the morn of their noontide of glory. IV. GOD IS NOT WILLING THAT ANY SHOULD HAVE OCCASION FOR PREFERRING NON-EXISTENCE. 1. He has devised and carried out a costly plan by which the existence of fallen ones might be made an eternal blessing. 2. Every man who now wishes for a glorious existence has only to look to Jesus and be saved. (D. Pledge.). People Benjamin, Immer, Jeremiah, Magormissabib, PashurPlaces Babylon, Benjamin Gate, TophethTopics Bringeth, Cause-of-fear-on-every-side, Forth, Jeremiah, Loose, Lord's, Magor, Magormissabib, Magor-missabib, Missabib, Morrow, Pashhur, Pashur, Pass, Rather, Released, Stocks, TerrorOutline 1. Pashur, smiting Jeremiah, receives a new name, and a fearful doom.7. Jeremiah complains of contempt; 10. of treachery; 14. and of his birth. Dictionary of Bible Themes Jeremiah 20:3-6Library The Revelation to which the Scripture of the Old Testament Owes Its Existence. "O Lord, . . . Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed."--Jer. xx. 7. The understanding of the Holy Spirit's work in Scripture requires us to distinguish the preparation, and the formation that was the outcome of the preparation. We will discuss these two separately. The Holy Spirit prepared for Scripture by the operations which from Paradise to Patmos supernaturally apprehended the sinful life of this world, and thus raised up believing men who formed the developing Church. This will seem very … Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit The Revelation of the Old Testament in Writing. One Thing is Needful; The Baptist's Inquiry and Jesus' Discourse Suggested Thereby. The Hindrances to Mourning Jeremiah, a Lesson for the Disappointed. Meditations for the Morning. 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