Jeremiah 4:14 O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your vain thoughts lodge within you? I. HERE ARE CERTAIN BAD LODGERS. 1. Many thoughts may be called vain because they are proud, conceited thoughts. Thus, whenever a man thinks himself good by nature, we may say of his thoughts, "Vanity of vanities: all is vanity." If you are unrenewed, and dream that you are better than others because your parents were godly, it is a vain thought. Every thought of self-righteousness is a vain thought; every idea, moreover, of self-power — that you can do this and do that towards your own salvation, and that at any time when it pleases you you can turn and become a Christian, and so there is no need to be in a hurry, or to seek the help of the Holy Spirit: — that also is a vain thought. 2. Another sort of vain thoughts may be ranged under the head of carnal security. The poet says, "All men think all men mortal but themselves," and often as the saying is quoted never was a proverb more generally true. 3. I know another set of thoughts: they are better looking, but they are equally vain, for they promise much and come to nothing: they are vain because they are fruitless. These vain thoughts are like the better order of people in Jerusalem — good people after a sort — that is to say, they really thought that as God threatened them with judgments, they would turn to Him. Certainly they would. They had no intention of being hard hearted. Far from it; they owned the power of the prophet's appeal; they felt a degree of awe in the presence of the just God as He threatened them, and of course they meant — they meant to wash their hearts, and they meant to put away all their forbidden practices; not just yet, but by and by. Some men brood so long over their future intentions that they all of them become addled eggs, and nothing whatever is hatched. O man, "whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it," do it, do it "with thy might." II. NOW, LET ME SHOW WHAT BAD LODGERS THEY ARE. 1. First, they are deceitful. The man that says, "When I have a more convenient season I will send for thee," does not send for Paul any more: he never intended to do so. A man says, "Tomorrow"; but tomorrow never comes. When that comes which would have been "tomorrow" it is "today"; and then he cries, "Tomorrow," and so multiplies lies before God. 2. Vain thoughts are bad lodgers, for they pay no rent; they bring in nothing good to those who entertain them. There is the ledger of self-righteousness, for instance: what good does self-righteousness ever do to the man who entertains it? It pretends to pay in brass farthings: it pretends to pay, but the money is counterfeit. What good does it do to any man to harbour in his mind the empty promise of future repentance? It often prevents repentance. 3. The next reason for the ejectment of these lodgers is this: that they are wasting your goods and destroying your property. For instance, every unacted resolution wastes time, and that is more precious than gold. It also wastes thought, for to think of a thing and to leave it undone is a waste of reflection. It is a waste of energy to be energetic about merely promising to be energetic; it is a great waste of strength to be forever resolving to be strong, and yet to remain weak. 4. Worst of all, these vain thoughts are bad lodgers because they bring you under condemnation. There have been times when to entertain certain persons was treason, and many individuals have been put to death for harbouring traitors. Rebels condemned to die have been discovered in a man's house, and he has been condemned for affording them a hiding place. Now, God declares that these vain thoughts of yours are condemned traitors. Are you going to harbour them any longer? III. LET US SEE WHAT TO DO WITH THESE BAD LODGERS. 1. The first thing is to give them notice to quit at once. Let there be no waiting. When a man is converted it is done at once. There is a line, thin as a razor's edge, which divides death from life, a point of decision which separates the saved from the lost. 2. Suppose that these vain thoughts will not go just when you bid them begone. I will tell you what to do to get rid of them: starve them out. Lock the door, and let nothing enter upon which they can feed. 3. The best way in all the world that I know of to get rid of vain thoughts out of your house — these bad lodgers that have gone in and that you cannot get out — is to sell the house over their heads. Let the house change owners. When you have dope that, you know, it will be the new owner that will have the trouble of turning them out; and He will do it. I recommend every sinner here that wants to find salvation to give himself up to Christ. Ah, now the stronger than they are has come, and He will bind the strong ones, and He will fling them out of window, and so break them to pieces with their fall that they shall never be able to crawl up the stairs again. He knows how to do it. He can expel them; you cannot. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) 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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