Bible Commentaries

Jeremiah 26:11

Why were the Jews so angry with Jeremiah for simply telling them the plain fact of what they did, and what they did not, disguise? Why this unreasonable hatred of the man of God because he pointed to proceedings which were quite open, and which they did not deny? Now, in the first place, when bold, bad men do wicked things which they do not disguise, they do not thereby give the servants of God any permission at all to remind them of them, and make them sensible of the reproach. They will thrust their misdeeds before other people's eyes, but they think their doing this is the very reason why they should not be thrust before their own.

I. This, then, was one chief office which the old prophets had to execute. They had to break down the pride of bold and open vice, where man thought himself privileged to sin; to do what he pleased to defy God. They had to bring down the haughtiness of man's heart and to make it feel the yoke.

II. Besides the great truth that no man was privileged to sin, there was another great truth the old prophets had to declare, and one opposed to as mischievous an error, viz. the truth that no sin was excused by its commonness. The Jews saw no discord between the true God and idols, but worshipped both together. And so people see no discord or contrariety between the Christian belief and a worldly practice, simply because they are accustomed to both. A worldly life justifies itself in their eyes because it is common; they take it and the Gospel together and interpret the Gospel accordingly. The old prophets were witnesses against this slavery of men to what is common and customary; they recalled them to the purity of truth, they reminded them of the holiness of God's law, and they put before them Almighty God as a jealous God, who disdained to be half-obeyed, and abhorred to be served in common with idols.

J. B. Mozley, Sermons Parochial and Occasional, p. 233.

Reference: Jeremiah 28:13.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1032.