Bible Commentaries

Jeremiah 7:9-10

There is a deal of vague floating excuse in our minds, which practically amounts to making what we call Fate a scapegoat for our sins. There are two forms which such an attempt at excuse for wrong-doing may assume: (1) "We are delivered to do all these abominations "by certain inflexible laws, over which we can exercise no control,—say some; (2) "We are delivered to do all these abominations" by the force of our nature, which it is not in our power to alter,—say others. Such are generally the two forms which this argument from fate assumes.

I. Our idea of God's dealings with us is very largely influenced by the condition of the age in which we live. Our thoughts of the Divine government will be largely influenced and coloured by the principles of human government which prevail around us. For example, states make laws, and often they press very severely and unjustly upon individuals. We cannot help it. Our finite wisdom and our limited power prevent our making perfect laws, or rather render it impossible for us to make the necessary and wise exceptions to them in dealing with individuals. Now we must not transfer to God our own finality and failure. God's laws are universal and general; God's dealings with men are particular and individual. Each one has to learn the moral law of God and its bearing on his own nature. That very law, and the constancy of its action on you, are your real safeguards; it makes you a free man, not a slave of fate.

II. The other form which fatalism takes as an excuse for sin is: I am born with a particular nature, and I cannot help it. To say that you have a particular kind of nature which cannot resist a particular class of sin is to offer to God an excuse which you would never accept from your fellow-men. You treat every one of your fellow-men as having power to resist the inclination of his natural disposition, so far as its indulgence would be injurious to you. You never find fault with a man for any faculty or temper which he may have, but you do hold him responsible for the direction and control of it. The great heroes whom we justly reverence are not those who have destroyed, but those who have preserved and used aright the natural impulses and passions which have been given them.

T. T. Shore, The Life of the World to come, p. 109.

References: Jeremiah 7:10.—H. W. Beecher, Forty-eight Sermons, vol. i., p. 295. Jeremiah 7:12.—Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. i., p. 168; E. Paxton Hood, Preacher's Lantern, vol. i., p. 474. Jeremiah 7:18.—W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons, vol. iii., p. 207; J. Sherman, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 299. Jeremiah 8:4-7.—E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation, 1st series, p. 53. Jeremiah 8:6.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 169.