How Men Deceive Themselves
S. Conway Jeremiah 7:4 Trust you not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these. The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, etc. The people of Jerusalem were flattering themselves that no harm would come to them because of the presence in their midst of the temple of the Lord. And men flatter themselves in like manner still. Now let us - I. CONSIDER THEIR ARGUMENT. God had said, "In this house will I dwell." They knew that, and hence it seemed impossible that it should be devastated by the heathen. It was the place of which he had said," There 'mine honor dwelleth." The cloud of glory had filled it, the Sheehinah brightness rested on the mercy-seat. Was it to be imagined that he who of old had smitten with death those who presumed even to look into or to touch the ark of God, who had smitten monarchs with leprosy for lack of due respect to it, would now suffer the bands of the idolaters to lay waste his sanctuary, in which it was enshrined? Moreover, once and again salvation for Israel had gone forth from the temple of God, deliverance and victory had there been won. The prophetic prayer of Solomon who had built it told of mercy and help that should surely come to Israel through that temple. Thus ancient teachings, glorious events, the manifested presence of God, many promises in connection with the temple of the Lord, all combined to lead men to look upon it with an undue trust, and to believe that, so long as it reared its sacred front in their midst, it would prove as a palladium, a shield and defense for them all. Therefore they met all Jeremiah's warnings, and all misgivings of their own consciences, by the oft-repeated cry, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these!" And that which answers in our day to the Jewish trust in these "lying words," as Jeremiah terms them, is the confidence that is placed in the Church, her sacraments and ministers; or in past religious experiences, or in present moods of feeling; and yet more in the endorsement of our religious profession by our acceptance into the Church's fellowship and our admission to her ordinances. Such answer now to the "lying words" Jeremiah denounced then. But note - II. WHAT OF WORTH THERE IS IN THIS ARGUMENT. There can be no doubt that the tares owe a great deal, owe everything in fact, to the wheat amongst which they have been sown. But for the wheat, they would have been plucked up long ago. And God's dealings with men had so often confirmed what our Lord's parable teaches, that the tares had come to congratulate themselves that they had no cause for fear. For ten righteous men Sodom would have been spared. For Moses' sake all Israel had been borne with, when but for his intercession God's righteous anger would have swept them away. The descendants of David had cause many times to bless themselves that, though so unlike their great ancestor in obedience to God, they were yet of his house and lineage. "For the elect's sake," said our Lord, "those days" - days of Jerusalem's final doom - "shall be shortened." And so here in the text, the people of Jerusalem could not but know that they were wicked in the extreme; but because they, though tares, were blessed with the presence of what they thought God counted as wheat-the temple and all its hallowed associations - they laughed at the idea of any great calamity coming upon them. And in the present-day parallels to that old trust in "lying words," what of worth there was in those words then, there is in the like of them now. The Church, with all its hallowed associations, is God's wheat, or rather, does assuredly contain all there is of it. For what manner of definition of the Church of God will any one presume to lay down other than this, that it consists of all the good? Broader it is not; but so broad it is. The presence, therefore, of the godly in any community is a guarantee of good to that community. "Ye are the salt of the earth," said our Lord. But for his Church the world would rot. Let any who sneer and persecute Christ's servants, whether in school, work-room, office, shop, or where else-and such persecution is common enough - let them remember that, but for such as those on whom they are pleased to pour their contempt, their own career would be cut very short indeed. If, then, the temple of the Lord, to which the Jews were trusting, was as the wheat, then the wicked people who were looking to it for safety were in the right, and their words were not lying words. III. ITS WORTHLESSNESS NOTWITHSTANDING. In all those instances in which the tares had been spared for the sake of the wheat, there had been two conditions fulfilled. It had been really wheat which sheltered the tares, and there had been sufficiency of it. There was not enough of it when the Deluge came, nor when Sodom was destroyed; and so, in like manner, should ever the wheat fall short, it will go ill with the tares then. But did the temple and its ritual and its associations fulfill either of these conditions? No doubt the mere structure, her very stones, had worth in God's sight. Just as, for the sake of the dearly beloved soul that once has dwelt within that now lifeless corpse, we hang over it with tenderest fondness, and would not put it away from us were we not compelled; so, because of the true worship that had gone up from that temple, and because of the many saintly men who there had drawn near to God, that material shrine had a certain value and would not lightly be allowed to perish. But if there were preciousness in the temple, there was not sufficiency of it to outweigh or to cover over the iniquities which surged around it, yea, invaded its very courts, and of which it was made the unwilling occasion. Instead of being a palladium, or any sort of guarantee of safety to that godless nation, its towers and courts, its altars and ever-ascending sacrifices, were ever calling down vengeance upon those who so shamefully used them. And, indeed, it could hardly be said to be as God's wheat at all. The temple had often been the vehicle of that" worship in spirit and in truth" which alone God desires, and for the sake of such worship it had a relative preciousness. But let that worship cease - as it had long ceased - then the temple became as a mere corpse, beautiful, tenderly loved indeed, but still corruptible, corrupting and spreading corruption, and therefore demanding to be put out of the way. Now apply all this to the false truths of our own day. Will the Church, her sacraments, her ordinances, your membership with her, your frequent moods of religious feeling, your current creed, your loud profession of attachment to her, your manifold religious privileges, - will any or all of these things, precious though they every one of them be, compensate for that surrender of your true self to God which is his perpetual desire and demand? Will they not rather, as did the presence of the temple and their innumerable privileges for the Jews, heighten your guilt, and make more glaring your sin, because they show that you have been amongst those "to whom much has been given," and of whom, therefore, "much will be required?" No worship, however magnificent, costly, constant; however hallowed by association, or authorized by venerable usage, or sanctioned by the holiest of the Church of God, or even owned by God as the means of uplifting many hearts heavenward and Godward; if such worship be wanting, as, alas! it may be, in the all-essential element, the "worship in spirit and in truth;" if there be no outgoings of the heart in it all, as too often there is not,-then it will prove no shield from but a provocative to that holy wrath of God which sooner or later awaits every godless soul. IV. THE VERY SERIOUS SUGGESTIONS IT OTHERS. 1. The utter hatefulness of sin. (1) It turned the very temple of the Lord and its sacrifices, which had been designed to be "a savor of life unto life" to those who by means of them drew nigh to God, into "a savor of death unto death." And so still, even Christ the Rock, the sure Foundation, becomes by this wresting power of sin a crushing stone which, falling on the head of the sinner, grinds him to powder. (2) It drags down the innocent with the guilty. That temple of the Lord, the holy and beautiful house, what had that done? Had it not deserved all honor and love from those amid whom it stood? And now the sin of the people was to overwhelm her in utter and irretrievable ruin. The man whose wickedness pulls down innocent and loving wife and children, and drags them in the mire which he has chosen to wallow in, as we see their misery, how odious his sin appears! And this is ever one of sin's works. It drags in and down the innocent, the pure, the beloved. Behold those blackened ruins, those polluted altars, those blood-stained courts, and see a parable of sin. 2. The testimony that these refuges of ties, such as that in which the Jews trusted, do surely give of our need of a real refuge, a true defense. Men who deny the Savior most are yet ever confessing that they and all men do need a Savior. They who would not trust in God trusted in the mere material temple. 3. To what are we trusting? In "lying words -which God forbid! - or - which may God grant! - in those words of the Lord Jesus, which are able to make us wise unto salvation? - C. Parallel Verses KJV: Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these. WEB: Don't trust in lying words, saying, The temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, are these.