Backsliding Tendencies
A. Maclaren. Jeremiah 8:4-7 Moreover you shall say to them, Thus said the LORD; Shall they fall, and not arise? shall he turn away, and not return?… The tendency to the lukewarmness of spiritual life is in us all. Take a bar of iron out of the furnace on a winter day, and lay it down in the air, and there is nothing more wanted. Leave it there, and very soon the white heat will change into livid dulness, and then there will come a scale over it, and in a short time it will be as cold as the frosty atmosphere around it. And so there is always a refrigerating process acting upon us which needs to be counteracted by continual contact with the fiery furnace of spiritual warmth, or else we are cooled down to the degree of cold around us. (A. Maclaren.) Parallel Verses KJV: Moreover thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD; Shall they fall, and not arise? shall he turn away, and not return? WEB: Moreover you shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh: Shall men fall, and not rise up again? Shall one turn away, and not return?