I. THEY ARE THE GREAT SOURCES OF UNREALITY IN RELIGION. In sending Jeremiah to God they did not mean what they said. There was no honest willingness to do as the prophet might reveal. The only hope for them in their forlorn condition is thus tampered with and destroyed. It is possible that at first they may have meant well, but as they proceeded with their inquiry through the prophet they must have known that they had only one intention, which they had not laid aside or even held in abeyance. Yet such is the subtlety of the hypocritical heart that it continues in its hypocrisy until it deceives itself. "They inquire not to learn what is right, but only to receive encouragement to do what they wish."

II. THOSE WHO INDULGE THEM ARE THEIR OWN WORST ENEMIES.

1. They deceive and injure themselves. "Ye dissembled in your hearts" (ver. 20); literally, deceived yourselves; "used deceit against your souls" (margin). Thinking they were taking counsel of God, they were really obeying their fears and lusts. Can a greater wrong be done to one's self than this - to think one's self religious and obedient to the heavenly will when one is only selfish and sinful? Safety and happiness lay in following simply the Divine guidance; but this they could not do, for they knew not God's message when it came. "Thinking themselves wise, they became fools." Their spiritual nature is henceforth unreliable, and their greatest perils will be encountered in their most religious hours, and when they think themselves most in agreement with God's will.

2. The curse of God is denounced against them. What they choose will be their destruction. The very things they sought to avoid by going to Egypt are met there. And there is no mitigation; the position is one wholly wrong, and consequently the wrath of God is unceasing until they cease to occupy it. To remain in Egypt, with its idolatries and abominations, was virtually to annul the covenant. Soon every trace of true religion would disappear, and they would become like their neighbours, and be absorbed into the nations in whom God had no pleasure. He cannot tolerate falsehood, pretension, the form of godliness without the reality. And this severity is true mercy. Many a one "plucked as a brand from the burning" has had reason to thank his Saviour that "the way of transgressors is hard." "Let a man examine himself." "Be not deceived: God is not mocked." - M.

II. TEACHABLENESS. "That the Lord thy God may show," &c. Matthew Henry well says, "In every difficult and doubtful case our eye must be up to God for direction: we cannot be guided by a spirit of prophecy, which has ceased; but we may pray to be guided in our movements by a spirit of wisdom, and the hints of providence."

1. A teachable spirit is not a credulous spirit. It does not believe, except on evidence; as the preacher is to persuade men, so is he ever to re-echo the first words God addresses to His rebellious creatures, "Come, now, and let us reason together."

2. A teachable spirit is not a captious spirit.

3. A teachable spirit is not a reluctant spirit.

(W. G. Barrett.)