Jeremiah 15:19,20

If thou shalt take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth.

The personal factor in our thought of God and man

If Jeremiah at the time he wrote these words had been asked our modern question, “Is life worth living?” he would have returned a negative answer. For here you have the significant spectacle of a prophet of the Lord cursing the day of his birth. He finds that he is a man of strife and contention to the whole earth; everyone curses him, he says, though he has not given men cause to do so. And God is not keeping His word with him either. “Why is my pain perpetual?” he cries, “and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? Wilt Thou,” he says to God, “be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?” The prophet cries out for revenge upon his persecutors. Let us admit at once that he was plunged deeply into disappointments. The sense of the Divine pressure in life had come to him early. When he first felt that he must do some great work for God he was very young, and he felt his youth as an objection to undertaking the work. The consciousness of duty and the consciousness of unfitness were there together as they have often been in men. Great geniuses have often begun to show themselves very early, but it is also true that in going on they have had much to unlearn and much to cancel, and they have had to bear the shattering of many dreams. A youth inspired from such heights must needs be bitterly disappointed on the planes of practical life. It was so with Jeremiah. What it was that brought him under the pressure of the higher things so early we do not know. It has been conjectured, and Professor Cornill favours the conjecture, that he had descended from Abiathar, the high priest of David, whom Solomon banished to Anathoth. Jeremiah was brought up there, we know, and his father was a priest. If the conjecture is right, the tale of banishment, the story of the hardship, would come down from sire to son, and the old family virtues and heroisms would be told the children of each generation. In young Jeremiah these found responsive soil, and his enthusiasm was kindled. The lad set out to be a reformer; he was going to put the world right! Now it is certain beforehand that he will meet with terrible disappointments, and not at all unlikely that they will sometimes be so severe that he will curse the day of his birth. That is what befell Jeremiah, as it has befallen others since. In these verses he is in the depths of misery. He notes the sins he has not been guilty of: he has not exacted usury, for example; he recalls how zealous he had been for God: he had found the Divine words and eaten them, assimilated them and made them his own, and had found joy in them. But all to no purpose; everybody was against him; everyone cursed him. But now, here is the significant thing: in the midst of all this, just when he was seeing all men and God in the worst possible light, another thought struck him--the thought that, after all, perhaps it was he himself who was most at fault. Thus saith the Lord: “If thou becomest again Mine, thou shalt be My servant, and if thou wilt separate thy better self from the vile, thou shalt still be as My mouth.” What had Jeremiah been doing in his pessimism? He had been allowing the personal factor too much room. Listen: “Revenge me upon my persecutors; take me not away in Thy long-suffering”--as if he said: “Do not be so merciful and patient with them as to let them kill me; take care of me even if they be killed.” “Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of throttling,” he once said. This was not Jeremiah’s character, not his better self; this was his mood when stung with disappointment. And this mood was bad; it was what my text calls “the vile.” The personal factor was so large that it cast men and God into deep shadow. Jeremiah saw so much of himself, his own virtue, his own failure, that he saw men worse than they were, and God almost as a gigantic untruth. But a great character conquers such moods, and Jeremiah conquered them. It was through his better self that the word of the Lord came to him, and Jeremiah saw that he, in thinking so much of himself, had ceased to be his true self, and had lapsed out of God’s service, and that if he wanted to speak again as the mouth of God, and to do God’s work, he must separate the precious from the vile, the better self from the baser self in his own nature. Now we are living in an age when pessimism is said to be very prevalent; men take gloomy views of things. I think it is true that when we are pessimistic about things in general the fault is mostly in ourselves. Unreasonable selfishness in some form or other is at the bottom of most pessimism; we allow the personal factor to make a larger claim than the universe is prepared to acknowledge, and we grow sullen at the refusal.

1. This may be the case, and often is in the nobler form of intellectual pursuits, and often in the greaser form of material pursuits. Through philosophy we see some men become pessimistic. They think, and think, they tell us, but the mystery increases, and they despair of thought altogether: the universe is a riddle, and no one can guess its meaning. Now, it is a fine thing to see a man in quest after truth, and it is very honourable in him to make the fullest and frankest inquiry into the nature of things. But, nevertheless, the pessimism, the despair, the wretchedness even here is due to an unreasonable claim on the part of the individual. Is it not rather irrational to suppose that you can uncover the final secret? If that privilege were granted to you, what interest would there be in the world to you or to anyone else? “It is the glory of the Lord,” said an old writer, “to conceal a thing,” and there was more philosophic insight in the saying than in any number of moderns who whimper and cower before the Great Unknown. Cut down your demands to something like what is reasonable, and then your inquiries will give you much-prized gains--things to rejoice and sing over, and not to break your heart about. There is a peace of mind to be got from knowing what is not possible to us, and accepting the fact like men. Ii man could fully understand God, he would be God. Let him know his own place and fill it like a man.

2. But it is through the material pursuits many grow pessimistic. Many people’s thought of God and their neighbours is gloomy simply because they claim too much room for themselves in the world. There are men who are very prosperous in money matters, and in getting position and power, and yet who are always dissatisfied, only because self is their God--the greatest tyrant in the world, never satisfied. It is astonishing how much adversity and disappointment men can bear when they are thinking of another, or others, and how little when thinking of themselves.

3. And out of this arises one other truth--namely, that you must take yourself in hand, and separate the precious from the vile, the better from the baser, in order to be again the servant of the living God, and the exponent of Divine truth. Whenever you see all the world in shadow, all men bad, and doubt even God, be sure it is you who need reforming. There is badness in the world, badness in men, and circumstances may be very trying, but if you are rightly minded, and rightly hearted, you can hope and conquer. It would be a good thing for each of us in melancholy or in bitter moods to stop speaking of the faults of others, and the wrongs of the world, and the problems of God, and ask, “What’s wrong with me?” Every man’s biggest problem is himself. Not that the circumstances were not trying--they were very trying; not that others had no faults--they had, perhaps, great faults; but faith in God is possible in the worst of situations, so long as we are humble, and in manly relation to our sorrow. When unworthy feelings come in, separate the vile, release the better self, and you will yet be God’s servant, and speak for Him. A clean personal life will give you a strong hold on truth, even in the midst of trouble; a pure mind will give you access to Divine reality, though your circumstances might be terribly hard, and though all men reviled you. Mark: Jesus does not say that the circumstances will change; and all that God says to Jeremiah is that he shall be His servant again, and speak for Him. If you separate the better self from the vile, it does not follow that you will create outward success, but you shall go on with your work, and your work shall be a speech for God. I believe that God speaks to us in nature, but I grant that I do not always understand. The notes of the speech are discordant. In the world of man, too, there is much that staggers one. But there is one fact in which I always read the mind of God--this act of separating the precious from the vile in man. Whenever I make an effort to expel something bad, I know I am acting for God; whenever I seek to put down anything that is unworthy, to overcome any animosity or uncharitableness, to make my better nature supreme, I have no doubt of God then. There we find His mind, there we get the beatific vision, and there we equip for the world’s work. Will you remember that God says to each one of us, “If thou wilt separate the precious from the vile, thou shalt again be My servant”? Pure life is a clear vision of God for you, and a definite speech for God by you. Nothing speaks like it. A clean soul reflects God as a clear river reflects the sky. You will be yourself an exponent of the eternal in separating the good from the bad in your own life. They mingle strangely--the base with the noble, the false with the true; and their persistent separation speaks of the eternal purpose of redemption. And I am glad of another word in this text. It is the little word “again”--“If thou becomest again Mine.” We know what it is to lapse--to feel the relation to God gone; indifference holds us in its icy grasp, where all was once enthusiasm. Let me emphasise this little word--“again.” It opens a door; it marks a possibility; it is a Father’s voice coming out after you into the darkness. There is a restoring power at work; you may be reunited consciously to God; you may feel Him again to be the Greatest Reality in your life. (T. R. Williams.)

The essential distinction between saints and sinners

I. There is an essential distinction between saints and sinners.

1. The inspired writers divide all mankind into two, and but two classes, and distinguish them by very different and opposite appellations. They call the saints the precious, but sinners the vile. They call saints the godly, but sinners the ungodly. They call saints the children of God, but sinners the children of the wicked one. They call saints the elect, but sinners the reprobate. They call saints vessels of mercy, but sinners vessels of wrath.

2. God does that for saints which He does not do for sinners; He regenerates saints, but not sinners; gives a new heart to saints, but not to sinners; softens the hearts of saints, but hardens the hearts of sinners; and gives a spiritual discerning of spiritual things to saints, but not to sinners; so there must be an essential distinction between them.

3. God has made promises of good to saints, but none to sinners; which proves they are essentially different in their moral characters.

4. God has threatened that evil to sinners, which He has not threatened to saints.

II. Why ministers should, in their preaching, constantly exhibit and keep up this great moral and essential distinction between those who have, and those who have not the love of God in them.

1. This is necessary, in order to preach the Word of God intelligibly to their people.

2. It is necessary, in order to give pertinent and profitable instruction to their hearers.

3. Ministers must distinguish saints from sinners, in order to preach faithfully, as well as profitably.

Application--

1. It is utterly a fault in ministers, either designedly or undesignedly, to keep the essential distinction between saints and sinners out of sight.

2. In the view of this subject, we may see how easy it is for ministers to lead people insensibly into great and fatal errors. They may do so, by not mentioning or not explaining the essential distinction between saints and sinners; or by not mentioning or not explaining the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel which flow from this distinction; while, at the same time, they preach some valuable truths.

3. If there be an essential distinction between saints and sinners, then sinners are very liable to be fatally deceived and corrupted by those who lie in wait to deceive and destroy. Saints have an antidote against the poison of error, that sinners are entirely destitute of. Saints are lovers of God and of His Word; they desire the sincere milk of the Word, that they may grow thereby in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. The hearts of all good men are attached to Divine truth. But sinners are lovers of their own selves, and haters of God, and equally haters of His Word.

4. The best way the ministers of the Gospel can take to guard their people against every species of error and errorists, is to make and keep up the essential distinction between saints and sinners.

5. The people may easily discover the real sentiments of ministers by their preaching.

6. There may be a great deal of good preaching in the land, and at the same time, a great want of good preaching. How many ministers do not take forth the precious from the vile, nor cause their hearers to see and feel the difference!

7. This subject calls upon saints to walk worthy of their high and holy calling. They are called the precious, the holy, the godly, the excellent of the earth. (N. Emmons, D. D.)

Unsullied character

The degree of impurity in any precious stone is just the measure of its depreciation. The initial act of their formation is separation. “The dark drift of the inland river, or stagnant slime of inland pool and lake, divides or resolves itself, as it dries, into layers of its several elements: slowly purifying each by the patient withdrawal of it from the anarchy of the mass in which it was mingled.” Thus begin both the crystallisation of the gem and the life of the Christian. “Come out, and be separate! Take forth the precious from the vile,” is the call of the Lord to His saints. For our call is to saintliness; and as the unseen foundations of the New Jerusalem are of as precious stones as the dazzling walls, so the part of our life and character which is hidden from the eyes of the world is to be as clear and unsullied as that which all see and admire. Keep thyself pure, thou child of God. (W. Y. Fullerton.)

Righteous zeal encouraged by Divine protection

I. God’s direction to the prophet, and in him to all eat do His work in such a season as this described. “Let them return to thee, return not thou to them.” Plausible compliances of men in authority, with those against whom they are employed, are treacherous contrivances against the God of heaven, by whom they are employed.

1. It cannot be done but by preferring the creature before the Creator, especially in those things which are the proximate causes of deviation. Two principal causes I have observed of this crooked walking.

(1) Fear.

(2) That desire of perishing things, which hath a mixture of covetousness and ambition.

II. The supportment and assistance promised. “I will make thee to this people a brazen and a fenced wall.” Now the Lord will do this--

1. Because of His own engagement.

2. For our encouragement.

III. The opposition which men cleaving to the Lord in all His ways shall find, with the issue and success of it. “They shall fight against thee, but shall not prevail.” The words may be considered either as a prediction depending on God’s prescience of what will be; or a commination from His just judgment, of what shall be. In the first sense the Lord tells the prophet, from the corruption, apostasy, stubbornness of that people, what would come to pass. In the second, what for their sins and provocations, by His just judgment, should come to pass. I shall take up the latter only, namely, That it is a commination of what shall be for the further misery of that wretched people; they shall judicially be given up to a fighting against Him. Now the Lord doth this--

1. To seal up a sinful people’s destruction. Eli’s sons hearkened not, because the Lord would slay them (1 Samuel 2:25).

2. To manifest His own power and sovereignty in maintaining a small handful, ofttimes a few single persons, a Moses, a Samuel, two witnesses against the opposing rage of a hardened multitude.

Use--

1. Let men, constant, sincere, upright in the ways of God, especially in difficult times, know what they are to expect from many, yea, the most of the generation, whose good they intend, and among whom they live; opposition and fighting is like to be their lot; and that not only it will be so because of men’s lusts, corruptions, prejudices; but also it shall be so, from God’s righteous judgments against a stubborn people; they harden their hearts that it may be so, to compass their ends; and God hardens their hearts that it shall be so to bring about His aims; they will do it to execute their revenge upon others, they shall do it to execute God’s vengeance upon themselves.

2. Let men set upon opposition make a diligent inquiry, whether there be no hand in the business, but their own? whether their counsels be not leavened with the wrath of God, and their thoughts mixed with a spirit of giddiness, and themselves carried on to their own destruction? (J. Owen, D. D.)

The ministry of the Word

1. A ministry of Divine authority.

2. A ministry of Divine revelations.

3. A ministry of wise discrimination.

4. A ministry often opposed by those to whom it is sent.

5. A ministry requiring much courage.

6. A ministry which will be Divinely vindicated.

7. A ministry which lifts up Christ as the Saviour of men. (W. Whale.)

The power of rebuke

I. The Christian ministry includes an office of commination. If the messengers of heaven, when among the outcasts of mankind, who, in ignorance of God, have gone astray from virtue, speak more of virtue than of wrath; when they stand among those who, being well informed in matters of religion, use the grace of the Gospel to palliate their vices, the messages of wrath must be most on their lips.

II. The tendency of the Christian ministry is to move down from its remedial functions to become an office of delectation.

1. Furnishing intellectual entertainment; uttering, as matters of gorgeous eloquence, the appalling verities of eternal justice. Nature forbids such an incongruity, and the renovating Spirit refuses to yield the energy of His power to the sway of a mere minister of public recreation.

2. Affording spiritual entertainment; by exhibiting the conceits and ingenuities of mystic exposition; by painting in high colours the honours and privileges of the believer, and allowing professors of all sorts to appropriate the fulsome description; or by pealing out thunders of wrath against distant adversaries, rather than at the impure, unjust, rapacious and malicious around.

III. It behoves preachers to beware of the indurating effect of accustomed phrases and forms of words. Such conventional phrases conceal from the mind the ideas they should convey; hence preachers should continually endeavour to break up the mental incrustations which are always spreading themselves over the sensitive surface of the sails. This is especially necessary in reference to matters wherein the drowsy formalities of language tend directly to augment the stupefying influence that belongs to all vicious indulgences.

IV. It is a pressing duty of the minister of religion to maintain in vigour the spirit he needs as the reprover of sin and guardian of virtue. It is easy to teach the articles of belief, to illustrate the branches of Christian ethics, to proclaim the Divine mercy, to meet and assuage the fears of the feeble and sorrows of the afflicted. But to keep in full activity the power of rebuke, demands rare qualities. To speak efficaciously of the holiness and justice of God, and of its future consequences; to speak in modesty, tenderness, and power of the approaching doom of the impenitent, must be left to those whose spirits have had much communion with the dread Majesty on high.

V. Three indispensable qualifications for the vigorous exercise of the Christian minister for this power of rebuke.

1. Such a conviction of the truth of Christianity as shall render him proof against assaults from within and without. Fatal to his influence as a refuter of sin must be a lurking scepticism in the preacher’s breast. The infection of his own doubts will pass into the heart of the hearer, and will serve to harden each transgressor in his impenitence.

2. A resolute loyalty to the Divine administration. Such loyalty will break through the mazes of much sophistry, will support the servant of God when assailed by more fallacies than he can at the moment refute, and enable him to cleave under all obloquies and embarrassments to what he inwardly knows must in the end prove the better cause.

3. An unaffected and sensitive compassion towards his fellow men. The end of all reproof is mercy. If there were no redemption at hand, it were idle or cruel to talk of judgment. (Isaac Taylor, LL. D.)

Ministerial obligations

My text refers us to three distinct characters of the pastoral office--to be the servant of God; to be the mouth of God; and to be the guide whom the people shall follow. And these involve three several duties, in which the pastor’s own personal responsibility is closely linked with the solemn responsibilities of his office--that of preparing his own heart to seek the Lord; that of discriminating the “precious from the vile” in his instruction and conversation; and that of guarding himself and his flock against all declension after the ways of them who depart from God.

I. A Divine admonition as to personal religion. “To stand before,” implies the office of one who stands in the presence of his sovereign, ready to execute His commands. It is the highest order of dignity and of service to which a subject can be called. He enjoys the privilege of constant access to the presence of majesty, a knowledge of the high affairs of government, and a share in the splendours of courtly life. Such is the relation in which a minister of true religion stands to the court of Heaven, in order that he may bring near a people prepared for the Lord, to whom, when they have received his message, he may say, Ye are a chosen generation, etc. See, then, the unspeakable importance of personal religion in one who shall perform such a ministration. He that would cause the people to hear the words of God must habitually listen to the voice of God in his own conscience, as often as he turns aside--and who is not conscious of too frequently doing so?--saying, “If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before Me.” And then with confidence--the confidence of one who comes from a nearer access to the throne on high--he may go forth to his charge, and say, having the words of God in his mouth, “Turn ye, turn ye at My reproof.”

II. A divine direction. “If thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth.” The prophet may seem to have been charged with having, in some respect, mistaken his duty. In the view he took of his personal trials he had lost sight of the principal object of his ministry, namely, to cause the precious to come out from the vile. In times like the present, there may be an undue regard to the trials of the Church at large. From a just and pious jealousy of the dangers to which it is exposed, or by which it has been affected as a community, we may lose sight of the especial end of our ministry. In our reasonable remonstrance with unreasonable foes, and from just indignation at the treachery or declension of pretended friends, we may overlook the faithful use of the word “for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” In our zeal to mark an open enemy, or to discriminate an unsound adherent, we may forget the true flock of Christ; or in our eager cooperation with mere defenders of our Church polity, we may put aside from our own view, and obscure from the view of others, the real distinction which must ever be admitted in the doctrine of visible Church communion between the precious and the vile.

III. A divine caution: “Let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them.” No object or consideration must induce the prophet to identify himself with their apostasy: he must take a decidedly contrary course. He must so order his life and conversation, his doctrines and his admonitions, that those who desire to return unto God may see in him the way and pattern. In this, as in every age of the Church, no inconsiderable portion of those who profess themselves its members are yet under the influence of that love of the world which is opposed to the love of God. To counteract the tendency of this spirit, rests greatly with the clergy. It is their duty more strictly to define the Christian character by precept and example, and more clearly to exhibit Christian truth, than to allow those who pursue so inconsistent a course to indulge in vain confidence as to their religious state. The clergy at least ought to define the boundary between the world and the people of God. If they are negligent in doing so, it cannot but be obscured. If they pass the boundary, they lead many across it who probably never return. The clergy are preeminently the “salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost its savour,” woe to the Church, and “woe to them by whom the offence cometh”; “Let them return unto Thee; but return not Thou unto them.” (W. Wilson, D. D.)

A ministry of discrimination

I. What is supposed.

1. The vast importance and responsibility of the work assigned to ministers with a view to the welfare of their people. Ministers are to take the precious from the vile; to separate the wheat from the weeds; to distinguish the dross from the gold.

2. That there are some essential distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil, truth and error.

3. That there is a standard of truth. As the office of a judge is not to make but declare the law, so that of a minister is not to burden the ears of people with his own doubtful disputations, but to declare the whole counsel of God.

4. That these characters are closely intermingled, and that there is a great disinclination in mankind to have the truth fully told them, and to be brought to the decisive test.

5. That it is of the utmost consequence to both parties that the separation should be made. Take forth the precious from the vile, and the most advantageous results will immediately accrue to each.

(1) Is it not desirable to the children of God to know that they are so--that they are heirs according to the promise--that they are precious in His sight and honourable?

(2) If the distinction be valuable to the precious, it would be scarcely less advantageous to the vile themselves. To be robbed of the cloak of a false profession would be no loss, for we know it does them no honour and brings them no peace.

II. What is demanded of ministers with a view to this solemn discrimination?

1. A plain and decisive exhibition of the truth as it is in Jesus. We are to contend earnestly for the faith--to vindicate it from the blasphemies of the infidel, the perversions of the worldling, the mistakes of the Pharisee, and the corruptions of the Antinomian.

2. A fearless application of Scripture truth.

(1) To the careless and thoughtless.

(2) To the apostate.

(3) To the young.

(4) To the aged.

(5) To the precious.

(6) To the vile.

3. To point ourselves and our hearers to the only Agent who can make the Word effectual.

III. What is promised? “Thou shalt be as My mouth.” The accredited and approved servant--to speak in accordance with His will--be the organ of His clemency--all His authenticated messages crowned with success. Mighty and blessed such a ministry. (S. Thodey.)

I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee.--

Divine assistance promised to Church governors

I. God’s qualification of Jeremy to be an overseer in His Church. “I will make thee a brazen fenced wall.”

1. A wall implies enclosure. God did not think fit to leave His Church without enclosure, open like a common, for every beast to feed upon and devour it. Commons are always bare, pilled, and shorn, as the sheep that feed upon them. And our experience has shown us, as soon as the enclosures of our Church were plucked up, what a herd of cattle of all sorts invaded it. It contained, as commons usually do, both multitude and mixture.

2. A wall imports fortification. No city can be secure without it. It is, as it were, a standing inanimate army; a continual defence without the help of defenders. Something must encircle the Church, that will both discriminate and protect it. And the altar must be railed in, not only for distinction, but defence. And such a thing is a church governor, a well-qualified bishop. Which title that he may make good and verify, there are required in him these three qualifications--

(1) Courage, which leads the way to all the rest. A wall, nay, a brazen wall, will not sometimes prove a defence if it is not well manned. Every churchman should have the spirit of a soldier.

(2) Innocence and integrity. A brazen wall admits of no cracks and flaws. The enemies of the Church may fear your power, but they dread your innocence. It is this that stops the open sepulchre, and beats back the accusation upon the teeth of the accuser.

(3) Authority; it is to be a fenced, as well as a brazen wall. The inward firmness of one must be corroborated by the exterior munitions of the other. Courage is like a giant with his hands tied, if it has not authority and jurisdiction to draw forth and actuate its resolution.

II. The opposition that the Church governor, thus qualified, will be sure to meet with in the administration of his office.

1. They will assault their governors with seditious preaching and praying. To preach Christ out of contention is condemned by the apostle; but to preach contention instead of Christ, certainly is most abominable.

2. Their second way of fighting against the officers of the Church will be by railing and libels.

3. They may oppose the governors and government of the Church by open force: and this is fighting indeed; but yet the genuine, natural consequent of the other: he that rails, having opportunity, would rebel; for it is the same malice in a various posture, in a different way of eruption; and as he that rebels shows what he can do, so he that rails does as really demonstrate what he would do.

III. That, as in all fights, we see the issue and success, which is exhibited to us in these words, “But they shall not prevail against thee.”

1. Moral causes will afford but a moral certainty but so far as the light of this shines, it gives us a good prospect into our future success. For which is most likely to prevail, a force marshalled into order, or disranked and scattered into confusion? A force united and compacted with the strength of agreement, or a force shrivelled into parties, and crumbled into infinite subdivisions?

2. But besides the arguments of reason, we have the surer ground of Divine revelation. God has engaged His assistance, made Himself a party, and obliged His omnipotence as a second in the cause. (R. South, D. D.).