by Arthur W. Pink
by Arthur W. Pink
Philologos Religious Online Books
Philologos.org
by Arthur W. Pink
August, 1943
GOD'S VOICE IN JUDGMENTS.
“Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I frame evil against you and devise a device against you” (Jer 18:11). That is the language of God unto a kingdom whose overthrow is threatened by His judgments, to whom the dispensations of his providence announce impending ruin. The dark clouds of calamity overhead testify to God's disapproval of a nation's sins. Under such solemn presages of the impending storm of Divine wrath proud spirits ought to be tamed and the masses brought to realize what a vain thing it is to fight against the Almighty and how fearful are the consequences of flouting His authority and treading underfoot His laws. The effects of evil doing are termed by the Spirit “gall and wormwood,” but it is not until God brings a nation into external miseries they are made to realize the truth thereof. “Thine own wickedness shall correct thee and thy backsliding shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God and that My fear is not in thee, saith the Lord of hosts” (Jer 2:19).
“Behold, I frame evil against you.” The speaker is the Most High and “none can stay His hand or say unto Him what doest thou?” He framed evil against the antediluvians. “The earth was filled with violence…all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth” (Gen 6:11,12). Warnings of impending doom were given by Enoch (Jude 14,15) and Noah, but none heeded. Then the storm burst: “all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven opened” (Gen 7:11). And what could men do to help themselves? Nothing whatever. God “framed evil” against Sodom and Gomorrah and what could their inhabitants do when He “rained fire and brimstone” upon them (Gen 18:24). They were powerless to withstand it. God “framed evil” against Egypt. Her haughty monarch exclaimed “who is the Lord that I should obey His voice?” (Exo 5:2), but discovered that He was not to be defied with impunity when He “took off their chariot wheels” and drowned him and his hosts in the Red Sea.
When the Almighty sends a devastating earthquake, what can puny man do? When He withholds the rain and famine ravages a land, who can resist Him? When He visits with a pestilence which cuts off millions in the prime of life, as the “flu” did in 1918, who can say Him nay? When He unleashes the dreadful hounds of war, who can turn them back? Is there, then, no hope? Yes, if the masses will truly humble themselves beneath the Hand that has begun to smite them. God's judgments are articulate: they call upon all to throw down the weapons of their high-handed rebellion against Heaven. God takes away their peace and comforts that they may put away their idols. Calamities are sent upon evil-doers that they should depart from their wickedness. God is able to destroy the mightiest kingdom in the twinkling of an eye, but usually He spreads His judgments over a period, as in the ten plagues upon Egypt, granting space for repentance and allowing an interval between the announcement of His having “framed evil,” and the actual and full execution thereof.
Thus it is here in Jeremiah 18:11: after declaring He had devised a device against a nation God adds, “Return ye now everyone from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.” Conversion ought to be the immediate outcome of God's judgments, whether they be threatened or in actual course of fulfillment. If men would forsake their sins God would soon lay aside His rod. But observe the urgency of the Call: “return ye now every one from his evil way.” There is no time for delay: God will not be trifled with. Men are very prone to procrastinate: they put off the day of repentance and defer their reformation. They hope and resolve, yet postpone the same, and the longer they do so the harder their hearts become and the more completely the Devil obtains possession of them. Agrippa was “almost persuaded,” but that was as far as he went: his lusts held him fast. “Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts” (Psa 95:7): if ever there was a time when it was imperative to heed that exhortation it is now.
“And they said, There is no hope” (Jer 18:12). There are three possible interpretations of those words. First, they may be regarded as the language of despair: there is no hope for us in God, we have sinned beyond the reach of mercy. But that would necessarily presuppose they were deeply convicted of their guilt, and the remainder of the verse definitely precludes any such concept. Second, “there is no hope” might be the language of confessed helplessness. There is no hope in us: we are too besotted to reform, too wedded to our sins to break from them; but the remainder of the verse is flatly against this too. Third, “there is no hope” was the language of blatant defiance. There is no hope for you: it is useless to preach to us, our minds are fully made up, we are determined to have our own way, and nothing you say can change us. “We will walk after our own devices and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart” they declared. It was the language of open rebellion, whether expressed in words or in deeds.
That this is the obvious meaning of their “there is no hope” is clear not only from the words which immediately follow but also from other passages in Jeremiah. “But they hearkened not nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward” (7:24); “thou saidst, I will not hear: this hath been thy manner from thy youth that thou obeyedst not My voice” (22:21 and see 44:16,17). They declined to be affected by the heavy clouds of judgment over their heads. They refused to forsake their evil ways. They were determined to persist in their disobedience. They openly defied the Almighty. They were impervious to all expostulations and admonitions. Their hearts were fully set in them to drink their fill of iniquity. “For the people turneth not unto Him that smiteth them neither do they seek the Lord of Hosts” (Isa 9;13). “Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; Thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction; they have made their faces harder than a rock” (Jer 5:3).
“We will walk after our own devices.” We are quite resolved to continue in sin, and no preaching can change us. We are fully determined to do so, no matter what it may cost us. Of old God sent a shortage of food on Israel, but it produced no reformation: “yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord.” He smote them with blasting and mildew so that their gardens and vineyards were destroyed, but it moved them not: “yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord.” He sent pestilence among them and slew their young men, but they continued impenitent: “yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord.” He destroyed some of them by fire, but they persisted in their sins: “yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord” (Amos 4:6-10). And history has repeated itself! It is still doing so before our very eyes. The perversity of ancient Israel finds its counterpart in the contumacy of modern Christendom. God has given Britain “space to repent,” alas, it has to be added “and she repented not” (Rev 2:21), nor is their the slightest indication she will yet do so. AWP
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