Jeremiah 5

Jeremiah 5:1

WANTED—A MAN Jeremiah 5:1. THERE has been always, and there will always be, the need of a man. In the most densely populated states, among the most civilized peoples, and even with the advanced religions a man of the true genus is only too seldom found. Under the pretense of searching for one an early cynic philosopher used to walk the streets of Athens, bearing a lighted candle at broad day. It is a matter of deeper interest to nineteenth century Christians, however, that the Lord’s Prophet should have felt and expressed the need of a similar search through the sacred city. It may somewhat relieve the shadows cast by this text, to remember that such a search in Jerusalem would not have been wholly in vain. Things have not reached their worst estate so long as the throne “doeth justly and seeketh the truth.” The king reigning at this very time was that Josiah of whom the Scriptures say: “He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left”.

Baruch was living now, the amanuensis of Jeremiah and the Prophet’s faithful friend. Zephaniah also had his home in Jerusalem, and continued to serve his country and his God until the captivity of Babylon, when he was slain.It would be a miserable city indeed, that could number its thousands and tens of thousands and yet be wanting a single man.

Sodom itself had one who was trying to be respectable, when the destroying angels came to expunge it from the face of the earth. Elijah must have been surprised and delighted to learn that, when he imagined himself the only faithful religionist, there were seven thousand beside, and yet the earth was not in an ideal state even then. In the face of that sweet intelligence the dark fact remained that the great body of Israel were guilty of the grossest idolatry, delighting in shameful, if not nameless sins, and tempting Heaven’s sorest judgment. It was not merely a bad liver nor a blue Monday, that excited Elijah’s complaint and gave rise alike to this speech of Jeremiah’s.When it takes a world to furnish seven thousand who have refrained from idolatry, and a leading city can count the Godly on the fingers of a single hand, then there is occasion for such a text as this, “Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see not, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth”. The fathers never enjoyed a monopoly of religious heroism, and at times it would seem, virtue with them came near being a lost art. I am grateful every day that God withheld my existence from the earth until this first half of the twentieth century.

No previous age ever knew so many who were worthy to be called men as this day knows; men who love justice, men who seek after and delight in the truth. But for all that, the true men among the great company of those who wear the name are so contemptible a minority, were numbers considered, that the crying need of this generation is still for a man.

Let us think of the great life-circles that stand in need of him.POLITE SOCIETY IS WANTING A MANI employ the term “Polite Society” not in its rightful, but rather its more ordinary sense. I intend that class of people who feel the grave responsibility of spring and fall fashions, who are weighted down with the ponderous questions of social entertainment in winter and summer alike; that class, who labor assiduously to cultivate their heels and finger-tips, persistently neglecting the head and the heart.1. Perhaps the first weakness of that life-circle is its mental infirmity.One who studies its inner life a while, and then compares the emptiness found there, with the splendid outward appearance which such society presents must be forcibly reminded of Ӕ ?sop’s fable. You will remember how that early father of illustrative teaching tells a tale of a certain fox that on one occasion found his way into an actor’s dressing room. Reynard was curious to know all about the actor’s possessions and so spent some time by way of prying. Among the various properties he discovered a highly finished mask.

Laying hold upon it with his teeth he dragged it into the light, studied it a moment and then remarked, “A very fine-looking head indeed! What a pity it is that it is entirely lacking in brains and so is of no value.” That is the principle objection to much of what is called “polite society” today.

It is all too largely composed of brainless belles and beaus, and for the sake of his blessed mind it needs a man!2. It would also secure for that circle something more of heart, if into it could be introduced a real man. I employ heart here in the best sense. Magnanimity and soul are its synonymous terms.I know that a certain use of that term suggests sin, all that is lustful and bad. A writer has truly said, “that the human heart is corrupt and deceitful,” is profoundly scriptural and sorrowfully actual. That fact is not to be denied, or mitigated, or put into false perspective.” But there is another view of the heart that should never be neglected.

The heart is virtue’s fountain when kept with all diligence. It is the heart in which genuine sympathy is born; out of which pulses the purest affection.

It is the heart that feels another’s infirmity and seeks to share it; that measures another’s sorrow and asks to divide it. It is in such respects that “polite society” seems sadly lacking, to one who studies its habits of essential selfishness. That a good part of mankind are bending beneath loads of insupportable sorrow is of no concern to it.That an equal number are stricken with the plague of poverty excites no compassion in the breasts of those who are its best representatives. That sickness and death is in the land is not enough to stay their frivolity for a day. Nay, not even the presence of sin in the earth, that deadliest enemy to man and God seems greatly to annoy them, but as often becomes, in this circle, the subject of jest as the occasion of sorrow or the exigency of prayer. We would hardly charge that all who move within this sphere are thus brainless and heartless, but to characterize the circle itself with lack in both is only to speak the truth.Once possess this circle with a mind and fill its breast with a warm and tenderly sympathetic heart, akin to that which was wont to beat beneath the coarser cloth of the Nazarene’s coat, and the consequence will be some more accurate reckoning of its own and other’s stature.

At present it feels only the sense of self and contempt, and knows only the language of egotism and scorn. To listen a while at its parrot-prattle must excite one’s sympathy for the poor pigmies in intellect and soul, who imagine themselves “the salt of the earth, the cream of perfection,” and who contemplate in semi-pity the commoner souls of sobriety and real worth.One would think that phariseeism had gone to seed and was ready to be pulled, when one of its number walked with high head past the place where a man, fallen into the hands of thieves, robbed and beaten, lay a dying.

But no, we must see that bigotry grows ranker still as he takes the other side of the road to express his superiority to, his supreme contempt for, this common sufferer, this ceremonially unclean one. If you would discover the actual animus back of such an action, follow the pharisee to the place of his devotions and hear the braggadocio of his prayer. “God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are”. How very modern that sounds! How many shallow souls there are in the world today who have flattered themselves, or have been flattered, by birds of their own feather, into the notion that this earth would be a dull shop indeed without them. Constant, yes, even occasional association with a true man might correct such distempered views of life, teaching them to appreciate virtue in their superiors, and making them penitently ashamed of having so long bowed before the unworthy idol of self.But the circle of polite society is not the only one wherein this necessity is felt.THERE IS NEED OF A MAN IN THE MARTSIt is doubtful if human history has ever known a time in which the votaries of mammon were more ardent than now. Our own beloved America is the land wherein has been reared the loftiest temples to this well-known god.

Here the golden calf stands in such giant-like proportions as put Aaron’s production to very shame, and Israel’s sin is far out-done by America’s greater idolatry. The Apostle Paul seems to have had an eye upon us and our times when upon writing to Timothy he said: “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition”.

How often now are his words being verified?It is openly declared today that honesty and the largest financial success are divorced. If men would outstrip their fellows in the eager race to the money goal, they must lay aside the robes of uprightness, relieve themselves from truth’s entanglements, consent to part with a tender conscience and even trample beneath flying feet the prostrate forms of those who fall before the boots of success. The only kings that America recognizes are the men who have gained the most of her gold; the female aristocracy of these states is that class who wear her costliest jewels. This accounts largely for the alarming fact that men on every side have deliberately determined to increase terrestrial bank accounts even though they strain their credit at the celestial counter to do it.One need not think of Wall Street, New York, or visit the Chicago Board of Trade, to be convinced that the commercial spirit today is fast setting conscience aside in its ever-growing greed of gain. His own streets will furnish him sufficient illustrations of that truth. The idea that prevailed so long ago as the founding of Rome is even more prevalent today.

You may remember how it is told of the founder of that city that he marked the course of its walls by a plow drawn of oxen. Wherever he thought to put a gate he took the plow from the earth and only inserted it, after leaving sufficient space for that opening.

The walls when lifted at last were reckoned as sacred because they rested over the furrow the plow had made. But the gateways, the avenues of commerce, of trade, were thought to be purely secular and unsanctified. That was a heathen notion, yet who doubts that such is the spirit of trade still?Many professed Christians appear never to have felt the utter incongruity, the godlessness even, of doing devotions on the Sabbath, and engaging in such secularities in the six week-days as disregard honesty and dethrone the truth.How this life-circle needs a man to come with his larger vision of life, with his keener and better logic to save its spirit of commerce from the utter degradation of the present philosophy and daily practice. This practical question is often raised: “Have we not reached a state in which the character of business competition necessitates dishonesty in dealing?” The answers given to this query must depend very largely on the notions we hold of a necessity. If it is a necessity that I make as much money as any of my competitors then my integrity must be thrown overboard. But that such a necessity exists with any, I am not prepared to believe. “A mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth”. Riches are not an absolute requisite to the chief end of living; not always necessary even to life’s best happiness. Not a few people seem to hold the theory that gold will secure all the possible boons of earth, but in practical living it has been ten thousand times illustrated that money has no such beneficent power. Hell will have given birth to an angel by the time the god mammon has become the father of earth’s best joys. He who puts his trust in gold and silver, discarding justice and dethroning the truth, will speedily know the purport of James’ words: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire”.Every man to his notion of course, but in my humble judgment the first necessity is not that we be millionaires, but rather that we be men! The world may not speak of us as kings in finance, nor gape at our shrewdness in open-eyed wonder!

We may go down at last to a plain coffin, be wept over by only a few heart-bereaved ones, sung about as ‘‘Asleep in Jesus” and then left to return “the body to the dust, and the spirit to the God who gave it,” and yet have left the best legacy to our loved ones.Long time ago an old ledger was found in Edinburgh, Scotland, that dated back into the sixteenth century. It had been the property of an old Scotch merchant.

Into its board back were written these words: “God blis this buik and keip me and it honest.”If when we are deceased our loved ones can find such an inscription upon every ledger left behind, ‘twere better than that our dishonest gains should make rich every cousin even to the seventh remove. How often the decease of our money kings puts the poor preacher into difficult straits! What Scripture theme shall be discussed above that richly ornamented coffin? There is the doctrine of repentance, but it is too late to discourse of that. There is the fruitful subject, Faith, but it is irrelative, since the one now dead knew no such thing while living. There is the glorious theme of Resurrection, but of that the deceased went down without hope. What shall he say? What can he say?

Say nothing about the dead, since the life left nothing to be said. Assure the bereaved of Christ’s sympathy for their suffering and let the funeral discourse stop at that. Be careful also what you sing in that dark room, or over that misty grave, lest the words intended for comfort prove only a new occasion of sorrow. Forget “Nearer My God to Thee;” I turn the leaf whereon is written “Asleep in Jesus,” and search out something without sentiment, and hurry to the benediction, let the clods fall while saying “dust to dust,” and then go home sadder for the children’s riches. Is it a necessity, my friends of the commercial profession? Is it not a necessity that ye be men?To my mind the most deplorable fact connected with this bloated notion of wealth is found in those cases where churchmen adopt the maxim of the world.

Within a year past, thrice have I heard it argued by professed Christian men, that the spirit of trade is now such as makes it necessary for better men to employ the method of double dealing. Two things are argued by such a statement, when it escapes the lips of one, for whom we have something of superior respect.

First, the distemper of business as it is now conducted. Second, the degradation of those who, instead of doing what they can to cure the evil, for purposes of gain fall in with its essential spirit. Wouldn’t it be far better for trade, far better for self, to show ourselves men, men in whom the spirit of the Master is, by being satisfied with less of gain, whilst demanding of ourselves and others more of justice and truth? We might remain poor, as some count poverty, but we could be rich in the divinest definition of that term, illustrating the truth that “Godliness with contentment is great gain”.When Prof. Finney was holding meetings in Edinburgh, he was visited by a business man who seemed thoroughly penitent and desired Mr. Finney to pray with him.

When the preacher said: “Lord, here is a man, who is willing to take Thee as his Lord and cast himself upon Thy care forever,” there came in hearty response, “Amen.” When Mr. Finney continued, giving his domestic interests to God’s care and keeping, the man responded again, “Amen.” But when the preacher said: “Lord, take this man’s business and conduct it to Thine own glory” the penitent was strangely silent till Mr.

Finney said: “Why didn’t you say Amen?” “Because,” answered the anxious soul, “I don’t want the Lord as a Partner in business, I prefer to carry that alone.” He is not the only case on record where men have desired to begin the Christian life, and yet wished to remain still in the spirit of trade. Ah, my friends, whenever the tide of commerce is too swift for you to walk hand in hand with plodding Mr. Honesty, or side by side with steady Mr. Truth, then show yourselves men of the genuine, Christlike genus and turn the tide, or else make good your escape from the drowning wave of godless trade. I once read a story taken from the “New Outlook,” Toronto, Canada, that illustrates the fact that mammon does not always triumph against manhood. The “Outlook” reported that in an after-dinner speech in Birmingham, Mr. Baldwin confessed that his fortune in the iron trade had melted because he could not let the family name be dishonored. He explained that most of his wealth consisted of shares of the iron trade associated with the Baldwin family name, running back to one John Baldwin at the forge in the reign of Charles II. These shares, when he took office in 1923, could have been sold for about fifteen dollars; today they are worth forty cents. He holds them now, and ‘there is no cataclysm on earth that can bring them to more than a fraction of their former value.’ Instead of saving most of that loss, this English gentleman nailed his colors to the mast of the ship of British industry. ‘It may have been bad business on our part,’ said Mr.

Baldwin, ‘many modern business men would say it was—I ought to have sold at the top of the market. But when you have an old name in business against which nothing has ever been said, when you know the public has come into business on the strength of that name, it is an impossibility to throw your shares on the market when you know that in all human probability the loss will fall on them, not on you.”If this is a faithful report, it carries with it a high tribute to manhood and also illustrates the fact that such a search as Jeremiah advocated would not necessarily be in vain even among men of the commercial mart.Reverting to our text again, it has a peculiar application to the present political situation.

IS IN SAD NEED OF A MANThis remark, while intended to apply locally, is equally apropos to all political situations. One can look in any direction he pleases whether to the nations or the larger or lesser cities, and he instantly feels the need of a man; the need of a man in Russia to bring order out of chaos, to displace infidelity with faith, and immorality with morals, and indifference to life with an appreciation of the same; the need of a man in China to quiet the unsettled conditions, to create at least a semblance of confidence, to secure life against murderous marauders; the need of a man in Japan to direct that waking nation into right paths and to produce a civilization versus semi-paganism; the need of a man in India to solve her multiplied problems, to cement her diverse people, to shoot her darkness through with light; the need of a man in England to work out her cross-word puzzles and bring unanimity to her varied interests; the need of a man in America to lead this land to a still higher democracy, a man who should be capable of suppressing the violent and encouraging the righteous and bringing to swift and educative justice the criminal classes.But speaking locally we need a man as the Mayor of Minneapolis. There are well nigh a dozen aspirants for that office, no one of whom brings to his contention for the same, a record so clean, courageous, and wholesome as to insure the people who may finally unite to elect him, as to secure his opponents against malfeasance in office, and as to guarantee the plain citizen against vice and violence.The United States is an experiment in democracy. The nations of the world are watching it with interest and the present indication is that the world is destined to suffer another disappointment. Unless God shall raise up a new Joshua the future of my beautiful metropolis is not bright, and unless He shall raise up another Moses the future of America is not safe. The united prayers of believing people ought to be “God send us a man.”THE WHEELS OF CHRIST’S KINGDOM ARE WAITING THE TOUCH OF A MANI sometimes question if our preaching and theology have not too far forgotten the active side of religion.

It is as correct as scriptural to say that “We are justified by faith,” but it is equally the truth of God that Faith apart from works is barren. It is all right enough to give God all glory, and to say that He will yet redeem the world by His own might, through the Blood of His dear Son.

But it is a sin to conceal our own indolence and indisposition, beneath such words, and purpose to forget the great commission which makes every saved soul an agent of redemption unto others. It is not ours to question why God decided upon this method or that in His work of subjugating the earth to the sovereignty of His Son. It is enough that we should know the important place in that work which infinite wisdom assigned to man. In very truth it should be our pride, our joy, that the wheels of that Kingdom may be hastened by the touch of the human hand.To my mind the mighty impetus which the spread of the Gospel received in the last quarter of the 19th century was the immediate result of some greater emphasis of the thought that God’s purposes in redemption are conditioned upon the assistance of a man. The denomination that a half century before had opposed this thought, laughed at human effort as both fruitless and foolish, was dead, and almost all of its representatives rested beneath a sod which their doctrine did little indeed to sanctify.The church of today that disregards Christ’s great commission, will either speedily amend its ways, or else another decade will see it tottering in weakness and needing the very Gospel which it refused to give the heathen at home and abroad.Ezekiel’s vision in which he sees the hand of a man beneath the angel’s wing was the true prophecy of God’s ordination. We are told in that vision that those flying creatures “turned not when they went; they went everyone straight forward. * * And they had the hands of a man under their wings, on their four sides”.A vision in which wheels and wings and the throne of God intermingle, the symbols of terrestrial and spiritual powers combined to the one end of giving to the earth the glad tidings of peace to men of good will.I don’t know that I have ever heard more of eloquence and truth from the same lips than escaped Dr.

P. S.

Henson’s, when many years ago at Mechanics Hall, in Boston, he spoke of his hope for the future of Christ’s Kingdom. Dr. McArthur had preceded him in a speech upon the same inexhaustible theme, and had referred to modern inventions and their influence, present and eventual upon the spread of the truth. Dr. Henson said:“You are right, my Brother McArthur! But the men who gave us these inventions knew not what they were doing.

Morse knew not what he was doing. Morse was doing what he did in the interest of science, but God had a higher purpose.Gutenberg did not know what he was doing, but God knew.Stephenson and Fulton and Cyrus Field did not know what they were about, but God knew.”Then he referred to Ezekiel’s vision and said: I saw an angel flying in mid-heaven, having the glorious Gospel, the everlasting Gospel, to preach.

But I looked again and lo! the hand of a man; the hand of a man was under the wings, under the wings of the angel that had the everlasting Gospel. It is no use, brethren, to sing “Fly abroad thou Mighty Gospel;” your hand must be under the angel’s wing if you want the angel to “fly.”Then to illustrate the power, in the hand of man, he recited that tale that Guthrie culled from history, if I remember aright. The tale of Switzerland’s invasion by a dangerous enemy. Through the mountain pass that enemy came, unopposed; marching to the sound of music, with colors flying. At this approach there was not a Switzer to be seen, for they were hid in the mountain tops. There they waited, in breathless silence, each one holding in hand a mighty stone, waiting the word of command before it was sent whizzing and rebounding down the precipitous mountain side.

The enemy, little suspecting the danger, dreaming not of the method of warfare the Switzers had chosen, came on in jubilant spirit. At last the voice of the commander was heard, as if God Himself had spoken out of Heaven.“In the Name of the Father; of the Son; of the Holy Ghost, let go.”Instantly there was a mighty rumbling down the mountain side, and that avalanche of stones buried that invader out of sight forever.Brethren, I repeat, the need of Christ’s Kingdom today is a man, a man of prayer and yet of patience; a man of faith, yet of works; a man who has a hand for the uplifting of the angel’s wing, and a hand for the breaking of Satan’s head; a man whose hand will bring silver or service, or both, as opportunity is given; a man who is waiting only till Jesus gives the word of command to offer his best effort to bury the forces of hell out of sight forever.

Who will longer withhold his hand when the wheels of Christ’s Kingdom are halting for the touch of a man’s hand?