Jeremiah (1-31) 10:23 Commentary and Bible Study

Jeremiah has stopped speaking to the people now, as if they are beyond responding to his message. He also shows his God can be spoken to. What he says is almost a quote from Proverbs 20:24. He reflects before his God on why it is that so few have listened. This is what the Lord has taught him about human nature, and he must hold this explanation before his mind, otherwise he can make no sense of their behaviour. ‘I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.’ The Bible alone allows us to make sense of human unbelief. Man is in bondage to sin; his nature is twisted. He cannot turn to God because of the bondage of his will. He has lost his freedom because of the fall, and he cannot now choose to turn back to God. Of course he has freedom of will to a limited extent – that is the nature of the will – but now his freedom only operates within the domain of sin. It is not within him to direct his steps, that is, to direct them to walk in God’s ways. Nor can he respond to the preaching of the gospel. The gospel call goes out, but all men, when they hear it, universally reject it. They want nothing to do with God in spite of the gracious terms in which he speaks to them. They ignore his warnings, and make light of his judgments.But neither is it within man’s power to direct his path through life, and yet men refuse to recognise this. We cannot succeed, we cannot get things worked out. If I have a great ambition is it in my power to fulfil it? I may not get there. I may be sick. We are victims of circumstances. The Idolater thinks it is. If only those false gods would leave him alone and not send plagues, or withhold the rains. Then he would cope pretty well with life. He would get wealthy, if they only looked after the harvest. My own weaknesses may stop me reaching my goal – pride, selfishness, foolishness. Anyway the Lord may spoil that course, for he does not want us self-confident. He may directly dash our schemes to the ground. Sometimes the Lord blesses a pure aim, but not a selfish plan.Jeremiah is himself subject to the discipline of the Lord. He is being sanctified, and he too needs to be corrected. The Lord is greatly to be feared, and Jeremiah has seen what stubborn persistence in disobedience brings upon a people. He knows he must be corrected, but he asks for mercy and gentleness from the Lord, because he knows that if God’s anger is unleashed, he would be destroyed in a moment. God’s discipline of his people is designed to correct them, to restore them, to turn them back into right paths. But there are those who must receive the full force of God’s wrath, and Jeremiah sees that it is right that they do. ‘Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not.’ Let the enemies of God’s people face their own time of reckoning. God used Babylon as a scourge of his people, but when that work is completed, Babylon in turn will have to face the wrath of God. They are the more obvious recipients of his punishment. ‘For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?’ (1 Peter 4:17). This could be said of the typical people also. Even while God is using them to carry out his sentence on Judah, he observes carefully what they do, and he notes the ardour with which they do it. He gives them the freedom to act, but every move they make adds to the wrath that is stored up for them.