Living for the Best

by James G. K. McClure

In Jeremiah's case there was a native reluctance to do the deeds which he saw were involved in obedience to God's call. He was by temperament modest and retiring. He shrank from publicity. He did not like to reprove any one. Severe words were the last words he wished to speak. It would have been a relief to him if God had simply let him alone and imposed on others this duty of trying to make the people better. Some men seem to be adapted for a fray, as Elijah was, and as John the Baptist was. But Jeremiah was more like John the beloved. He would have been glad to live and die, simply saying, "Little children, love one another."

It is God's way, however, again and again, to take lives that to themselves seem utterly unfitted for special duties and assign them to those duties. Almost all the best workers in God's cause came into it reluctantly, and against the feeling that they were fitted for it. We are bidden ask the Lord of the harvest to thrust men into the fields of need. Jeremiah felt in his heart this "thrusting." He did not kick against it. He yielded to it.

But with what results? The first result was estrangement. His goodly life and conversation soon made the people of his village and even the brothers and sisters of his home feel that he was different from themselves. They chafed under the contrast of their carelessness and his earnestness. He found himself left out of their pleasures and chilled by their indifference. The estrangement developed until his fellow-townsmen were eager to rid themselves of his presence, and his own family were ready to deal treacherously with him.

It is just at this point that so often a good purpose breaks down. When a man's foes are they of his own household or comradeship, he is very apt to give up his good purpose. It is more difficult for a beginner in the religious life to resist the insinuating and depreciating remarks of near acquaintances than to face a mob. It must have cut Christ to the heart's core when his brethren said of him, "He hath a devil!" "I would rather go into battle," said a soldier newly enlisted as a Christian, "than go back to the mess-room and hear what the men will say when they know of my decision."

Jeremiah started his obedience to God amid estrangement. It was not long before estrangement had given place to threatening. His duties as he grew older called him to Jerusalem. The youth become a man must leave the village, go to the city, and in the larger sphere of need, speak the messages of God. In Jerusalem he assured the people that if they did injustice, oppressed the poor, built themselves rich houses out of wages withheld from servants, made sacrifices to base idols, and strengthened the hands of evil-doers, God would bring a terrible overthrow upon them. His task was made the more difficult because in his words and attitude he stood alone. He had no following among priests or prophets to back him. With one consent they affirmed that he was wrong and that a lie was on his lips when he predicted desolation if present practices were continued.

It is a great hour in any man's life when he is obliged to stand up alone and state his case or defend his cause. What an hour that was in Paul's history when before the Roman officials "no man stood with him," but, dependent as he was on sympathy and fellowship, he stood alone! It is when a man is absolutely left alone, in danger or disgrace, that the deepest test of his character is reached. That is the reason why the night-time, which seems to say to us "You are alone with God," has its impressiveness, and why the death hour has a similar impressiveness.

Jeremiah felt his loneliness. There was nothing of the stoic in him. He could not school himself to be brazen-hearted. He was so human, so like the great majority of people, that every now and then some cry of weariness would escape his lips. "Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me, a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth. I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me." Sometimes his outbursts of mental agony make us feel that the man has almost lost his bravery. "Cursed be the day wherein I was born! Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?" But glad as he would have been to escape the responsibility of rebuking people, and glad as he would have been to hold the affection and regard of his companions, he never for a moment kept back the truth, nor for a moment did he distrust God's blessing on his life. "All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him." "But the Lord is with me," he declared, and so declaring he was immovable before his adversaries.

There came a third experience into his life, which carried his difficulties one degree higher. It was the experience of disdain. He knew full well that the wicked course of the nation was inevitably leading to destruction. Unless the evil of the people should cease the powers of Babylon would come and would destroy Judah. He was debarred an interview with the king. He therefore wrote his message on a roll, put it in the hands of a messenger, Baruch, and in due time that roll was carried into the king's presence by Baruch and read to the king. The king was sitting in his winter house. The weather was cold. A fire was burning before him in a brazier. As the king heard the words of Jeremiah that called him and the people to penitence, his anger was aroused. He seized the roll ere three or four of the columns had been read, cut it up with his penknife, and cast the whole roll into the fire to be utterly consumed therein. He did this in the presence of his court. He did it with a disdain and contempt that made every man present feel that Jeremiah and Jeremiah's words were to be despised.

It never is a pleasure to be despised. Contempt usually embitters a man or suppresses him. The derisive laugh against a man is more powerful in breaking him than the compactest argument. Many men can remain steadfast to convictions in estrangement or in opposition who give way when they hear that their words and actions are the subject of twitting and ridicule. "Who is this Jeremiah, and what are his words, that we should think of them a second time? I will cut these words into fragments even with my pocket-knife, and then I will burn them in this little brazier, and that shall be the last of them!" So said and did King Jehoiakim. And his princes heard and saw.

But whatever the effect produced on others, the effect produced on Jeremiah must have been to the king a great disappointment. Jeremiah heard God's voice saying in his heart, "You must write those same words of truth again." And again he wrote them on a roll. And just here comes out one of the sweetest and most characteristic features of Jeremiah's character. The ordinary man, if he has made up his mind to retort or to ridicule, says to himself, "Now I will pour out my wrath on my adversary." But such was Jeremiah's self-control and peacefulness of temper that perhaps he would have erred on the side of leniency unless God had charged him, not to soften or to suppress one part of the message, but to write all the words that were in the former roll and add thereto other special predictions. To this charge, whatever his obedience might lead to, Jeremiah immediately and completely responded.