Corrupt State

We are to learn from past mistakes that we do not repeat it – have we advanced? This chapter in Jeremiah 13 contains an entire prophecy the discourse of Jehoiakim, who came to the throne in the eighteenth year of his age. In these circumstances the prophet predicts the captivity; and, by a symbolical representation of a rotten girdle, shows the people their totally corrupt state; and by another of bottles filled with wine, shows the destruction and madness of their counsels, and the confusion that must ensue. 10] This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing. G-d said to be filled with wine, not using old worn out wine skins - Have we not every prospect that it will be so? Do we need a revelation to inform us of this? Has America left the ‘joy of the L-rd by embracing the ways of the world? As wine intoxicates, so G-d's wrath and judgments shall reduce the Hebrews to that state of helpless distraction that they shall rush on to their own ruin(Jeremiah 25:15, 49:12, Isaiah 51:17 Isaiah 51:21 - 2, 63:6). Could it be happening with us also? You pretend to take this literally, but it is a symbol. You, and your kings, and priests, and prophets, are represented by these bottles. The wine is G-d's wrath against you, which shall first be shown by confounding your deliberations, filling you with foolish plans of defense, causing you from your divided counsels to fall out among yourselves, so that like so many drunken men you shall reel about and jostle each other; defend yourselves without plan, and fight without order, till ye all fall an easy prey into the hands of your enemies. The ancient adage is here fulfilled - Those whom G-d determines to destroy, he first renders foolish, pride was the cause of their contumacy, as humility is the first step to obedience. Humble yourselves, sit down: for your principalities shall come down, even the crown of your glory. Glorify G-d, by a humble confession of your sins, by submitting yourselves to G-d, humbling yourselves under His word, and under His mighty hand, before G-d brings upon you, His great and heavy judgments. If you will not hearken to the L-rd, there is no remedy: destruction must come. You will have nothing to say, but be wholly confounded when G-d shall visit thee with this sore judgment. Can a black, at his own pleasure, change the color of his skin? Can the leopard at will change the variety of his spots? These things are natural to them, and they cannot be altered; so sin, and especially your attachment to idolatry, is become a second nature; and we may as well expect the Ethiopian to change his skin, and the leopard his spots, as you to do good, who have been accustomed to do evil. It is a matter of the utmost difficulty to get a sinner, deeply rooted in vicious habits, brought to the knowledge of himself and G-d. But the expression does not imply that the thing is as impossible in a moral as it is in a natural sense: it only shows that it is extremely difficult, and not to be often expected; and a thousand matters of fact prove the truth of this. But still, what is impossible to man is possible to G-d.