Idolatry confounded.
I. TROUBLE IS A TOUCHSTONE FOR RELIGIOUS TRUTH. The idolatry that is played with in prosperity is found to be useless in adversity. The Jews had regarded mere stocks and stones as their gods. But in the season of real distress they turn from these and cry to the true God to arise and save them.
1. The ground of confidence which gives way in the hour of need is worse than useless; it is treacherous and ruinous, and the discovery of its true character confounds those who have relied on it. A religion which will not stand the test of trouble is a mockery.
2. Trouble reveals the vanity of an insincere faith. In trouble we need the true, the real; all false religiousness, all playing at devotion, breaks down then. If our religion has been vain and ill founded, we are then discovered and made to be ashamed, "like a thief when he is found" (Jeremiah 2:26).
3. There is a deep instinct which cries out for the true God in the hour of distress. Old memories then revive, scouted faiths reassert themselves, the first cry of the child to his Parent breaks out again involuntarily, and the godless man in his agony groans, "O my God!"
II. IF WE HAVE FORSAKEN GOD IN PROSPERITY WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO EXPECT HIM TO SAVE US IN ADVERSITY. The religion which we accept in our general life is that to which we should justly look in our hours of need. Here is the natural irony of religion. A man is punished by being left to the protection of the creed of his own choice. It must always be remembered, indeed, that whenever we truly repent and seek God spiritually he will receive and save us (Hosea 6:1). But the mere cry for God's help in distress is not repentance, nor is it a spiritual return to God. It is a selfish utterance, and may be made while the heart is still far from God, and the sins which drove us from him still unrepented of. It would be neither just nor good for us that God should respond to so degraded and unspiritual a prayer.
III. ALL GROUNDS OF RELIGIOUS CONFIDENCE EXCEPT FAITH IN THE TRUE GOD PROVE FALSE AT THE TEST OF TROUBLE. This is the result of applying the touchstone of trouble; this is the lesson of bitter experience when men are left to cry to their false gods in the hour of need.
1. If there were any worth in these grounds of confidence it would be seen then.
2. Experience famishes the answer to these questions, and shows the certain failure of all the creeds of human invention. They must fail:
The olive struck by lightning.
Under the image of an olive tree consumed by lightning fires the prophet portrays the devastation which will come upon Israel in spite of former prosperity. This is a type of the similar doom which may overtake the happy and prosperous.
I. THE HAPPY PROSPERITY.
1. The olive tree was green—perennially green. Prosperity may be constant and unbroken before the descent of judgment.
2. It was fair. Prosperity may come with much honor and gladness.
3. It was fruitful. The life may abound in good to others.
4. It was planted by God. (Jeremiah 11:17.) All good comes from him, and it is a great good to be established in our way of life by God's will and help. Yet none of these good things sufficed to avert a terrible doom. Present prosperity is no security against future adversity. The goodness of the past will be no safeguard against the punishment of sins of later years. The long-tried, honored, useful man who falls into sin at the end of his life must not delude himself into supposing that his earlier career will shield him from all troublesome consequences.
II. THE FEARFUL DEVASTATION. The green and fair and fruitful tree was struck in the thunderstorm, and its branches consumed with fire.
1. The devastation was from above—by fire from heaven. God who planted also destroyed. Punishment is sent by God.
2. It was sudden. The lightning flash is instantaneous. The terrible ruin of sin may fall in a moment.
3. It was irresistible. The tree is passive and helpless in the storm. Its very magnitude only invites the blow which will destroy it.
4. It was destructive. Fire consumed the branches. The fires of judgment are consuming fires—they burn to destroy (Matthew 3:12).