The spoiled girdle.
I. GOD'S PEOPLE ARE LIKE A GIRDLE TO GOD.
1. They are his peculiar property. The girdle is a private personal possession. It belongs solely to the wearer. When all ordinary property is taken from him he retains the clothes on his body. Even the bankrupt has a right to these.
2. They are near to God. This girdle—really an under-garment—is close to the person of the wearer. God does not simply hold his people as an absentee landlord holds his property. 'He draws them near to himself. He cherishes them with affection, sustains the burden of them, carries them with him in his glorious out-going to works of wonder and mercy and in his blessed in-coming to Divine peace and sabbatic repose.
3. They are a glory to God. (Jeremiah 13:11.) Garments are worn, not only for clothing, but to add grace and beauty. God's people are more than safe with him; they are glorious. It is true that they have no inherent grace which they can add to the splendor of God, but they can adorn that splendor by reflecting it, as the clouds which gird about the rising sun seem to increase its beauty by reflecting its own rich rays.
4. They are required to cleave to God. God graciously takes his people near to himself; yet they must voluntarily bind themselves to him in love, in devotion, in submission, in obedience.
II. GOD'S PEOPLE, IN THEIR SIN, ARE LIKE A GIRDLE DEFILED AND UNWASHED.
1. Jeremiah was forbidden to put the girdle in water (Verse 1). Whilst living in this world the best men daily contract stains of sin; but God has provided a fountain for cleansing, and by daily penitence and faith in his purifying grace the soul may be made and preserved pure (Zechariah 13:1). As all have sinned and do sin, all need this constant cleansing. To neglect it is to become increasingly foul and unfit for the honor that God bestows upon his people.
2. This corruption is manifest
III. THE PUNISHMENT OF GOD'S SINFUL PEOPLE IS LIKE THE SPOILING OF THE GIRDLE.
1. They are cast off. The unwashed girdle can be worn no longer. In their holiness God's people were his glory; in their defilement they are his dishonor God can endure the presence of nothing impure (Hebrews 12:14).
2. They are left to their own increasing defilement. The unwashed garment is buried, and becomes only worse. The most terrible punishment of sin is to be left to sin unchecked. Vice then becomes ingrained—a second nature.
3. They are dishonored. The girdle is visibly marred with the earth in which it is buried. Internal impurity is punished with external shame. Punishment is appropriate to guilt. Pride is chastised by humiliation.
4. Though their sin may be hidden for a time, it will be revealed at last. The girdle is buried only to be exhumed. The longer it was buried the worse must have been its condition when it was again exposed to view. The corruption of the heart cannot be ultimately concealed; it must reveal itself in the life. In the resurrection-life, wherein the body is spiritual and fits truly and expresses clearly the soul that inhabits it, the foul soul will be compelled to inhabit a foul body.
5. They are rendered worthless. The girdle is utterly spoiled—profitable for nothing. Sin not only dishonors, it destroys. The girdle becomes rotten. As dirt rots a garment, so sin rots a soul. It not only makes it foul and hideous, but it destroys its faculties and energies, degrades its essential nature, and introduces the corruption of death (James 1:15).