False teachers no adequate excuse for evil conduct.
No doubt the people to whom Jeremiah was sent had been encouraged in their ungodliness by the faithlessness and sin of their prophets. Blind guides were leading the blind, and with the inevitable result. And here Jeremiah pleads, as an excuse for his people's sin, that they had been thus misled. But God refuses to admit the plea. Now, on this, note—
I. FALSE TEACHING IS SOME EXCUSE FOR EVIL CONDUCT. The deepest instincts of our hearts affirm this. Our Lord himself does so, when he says, "He that knew not his Lord's will and did it not, shall be beaten with few stripes." But this word of his, whilst it allows that lack of teaching is some excuse, denies that it is sufficient (cf. John 19:11). St. Paul also says, concerning the heathen nations, "The time of this ignorance God winked at."
II. BUT IT IS NOT AN ADEQUATE EXCUSE. For:
1. The taught are the creators almost as much as the creatures of their teachers. The people who clamor for smooth things to be prophesied to them will find such prophets forthcoming. Ahab's prophets all of them but Micaiah—were such. It is true, "like priest, like people;" but it is also true, "like people, like priest." The demand creates the supply. The pastors of the Church are the product of the Church, almost as much as the Church is the product of the pastors. What a worldly Church wants it will have, for the woe both of itself and its pastors alike.
2. They have a sure test by which to try all their teachers. "To the Law and to the testimony," etc. Conscience also is ever on the side of God, and is prompt to condemn all teaching that leads to sin. The Holy Spirit likewise pleads in men's hearts for God. And the faithful words of those in whom God's Spirit dwells. None, therefore, are shut up to any human teachers.
3. And where evil teachers have been followed, it has been in spite of the protest which these other higher and surer guides have uttered, or would have uttered had they been suffered so to do.
III. BUT IF IT BE ILL FOR THE TAUGHT, IT IS YET MORE ILL FOR THE TEACHERS. "His blood will I require at the watchman's hands." The most awful of our Lord's denunciations were addressed to such evil teachers (cf. the oft-repeated, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" cf. Verse 14, etc.).
CONCLUSION.
1. Let those who are taught by any human teachers test what they receive by the Word of God. Be as the Bereans (Acts 17:1).
2. Let those who teach watch anxiously and prayerfully against the temptation to conform their teachings to the likings of their hearers rather than to their needs. Let them remember that the causes of error and false teaching are much more moral than they are intellectual.
3. Let teachers and taught alike sit daily at his feet who said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."—C.