The accusers of the ungodly.
The prophet appeals to—
I. THE ANTICIPATED CONVERSION OF THE HEATHEN. Jeremiah 17:19, "The Gentiles shall come," etc. These heathen peoples will declare the vanity of those idols in which Judah is now trusting (cf. Matthew 11:20-24).
II. CONSCIENCE. Their sin was "written as with," etc; "on the table of their heart," (Jeremiah 17:1). Nothing could erase the memories they all had of their own grievous sin. It was written as if in rock, and as with a pen of iron and a point of diamond (allusion, probably, to the inscriptions on rocks, so frequent in the East,). What a witness is conscience! It cannot be silenced nor sophisticated. It keeps a man's sins "ever before" him. "My sin is ever before me," said David. The writing of our sin on the heart's tablets is so deep, so incisive, so clear, that nothing can destroy it. No storms will wash them out; no lapse of time obliterate and decay; no rush of business and occupation will fill up and conceal those deep engravings; no rough contact with the events of life will break them. There they stand, clearly legible, written on the tablets of our hearts—our conscience—as letters written by an iron or diamond pen on rock. To this evidence the prophet appeals (cf. our Savior's appeal to conscience in the case of the accusers of the woman taken in adultery, John 8:1-59.).
III. THEIR WORSHIP. Not alone their conscience, but the horns of their altars, testified against them. These horns, smeared with the blood of their idolatrous sacrifices, blackened with the smoke of their altar fires, reeking continually with the fumes and smoke of their offered victims,—these also were witnesses whose testimony could not be set aside. And what a witness against a man will the worship he offers—the horns of his altar—often be: its coldness, its carelessness, its infrequency, its insincerity, its formality, and sometimes its hypocrisy! Yes; the horns of the altar will prove swift witnesses against all who worship God otherwise than "in spirit and in truth."
IV. THEIR CHILDREN. (Jeremiah 17:2.) "They would never lose the impression of that horrible idolatry which had snatched so many from their midst. So deep was this impression that the mere sight of green trees and high hills was sufficient to refresh the hideous memory continually." Or it may mean that their children, retaining and practicing the idolatry of their fathers, are witnesses against those fathers such as none can set aside. Children may become the means of their fathers' condemnation. They cannot held testifying against them. In their memories, their habits, their very bodies, their sins, they will declare what their fathers were. Thank God, they can and do testify for the godly and righteous parents, as Timothy did of hits mother and hers. But how awful to think of having one's own children brought forward as witnesses against us! Let ungodly parents ponder this.
CONCLUSION. With such weight of evidence against Judah, what wonder that her punishment was so severe! The sin of Judah, however, too much resembles, in its aggravation and in the evidence brought against it, sin of which we may be all too conscious. What can we do but turn to him who has said, "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit," etc.; and whose blood "cleanseth from all sin?" Blessed be God that we may do this; but "how shall we escape if we neglect," etc.?—C.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG