Hearts set to do evil.
Such were the hearts of these Jews. They show concerning such—
I. THAT AFFLICTION WALL NOT ALTER THEM. It is not always true that affliction will make the heart better. It serves this blessed end with some—cf. "Before I was afflicted I went," etc.—but not with all. Did not in this case, but though "often reproved," they only "hardened their neck."
II. PRAYERS AND PROFESSION OF RELIGION DO NOT CONTROL THEM. They can go together. Alas! that it should be so; but they will not rule. They are but so many cobwebs, which the heart set to do evil will break through as easily as a man breaks through the gossamer filaments which stretch across the path on which he is walking.
III. PRETEXTS AND PRETENCES ARE ALWAYS READY TO EXCUSE THEM. "Thou speakest falsely," they said to God's prophet. "Baruch … hath set thee on." So, so pitifully, they try to justify themselves.
IV. GOD DOES NOT INTERFERE TO PREVENT THEM. We often wish be would, depriving us of our liberty when it would only do us ill. But his method is to let us go our own ways, and if, as is so wretchedly often the case, they be evil ways, then, when we are filled with the fruit of them, we may come to a better mind, and so more firmly choose the good which we should have chosen at the first. How much happier a man forever that younger son would have been if he had never previously left his father's home for that far country!
V. TERRIBLE JUDGMENTS ARE SURE TO FOLLOW THEM. They did in this case; they always do sooner or later. For the will must bend to God.
VI. GOD'S FAITHFUL SERVANTS WILL NOT BE DISMAYED BY THEM. See how bold as a lion is the prophet of God; how fearlessly he denounces his people's sin. Oh, for fidelity such as that in all the prophets of the Lord!—C.