xvii. 10, 11. _Because thou hast forgotten, &c._
+I. It is possible to forget the God of our salvation.+ 1. The
majority of men habitually forget Him. He very seldom holds a real
and commanding place in the hearts of any of us. We are all prone to
have our hearts wholly filled with the cares or pleasures of life.
Even if our aims be in themselves lawful, we seldom recognise God in
framing or prosecuting them. Hence the shock which the thought of
God's nearness gives us in times of calamity, sickness, or expected
death. The very shock shows that we are open to the prophet's charge.
2. This forgetfulness of God, to which we are all so prone, should be
recognised to be a state of peril and guilt. Who is so near to us as
God? who so essential to us? who has so many claims upon our grateful
and continued remembrance? To be forgetful of Him is a sin of which
we should think with shame.
+II. This forgetfulness of God leads to false trusts.+ The throne of
our heart cannot remain vacant; if God be not there, unworthy objects
will surely take His place. The "pleasant plants" and foreign shoots
(or "strange slips") here represent the pursuit of lust and idolatry,
and that fatal reliance on human help which is so often denounced
(chap. ii. 22; Jer. xvii. 5). The sin denounced by the prophet has
not become obsolete. All round about us are men who have forgotten
God, and are seeking and putting their trust in pleasure, pomp,
money, or knowledge. There is a pursuit of knowledge, even a
"science" falsely so called that deliberately excludes God from its
range, and pronounces Him unknowable! These are the things for which
men live, to which they devote all they are and have, from which they
look for the happiness for which their hearts crave; these are their
_gods!_ Forgetfulness of God necessarily leads to idolatry in some
form or other; desires and tendencies, in themselves right when under
right control, become occasions of guilt; God is shifted from the
centre of operations, and the trust of men itself inevitably on
unworthy objects (H. E. I., 39).
+III. These false trusts lead to bitter disappointments.+ _"The
harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate
sorrow."_ At the very time when abundance of fruit was expected,
nothing awaits the anxious toiler but disappointment and failure.
Mildew, or blight, or drought, or fire has done its deadly work, and
nothing is left but rotting masses, heaps of useless and decaying
vegetation. What a sad picture! barrenness and dearth where there
should be life and plenty! Yet this is a true picture of the fate of
many who have persisted in their rejection of God, and in their
clinging to false hopes. A life dedicated to fashion, pleasure,
money-getting, or worldly ambition, necessarily ends in a
reaping-time of blighted hopes, of darkened prospects, of remorse and
despair (H. E. I., 246-248, 5021-5025; P. D., 138, 162, 255, 3592).
1. This result of a godless life will be found even in those cases
where all the good that was striven after has been realised; the
heart is still left unsatisfied (Eccl. i. 12-ii. 17). 2. "Desperate
sorrow" is the natural result of discovering that the time for
securing a profitable harvest is gone (Jer. viii. 20; P. D., 2254).
Earnestly consider God's claims upon you; renounce all false trusts;
sow for that harvest in which there can be no real disappointment
(Gal. vi. 7). Redeem the time that yet remains; to the worst of us a
gracious promise is still held out (Mal. iii. 7; Ps.
cxvi. 7).--_William Manning._