Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way
The weariness of sin
The text is a striking representation of the sinner’s conduct in fruitless efforts to obtain happiness anywhere but from heaven.
He wanders from object to object, he becomes weary in his pursuit, yet he will not abandon it.
I. HE PURSUES A WEARISOME COURSE. Nothing is so wearisome as fruitless efforts for happiness.
1. The sensual course for happiness is a wearisome one. The voluptuary and the debauchee very soon show exhaustion.
2. The secular course for happiness is a wearisome one. He who seeks happiness in the pursuit of gain will soon find it wearisome.
3. The intellectual course for happiness is a wearisome one. He who looks for true happiness in study and research will soon find it a weariness.
4. The superstitious course is a wearisome one. Millions are sinking into religious superstition--pilgrimages, penances, prayers, and devotional routine. What millions are found wearied in this path!
II. THOUGH THE COURSE IS WEARISOME HE PERSEVERES. “Yet saidst thou not, There is no hope.” Although Israel was wearied in seeking foreign help, still it continued; so with the sinner. To persevere in these wearisome methods for happiness is very foolish.
1. Because they will never become easier than they are. On the contrary, he who pursues these methods of happiness will become more and more weary on his way.
2. Because there is a pleasant way to true happiness. What is that? The loving surrender of your nature to God. The religious way to happiness is pleasant, because--
(1) It is worthy of your nature.
(2) Agreeable to your conscience.
(3) Promising to your hope.
“Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace.” How suited is the invitation of Christ to the wearied millions of earth who are seeking for happiness in wrong directions: “Come unto Me, all ye,” etc. (Homilist.)
Man’s weary way
I. THE WAY WHICH IS HERE SUGGESTED TO US. “Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way.” The way which the Israelites took was their own way as distinguished from God’s way. The way in which a man is walking, and by which he is seeking for salvation, until he has found peace through Christ, is more or less directly his own way.
II. THIS WAY, WHICH IS MAN’S OWN WAY, IS SPOKEN OF AS A GREAT WAY. “Thou art weaned in the greatness of thy way. Looking at salvation as It Is in Itself, at the deliverance which is desired, a great deliverance is necessary; looking to the efforts which man will make to effect and attain this deliverance, great efforts are evidently necessary, and great efforts are frequently made. Micah speaks of a man giving thousands of rams and ten thousands of rivers of oil, yea, giving the life of his firstborn for the sin of his soul, if perchance he may save that soul. And it is perfectly marvellous to see the efforts which men have made, and arc making, in false religions, to secure that which they desire, namely, their soul’s salvation.
III. THIS WAY OF MAN’S OWN SEEKING IS A WEARY WAY. What disappointments the Israelites met with! So with a man seeking, salvation in his own way as distinct from God’s way. Just in proportion as a man is in earnest, just in proportion to the depth of his convictions of sin and righteousness, just in proportion to the sense which he has of the holiness of God, and the realities of eternity, will be the man’s dissatisfaction with his own efforts and his own acts of self-denial.
IV. Although this is a weary way, and an unsatisfying way, yet IT HAS IN IT SOME PROMISES OF SUCCOUR AND SOME POWER OF SATISFACTION, WHICH PREVENTS THE MAN FROM WHOLLY DESPAIRING. The man “finds life to his hand.” There is enough in what he is doing, there is enough in what he is finding, to prevent him from wholly despairing. These persons are not prepared to “say there is no hope; they are not prepared to despair of salvation in the manner in which they are seeking it; they are not wholly cast down. “Therefore thou wast not grieved, not wholly disheartened. They go on persevering and pressing forward, hoping that a brighter day will come. Contrast with this way of man God’s way. The way of salvation sought and followed by the Jews resembles very much the way of salvation which the natural heart of man follows when he pursues and seeks that salvation; but now, what is, the way which God would have us to walk in, as contrasted with this way of man’s own devising? That which marks God’s way, and distinguishes it especially from man’s way, is this--that man’s way is a way of fear and dread, while God’s way is a way of love. “ But how,”you will say, “are we to pass from this state, which is man’s natural state of seeking for salvation, to that state which is described as God’s method of seeking and conferring salvation?” The prophet tells us (verses 18, 19). (E. Bayley, M. A.)
“The life of thine hand”
“The life of thine hand” may mean, “a revival of thy vigour.” (A. B.Davidson, D. D.)
Yet saidst thou not, There is no hope
Hope, yet no hope: no hope, yet hope
(with Jeremiah 18:12, “And they said, There is no hope, ‘ etc.):--The subtlety of the human heart exerts itself to the utmost to prevent that heart from trusting in the Saviour, and while evil is always cunning, it shows itself to be supremely so in its efforts to guard the Cross against the approaches of sinners. By the Cross, as the Saviour said, the thoughts of many hearts are revealed. There are two phases in spiritual life which well illustrate the deceitfulness of the heart. The first is that described in my first text, in which the man, though wearied in his many attempts, is not and cannot be convinced of the hopelessness of self-salvation. When you shall have hunted the man out of this, you will then meet with a new difficulty, which is described in the second text. Finding there is no hope in himself, the man draws the unwarrantable conclusion that there is no hope for him in God. It is self-righteousness in both cases. In the one case it is the soul content with self-righteousness, in the second place it is man sullenly preferring to perish rather than receive the righteousness of Christ.
I. We have to speak of A HOPE WHICH IS NO HOPE. “Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way; yet saidst thou not, There is no hope,” etc. This well pictures the pursuit of men after satisfaction in earthly things. They are content because they have found the life of their hand. Living from hand to mouth is enough for them; that they are still alive, that they possess present comforts and present enjoyments, this contents the many. As for the future, they say, “ Let it take care of itself.” They have no foresight for their eternal state; the present hour absorbs them.
1. The text applies very eminently to, those who are seeking salvation by ceremonies.”
2. A great mass of people, even though they reject priestcraft, make themselves priests, and rely upon their good works. The way of salvation by works, if it were possible, would be a very wearisome way. How many good works would carry a man to heaven, would be a question which it were very hard to answer.
3. Many are looking for salvation to another form of self-deception, namely the way of repentance and reformation.
II. We shall now turn to the second text. “And they said, There is no hope,” etc. Here we have No HOPE--AND YET HOPE. When the sinner has at last been driven by stress of weather from the roadstead of his own confidence, then he flies to the dreary harbour of despair. Despair is the mother of all sorts of evil. When a man sates,. “There is no hope of heaven for me;” then he throws the reins upon the neck of his lusts, and goes on from bad to worse. There is hope for you in Him whom God has provided to be the Saviour of such as you are. (C. H. Spurgeon.)