In chapter 18 this
principle is fully demonstrated before the people (v.
1-10). But the people in despair as to God, in the midst
of their boldness in evil and in contempt of His
marvellous patience, give themselves up to the iniquity
by which Satan deprives them of their hope in God. God
announces His judgment by the prophet, whose testimony
provokes the expression of the confidence felt by a
hardened conscience in the certainty and immutability of
its privileges, and of the blessings attached to the
ordinances with which God had endowed His people, and to
which He had outwardly attached these blessings, which
maintained their relationship with Him. What a dreadful
picture of blindness! Ecclesiastical influence is always
greatest at the moment when the conscience is hardened
against the testimony of God; because unbelief, which
trembles after all, shelters itself behind the presumed
stability of that which God had set up, and makes a wall
of its apostate forms against the God whom they hide,
attributing to these ordinances the stability of God
Himself. Conscience says too much to allow the unbeliever
any hope of standing well with God, even when God opens
His heart to him. "There is no hope," he says;
"I will continue to do evil; moreover the law shall
not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise;
nor," he adds (the false prophets having the ear of
the people), "the word from the prophet." The
warning which this chapter contains appears to me very
solemn. I can scarcely imagine a more terrible picture of
the professing people's condition. The prophet asks for
judgment upon them. This is in the spirit of the remnant
trodden down by the wickedness of the Lord's enemies.
Jeremiah 18 Bible Commentary
John Darby’s Synopsis
In chapter 18 this principle is fully demonstrated before the people (v. 1-10). But the people in despair as to God, in the midst of their boldness in evil and in contempt of His marvellous patience, give themselves up to the iniquity by which Satan deprives them of their hope in God. God announces His judgment by the prophet, whose testimony provokes the expression of the confidence felt by a hardened conscience in the certainty and immutability of its privileges, and of the blessings attached to the ordinances with which God had endowed His people, and to which He had outwardly attached these blessings, which maintained their relationship with Him. What a dreadful picture of blindness! Ecclesiastical influence is always greatest at the moment when the conscience is hardened against the testimony of God; because unbelief, which trembles after all, shelters itself behind the presumed stability of that which God had set up, and makes a wall of its apostate forms against the God whom they hide, attributing to these ordinances the stability of God Himself. Conscience says too much to allow the unbeliever any hope of standing well with God, even when God opens His heart to him. "There is no hope," he says; "I will continue to do evil; moreover the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise; nor," he adds (the false prophets having the ear of the people), "the word from the prophet." The warning which this chapter contains appears to me very solemn. I can scarcely imagine a more terrible picture of the professing people's condition. The prophet asks for judgment upon them. This is in the spirit of the remnant trodden down by the wickedness of the Lord's enemies.