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When men act as in Jeremiah 8:4, why is God‘s own people alone an exception?

Slidden back … backsliding - The same words as “turn” and “return” in Jeremiah 8:4. They should be rendered, “Why doth this people of Jerusalem turn away with a perpetual turning?”

Deceit - i. e., idolatry; because men worship in it that which is false, and it is false to the worshippers.

Refuse - From a feeling of dislike.

What brought this ruin? 1. The people would not attend to reason; they would not act in the affairs of their souls with common prudence. Sin is backsliding; it is going back from the way that leads to life, to that which leads to destruction. 2. They would not attend to the warning of conscience. They did not take the first step towards repentance: true repentance begins in serious inquiry as to what we have done, from conviction that we have done amiss. 3. They would not attend to the ways of providence, nor understand the voice of God in them, ver. 7. They know not how to improve the seasons of grace, which God affords. Many boast of their religious knowledge, yet, unless taught by the Spirit of God, the instinct of brutes is a more sure guide than their supposed wisdom. 4. They would not attend to the written word. Many enjoy abundance of the means of grace, have Bibles and ministers, but they have them in vain. They will soon be ashamed of their devices. The pretenders to wisdom were the priests and the false prophets. They flattered people in sin, and so flattered them into destruction, silencing their fears and complaints with, All is well. Selfish teachers may promise peace when there is no peace; and thus men encourage each other in committing evil; but in the day of visitation they will have no refuge to flee unto.

Thus it was that “in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem” the message of Jeremiah to Judah was, “Hear ye the words of this covenant,”—the plain precepts of Jehovah as recorded in the Sacred Scriptures,—“and do them.” Jeremiah 11:6. And this is the message he proclaimed as he stood in the temple courts in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim. PK 414.1

Israel's experience from the days of the Exodus was briefly reviewed. God's covenant with them had been, “Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be My people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.” Shamelessly and repeatedly had this covenant been broken. The chosen nation had “walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.” Jeremiah 7:23, 24. PK 414.2

“Why,” the Lord inquired, “is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding?” Jeremiah 8:5. In the language of the prophet it was because they had obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God and had refused to be corrected. See Jeremiah 5:3. “Truth is perished,” he mourned, “and is cut off from their mouth.” “The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but My people know not the judgment of the Lord.” “Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the Lord: shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” Jeremiah 7:28; 8:7; Jeremiah 9:9. PK 414.3

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