Listen, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the LORD has spoken: “I have raised children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me.Hear, heavens, and listen, earth; for Yahweh has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me.Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for Jehovah hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.
4 sermons cite this verse
I have known some also pricked in the heart when they have discovered that there is to be a judgment about everything that we have done—no, more than that—about everything that we have said and everything that we have thought—and that that judgment will be most solemn and its sentence most severe. There will be pronounced, from the lips of God, a sentence of condemnation upon the ungodly which will rest upon them forever and ever, so that they shall abide in a living death in which there shall be no gleam of light or joy, but all shall be a desolation and a ruin, where misery shall lift up its doleful notes forever proclaiming the Infinite Justice of God. Many have been "pricked in their heart" when they have found that though some preachers make our sin to be only a trifle, God's Word does not. Man may try to make the penalty of sin seem small, but God's Word does not. God's scale of sin and man's scale of sin differ very widely. God regards sin as a vast evil requiring an Infinite Atonement, while some who profess to be His servants treat it as quite an insignificant thing. I pray that the Truth, as revealed in God's Word, may be applied with power to every unwounded heart here, and that many may be "pricked in their heart," and caused to cry out, as they did after Peter's discourse on the day of Pentecost, "Men and brethren, what must we do?" On the other hand, a great many have been "pricked in their heart" by a sense of the great goodness of God. They have said, "Has God been so good, so kind, so tender to us and have we never loved Him or sought His Glory?" And they have felt ashamed as they have thought of their base ingratitude. There is one thing I often feel—I do not know whether you feel as I do and I do not know whether I can quite make you see what I mean—I often feel a great pity for God, I feel as if I could weep tears of blood because God is so shamefully treated by His own creatures. God Himself feels their ingratitude, for He says, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master's crib; but Israel does not know, My people do not consider." He feels that it is a hard case that He should be treated thus, and when men feel that it is a hard case, it is a proof that they have been "pricked in their heart." …
I have heard of a Christian woman who had a very wicked husband. He was a dreadful swearer and always opposed her in every good thing, yet she was the kindest wife that a man ever had. One night, or rather, early in the morning, as he sat drinking with his companions, he told them that he had a splendid wife and that if they were all to go home with him, even though it was two o'clock in the morning, if she had gone to bed, she would get up and prepare supper for them without showing the slightest sign of displeasure, but would, for his sake, wait upon them as if they were lords in the land! They went to the house and the husband called for his wife, as she had gone to bed. She put on her clothes, came down and got ready such things as she had—and made them all welcome. They asked her why she was so kind to one who was so brutal to her, but she would not answer. Another day she said to her husband, when he asked a similar question, "I have prayed for you thousands of times and I have done all I can to bring you to the Savior. Yet there is a dreadful fear in my mind that you will be lost. I am afraid you will continue to sin against God and that you will be sent to Hell, so I have made up my mind that I will make you as happy as you can be while you are here, for I fear that you will never have any happiness hereafter." …
II. HOW IS IT, AND WHY, THAT PARDONED SOULS DO LOATHE THEMSELVES? Reply first. Their nature is changed. God, in conversion, makes us new men. We are not altered, improved, or mended, but a new life is given us; we become new creations in Christ Jesus. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to make us to be born again, and as that which is born of the flesh is flesh, so that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, and it hates the old corrupt nature, loathes it, and fights against it to the death. And further, the moving cause for loathing ourselves is the receipt of divine mercy. "Oh!" saith the soul when it finds itself forgiven, "did I rebel against such a God as this! What! has he struck out all my sins from the roll, cast them all behind his back, and does he declare that he loves me still? Then wretch that I am that I should have revolted and rebelled against such a God as this." It is just as John Bunyan puts it. There is a city besieged, and they determine that they will fight it out to the last. They will make every street to run with blood but what they will hold it out against the king who claims the city for himself; but when his troops march up and set their ranks around the city, and it is all surrounded, the trumpet sounds for a parley, and the messenger comes forward with the white flag, and they find to their surprise that the conditions offered are so honourable, so generous, so much to their own advantage, that the king appears not to be their enemy at all, but, in fact, to be their best friend. He will enlarge their liberties far above what they were. He will beautify their city—it was mean before. He will come and dwell in it; he will make it the metropolis of the country; he will give it markets; he will give it all it wanted. "Why," saith John Bunyan, "whereas before they were going to fortify the walls and die to a man, they fling open the gates, and they are ready to tumble over the walls to him, they are so glad to find that he treats them so generously." And it is, even so with us when we find that he blots out our sin, that he is all love and all compassion, we yield to him at once, and then shame comes, to think that it should ever have been needful for us to yield, that we should ever have taken up arms against him at all. It is a beautiful incident in English history when one of our kings was carrying on war against his rebellious son. and they met in battle, and the son was, just about to kill the father, when the father's visor was lifted up and he saw that it was his father whom he was about to kill. So the sinner, fighting against his God, thinks he is his enemy, but on a sudden he beholds it is his own Father that he has been fighting against, and he drops the weapon of his rebellion, feeling ashamed that he should have rebelled against such mercy and such favour. That is why we are ashamed, and I do pray that some here may be ashamed in the same way, for I think I hear Jehovah bewailing himself to-night. "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." Your God is good, be ready to repent and be forgiven; rebel no more. …
"When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord."—Jonah 2:7. WHEN man was first made, there was no fear of his forgetting God for it was his highest privilege and delight to have communion with his Maker. "The Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of the day," and Adam was privileged to hold fellowship with God, closer, perhaps, than even the angels had in heaven. But the spell of that sacred harmony was rudely broken by man's disobedience and his dreadful fall. Ever since our first parent tasted of the forbidden fruit, which brought death into our world, and all its train of woes, his mortal race has been naturally prone to forget God. The evil propensities of flesh and blood have made it impossible to persuade man to remember his Creator. The complaint of God against the Jews is true as an indictment against the whole human family. "Hear, O heaven, and give ear. O earth: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me; the ox knoweth its owner, and the ass its master's crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." Man is foolish; he flies from the highest good. Man is wicked; he turns his back upon supreme holiness. Man is worldly: he forgets the kingdom of God and the world to come. Man is wilful; he follows his own vain imaginations, and, with head-strong rebellion, opposes himself to his God, that he may pursue his own wayward course, and gratify his wanton passions. …