Year 3, Day 64: Jeremiah 11

Stubbornness of the Heart

In Jeremiah 11, God reminds us of the past.  Specifically, He is reminding Jeremiah and the Hebrew people of the past when they were in bondage in Egypt and God led them out of bondage.  But this is no typical call to repentance.  This is a reminder of the human condition.

God reminds Jeremiah that He gave the Hebrew people the only directive they needed.  “Obey my voice.”  They did not.  They turned to their own stubbornness and inclined themselves to their own evil.

Here is the core of the spiritual struggle.  All we have to do is listen to God’s voice and obey.  That’s it.  All we have to do is pause in our life, contemplate what God’s desire is for us, and then act upon God’s will.  It’s simple!

In theory, at least.

In reality, it is far more complex.  We don’t pause in our life and instead we just do.  Hence, God’s complaint about our stubbornness.  Even when we do pause, we don’t always like what God’s input is.  Perhaps when we pause, we don’t take the right time to consult the right resource, so we don’t genuinely hear His voice.  So one way or another we instead choose our own path – what we think is good for ourselves.  Hence, the part in Jeremiah 11 about walking in evil.  God makes it sound so simple and so easy.  But in the real life it is messy and complicated because decisions create effects which create consequences which create ramifications which create messy lives.  Why?  Because we do not incline our ear to His voice as often as we should.  We are stubborn – each and every one of us.  Put my name at the top of that list, please.

Treason

God’s tone is quite serious by the time verse 9 rolls along.  God looks to Jeremiah and says, “A conspiracy exists among the men of Judah.”  Another way of translating the word in Hebrew for which we have “conspiracy” is “treason.”  Anyone know what the universal punishment for treason is in just about every form of government ever to know existence?

Up until recently, most countries had an automatic law that treason was punishable by death.  In many countries, this law has been changed to life imprisonment.  Either way, it is a crime taken seriously.

Anyone know what you call a person who commits treason?  There is a special word reserved for them.  They are called traitors.

So let’s put this all together.  God is saying that His holy city of Jerusalem is filled with traitors.  When God looks upon the Hebrew people living in a time contemporary to Jeremiah, He sees traitors.  These are people who aren’t pausing to consult with God.  These are people who are fashioning their own gods.  These are people who are wrapped up in getting what they want out of life.  This is treason to God.

Anyone else feeling a little like they are suddenly in the mood for some genuine confession, repentance, and forgiveness?  I tell you what.  It’s only Tuesday.  I can’t wait for Sunday morning.

It Doesn’t Get Any Better

A second time in this book God commands Jeremiah to no longer pray for this people.  I’ll refer you back to the blog post on Jeremiah 7 for my thoughts on this request.  It is a hard request.  It shows that God means business.  Prayer is communication with God.  It is our avenue into the throne room of God.  God is shutting the door, telling Jeremiah that He will no longer converse with them or even about them.  That’s harsh.

What’s new in this chapter is the response of the people.  Apparently the people are getting tired of Jeremiah.  The Lord tried to warn him, but the people come to Jeremiah and try to kill him.  He was let like a gentle lamb to a slaughter.  They devised schemes against Jeremiah.  They attempted to cut him down and in so doing take the fruit that he might bear and destroy it, too.

What’s sad about this is that the threat comes from the people of Anathoth – Jeremiah’s hometown.  {See Jeremiah 1:1}  As we see with Jesus, a prophet is not welcome in his own hometown.  His own kind conspires against Jeremiah.  So God promises judgment against them.  It will be swift.

Jeremiah is not an easy book to read, nor is it an easy book to walk away feeling comforted.  It is a book on rebellion.  It is a book on dealing with treason against God.  It is a hard analytical book where we can hopefully identify with Jeremiah but also see glimpses of our own behavior in the people, too.  It is a book that should cause us to pause, reflect, and come to God in repentance.  It is a book that reminds us to trust in Him, regardless of what the world does to us or tries to get us to do with it.

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