Year 3, Day 67: Jeremiah 14

The Time to Submit

Ever have one of those days, weeks, or years where things just don’t seem to be going your way?  One of those times when just as you seem to be overcoming one obstacle someone sets two more in your path?  Or even worse, ever have one of those days where you are not even sure how you are going to overcome an obstacle and then another comes into view?

I’ve got to believe that some of the people in Jerusalem felt that way during Jeremiah’s prophetic career.  You see, Jerusalem was besieged in 605 BC.  It didn’t fully and completely fall until 586 BC.  We’re talking almost two decades of living under the oppression of the Babylonian threat.

As if being besieged isn’t bad enough, all of a sudden God decides to throw a little bit of drought their way, too.  As if it isn’t going to be hard enough get adequate food, not it becomes almost impossible to find water, too.

It is times like this where the smart person turns to God, throws up their arms, and says, “I surrender.”  Okay, the really smart person doesn’t let it get this bad off before surrendering to God.  But seriously, these are the kind of moments when we should be convinced that life isn’t going our way and we need the help of the divine to pull us through.

Of course, we are human.  Sometimes – perhaps often, in cases like me – the word human is fairly synonymous with “stubborn.”  Sometimes when we are besieged and the water runs out we dig in our heels and let it become personal.  Sometimes when life gets hard we simply refuse to accept any help whatsoever.  Those are some of the least proud moments of my life, just saying.

So let’s bring this back to the Hebrew people.  They had rejected God’s living water for the water of the world.  Now that water had gotten them far from God and then dried up.  Symbolically, as their cisterns dry up they also realize that their spiritual life is long dried up, too.  This is the danger of digging in our heels and refusing to humble ourselves before God.  When the time comes, we find out that it is hard to bring refreshing water into the spiritual wasteland.  {Hard, yes.  But through God, nothing is impossible.}

Stranger in a Strange Land

Jeremiah gives us another way of thinking about how hard it is to bring living water to a spiritual wasteland.  Jeremiah asks why it is that God is like a stranger in His own land.  Jeremiah asks why it is that God is like a mighty warrior who cannot save.  These are images of a person who is unable to fulfill his calling.  It is frustrating to know you can do something but be unable to do it.  Yet, this is what the Hebrew people have done to God.  Although God is clearly among them, they do not recognize.  God is truly a stranger in His own land.  I can only imagine the depth of God’s frustration.

For the record, once more we hear God tell Jeremiah to stop praying for these people.  This is now the third {and last} time that God will issue such a command to Jeremiah.  As I write this sentence, I wonder if there is any particular significance to the fact that such a command occurs in Jeremiah exactly three times.  {7:16, 11:14, 14:11}  Since the number three is symbolic of God, I wonder if this is a symbolism that God truly was finished and bringing judgment upon the Hebrew people.  I wonder if this symbolism occurs here to say, “Yes, I God actually told you to stop praying for them.”  {For the record, the command “do not pray” occurs nowhere else in the Bible outside of these three verses.}

False Prophecies

This second half of this chapter is a very scary passage for spiritual leaders.  Let’s go bare bones here.  Jeremiah tells God, “This is what people are saying in Your name.”  God says to Jeremiah, “They are lying.  So their lies will consume them.”

That is really scary.  I have a good spiritual friend whose son came upon the realization a few days ago that “God really takes sin pretty seriously.”  I think I just had a similar realization.  God takes seriously the things we say in His name, too.  If we say things in His name that are not His words, we can expect to be devoured by them.  When we make a case for things that are not God’s ways, we can expect to be devoured by the like kind.

I think about all the so-called universalist preachers out there.  These are preachers who never talk about repentance or sin.  I’m talking about preachers who only proclaim God’s love and grace.  They talk as though everybody will be saved.  They talk as though there will be no judgment and certainly there will be no condemnation.

I wonder what God thinks about such a message.  I’m not saying we have to dwell on judgment and never get to grace.  But I am saying that I think when we skip over judgment and obedient responses to God’s grace that we risk offending God.  I think when we as spiritual people and especially we as spiritual leaders skip over judgment and repentance and obedience that we are likely to risk finding ourselves standing in the midst of a judgment for which we have no defense.

In the end, it is best to stick with the proclamation of God’s Word.  Law and Gospel.  Repentance and Forgiveness.  Discipline and Freedom.  Trust in “what the Word actually says” rather than in “what we want the Word to actually say.”

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