Year 3, Day 69: Jeremiah 16

As Dung on the Surface

Have you ever spent a nice day out in a city park enjoying the sunshine?  Perhaps you’ve even taken to walking laps around a lake or a pond.  All of a sudden, you realize that there is something on your shoe.  Yup.  Some irresponsible pet owner thought that either they didn’t need to clean up after their dog or they don’t leash their pet so it becomes a nuisance to others.

Let’s rewind a second.  Let’s say you are taking that walk and all of a sudden you see the pile of shoe-defiling substance just before you step in it.  Deftly you avoid the catastrophe.  Imagine how your heart swells with gratitude as you know you avoided contact with the life-tainting substance. {As a multiple-dog owner who picks up his own yard after every trip outside, I know about that which I speak.}

 Here’s my point in those opening paragraphs.  God is telling Jeremiah that in Jeremiah’s day the Hebrew people are like that life-tainting pile on the ground that everyone wishes to avoid at all costs.  They are a stench before the Lord.  They will die from famine and disease and sword.  They will be dragged into captivity.  They are not to be messed with.

In this section, God gives Jeremiah a very serious command.  Do not marry one of them, for they are all going to die.  Jeremiah is told that with respect to Jerusalem and God’s chosen people, Jeremiah is not to have sons or daughters or a wife from among them.  I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty serious.  Marriage and family are kind of staples in life.  Here we find out that Jeremiah is forbidden from them.  Suddenly being a prophet takes on a whole new level of meaning.

Then, we find out that Jeremiah isn’t even supposed to express normal emotion when someone dies.  He isn’t to go among the funeral masses.  He isn’t supposed to go in where they are eating and drinking and celebrating the life of the dead person.  Normal human behavior is slowly being stripped away.

All of these things are points that God is trying to make to the Hebrew people through Jeremiah.  First, the point that God is making is that His love and company and protection has been removed.  The prophet Jeremiah was to not be among the people as a symbol that God was no longer among the people.  Jeremiah would not marry within the Hebrew people of Jerusalem as a symbol that God was not longer going to be the husband of the Hebrew people of Jerusalem.

Second, God was telling the Hebrew people that captivity was not going to be much fun, either.  There would be nobody to console them in Babylon.  There would be nobody to protect them.  The Babylonians surely weren’t going to watch out for them!  It would be a dark time for them as the God they had forsaken has a time of forsaking of His own.

Naiveté – or is it Ignorance? - of Humanity

God tells Jeremiah that as he explains these things to the Hebrew people they will ask, “What have we done?”  I have to laugh.  It sounds like a middle school child as they go about their life doing what they want to do and not realizing how much their life choices are affecting all the people around them.

The sad truth is that ignorance is no excuse.  Just because I don’t take the time to know what God wants of me does not give me any freedom to violate His ways.  It is not His fault that humanity cannot bring itself to care enough to know His ways.  He has made His truth clear.  He has even made a way for us to repent and ask for forgiveness.  He does not seek perfection, merely humbleness!  It is not His fault that we are not aware of our own arrogance.  It is not His fault that we chase after false gods all the time and don’t even know it.

Mercy

However, here in this 16^th chapter of Jeremiah we finally have a snippet of grace.  Finally we hear that judgment and wrath will not be forever.  In fact, we hear that God’s plan for grace has begun even before the true wrath has come!  God tells Jeremiah that not only will God bring the people back after judgment, but His “fisherman” are already being brought forth!  The people who will draw the remnant back are already being put in place.

This is the neat thing about God.  Yes, He is righteous in His wrath.  Yes, His wrath is terrible in its righteousness.  But for those who will turn and repent – even in the midst of His wrath – there is salvation waiting.  There is a plan to find Him.  But we must repent.  We must turn to Him.  We must respond to His call.  There is always an avenue for the repentant remnant to return to Him.

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Year 3, Day 68: Jeremiah 15

Moses and Samuel Couldn’t Have Made a Difference

Hopefully nobody misses the connection between Jeremiah 14 and Jeremiah 15.  Jeremiah 14 ends with a so-called repentance.  But God knows the truth.  Even if the Hebrew people were saying the words, God had enough.  He knew their hearts.  They were not genuinely repentant.

So how does God reply to the so-called repentance that we find in Jeremiah 14?  God reminds the people the last time a rebellious nation repented.  In the wilderness, the Hebrew people were extraordinarily rebellious.  Moses interceded for them time and time again when God wanted to destroy them.  God relented.  How did it end?  The entire generation died in the wilderness anyway.  Well, except for Joshua and Caleb.

What about Samuel?  The Hebrew people were rebellious.  Samuel intercedes for them.  God relents.  How does it end?  The people demand a king, get a king, then they get a war between the first and second kings.  Then they get Solomon.  Then the kingdom splits.  They all fall away.

God knows the end of this story.  True repentance brings about genuine change of heart.  Anyone can say, “I’m sorry, God.”  Anyone can say, “Things will be different from now on, God.”  But you know what?  None of us can fool God.  Even the intercession of Moses and Samuel cannot save a person from false repentance.  The God who looks upon our heart is not fooled by the words that come out of our mouth.

Four Destroyers

Because of the lack of genuine repentance, God sets four means of “death” before the people.  Some will die by pestilence.  Diseases spread rampantly in a besieged city.  Water ran low.  Food ran low.  Eventually cannibalism was a necessity.  Often the besieging army would toss dead bodies into the city’s water supply to help carry disease among the people and make life miserable.  It wasn’t fun to have an army waiting outside your walls expecting you to either die or give up.

The second destroyer was sword.  The Babylonians would kill their fair share.  In fact, the Babylonians are said to be so ruthless that they would take the babies from conquered mothers and intentionally throw the babies down onto rocks so the babies would die.  The Babylonians were particularly cruel.

The third destroyer would be famine.  As the siege lingered, food would run out.  Yesterday we discovered that there was a famine in the land.  That would only make the food issue even worse.

Finally, the last destroyer would be captivity.  The same people who had been spared captivity under Egypt would be sent back into captivity under Babylon.  And really, they would never be free again.  The Babylonians would hand Jerusalem into the control of the Persians.  The Greeks would take it from the Persians.  The Romans would take it from the Greeks.  The Muslims would take it from the Romans.  They are still fighting about it even today.

There was no escaping this end.  Captivity would be the greatest destroyer.  Yes, there would be shades of existence in Jerusalem from time to time in the future.  But it would never be like it was.

It’s Never Good to Weary God

Jeremiah 15:6 is a hard verse to swallow.  In consecutive sentences God says, “You have rejected me,” “You keep going backwards,” “I have stretched out my hand and destroyed you,” and “I am weary of relenting.”  It’s this last verse that really makes me pause today.

The God I know and love is a God of mercy and compassion.  Yes, He is absolutely a God of judgment.  He expects obedience.  But the God I know treasures and values genuine repentance.  He knows perfection is out of our grasp.  Thus, God asks for repentance rather than perfection.

Yet, this is indeed the same God who says that He is weary of relenting.  I can only imagine how far the Hebrew people had fallen to make God weary of relenting.  I can only hope and pray that I and the people around me escape that fate.  I can imagine no worse fate than realizing that this God that I know as merciful has been wearied by His need of relenting from bringing His wrath against me.

Mercy, But God Knows Truth

At the end of this chapter we come back to the ultimate argument that I posed above.  Jeremiah makes a complaint to God.  He asks God to relent once more and embrace His people.

But God knows what will happen.  Still, God amuses Jeremiah.  He says, “Go.”  He tells Jeremiah to go among them.  If they repent, God will forgive.

But then God tells Jeremiah the truth.  They will not repent.  They will not listen.  They will resist Jeremiah.  They will fight against Jeremiah.  But they shall not prevail.  Ultimately, God will have the final say.

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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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Year 3, Day 66: Jeremiah 13

The Linen Belt

This is a very unusual passage.  But once we understand what God is doing here it can all make sense.  So bear with me for a second as I try to unpack this “linen belt.”

First, it is a belt.  Some translations call it a loincloth, which makes it sound like an undergarment.  Which – in some respects it is.  It would be the fabric that served as a belt or even a girdle that would hold the clothing in the torso and the groin in place.  The important part of this is that it is a piece of clothing that is kept close to the body.  It is a fairly intimate part of the clothing, not one’s outer robes.

Second, it is made of linen.  Linen was the fabric worn by priests.  It was a delicate and reasonably expensive fabric.  It was fabric you would want to have close to your body!

Third, God makes the comparison that this linen garment represents the Hebrew people.  He kept them close to Himself.  When they were close to Him, like one’s linen belt, the fabric is valued and treasured and even protected from being soiled and damaged.

Then God asks Jeremiah to do something quite unusual.  God asks Jeremiah to go elsewhere and bury the linen garment among the rocks.  Of course, the linen garment is ruined.  It becomes soiled.  The rain and the earth begin to decompose this natural garment.  It isn’t any good anymore.

So it was with the Hebrew people.  When they were no longer close to God, they became useless.  They became soiled and incapable of doing the job that God desired them to accomplish.

That’s really a deep parable!  It is also a parable that really makes me want to think about life.  Are the events with which I am occupying myself events that are keeping me close to God?  Or are the things of my life causing me to become soiled and useless?  Is my natural “linen” quality being preserved by closeness to God or being destroyed by distance from Him?

The Drinking Jars of Wine

Jeremiah is to set up another proverb.  There are to be jars (think cups made of earthen pottery) that are to be filled with wine.  Of course the people will know that they are to be filled with wine; that was the beverage that people drank in those days!

What the people wouldn’t see coming is when Jeremiah smashed the jars of wine together.  God was telling Jeremiah that the jars of wine would be the Hebrew people.  They would drink God’s wine – a common symbol in the prophets of God’s wrath – to the fullest.  Once they had drunk a full measure of God’s wrath, God would smash them upon one another.  There would be judgment and wrath to come for the choices that the Hebrew people had made.

The Source of the Trouble

As we close out this chapter, once more we turn to the root of the problem.  What is the problem with the Hebrew people?  Look at verse 17.  “If you will not listen, my soul will weep in secret for your pride.”  Look at verse 18.  “Say to the king and the queen mother, ‘Take a lowly seat, for your beautiful crown has come down from your head.’”  {This is likely penned as the Babylonians are taking Jehoiachin and his mother into captivity.}

The issue is pride.  The issue is a refusal to be humble.  The issue is a refusal to come to God and do things His way.  The issue is that we think we know what is best and in our arrogance end up destroying ourselves.  It is our pride that causes conflict with one another.  It is our pride that causes conflict with God.

And then we have the proverbial skeptic in Jeremiah {and God, for the record.}  One of the more famous lines in Jeremiah comes in Jeremiah 13:23.  Can the Ethiopian change the pigment of his skin?  Can the leopard change it spots?  What makes any of us think that we can change our nature, either?

Without God, we cannot change who we are.  Without God, we are prideful human beings.  Without God, pride will always be our problem.  This takes us the whole way back to the parable of the linen belt with which we opened this chapter.  What hope do any of us have in acting righteously when we so eagerly remove ourselves from His company?

Our pride pushes us away from God – the very one place where our pride can be dealt with.  Our pride becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Our pride causes us to go away from God, which only causes our pride to become more and more of a problem.  The answer is never found in more pride.  The answer is always found in humbleness and repentance.

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Year 3, Day 65: Jeremiah 12

Jeremiah’s Question for God

At the end of chapter 11, Jeremiah was led away like a lamb to be slaughtered.  God saved him.  God spared him.  So Jeremiah is wise to declare God’s righteousness in the beginning of the chapter.  However, this doesn’t mean that Jeremiah isn’t left questioning.  Jeremiah feels the need to question God’s justice.  Surely God is righteous; but is a God who allows the wicked to prosper just?

This is really a question that we all will struggle with from time to time.  As we wrestle with our faith, every single one of us will come across a question like this from time to time.  We cannot help but realize that wickedness seems to abound in this world.  So what is God’s answer to this?  Is God just when so much evil seems to exist in the world?

God’s Answer

First things first.  Before we even get to the answer, God puts Jeremiah in His place.  I’ve heard it said that we shouldn’t be afraid to challenge God.  We shouldn’t be afraid to get angry with God if that’s really how we feel.  In principle, I absolutely agree.  If we are angry with God, He already knows it.  So we might as well get it out, right?  What can we say in our words that he hasn’t already heart in our heart?

On the other hand, when we are honest with God we had better accept that God is going to be honest right back with us.  So we should only challenge God with how we are truly feeling as long as we are prepared to truly receive back from God.  That’s exactly what happens here with Jeremiah.  Jeremiah questions God’s justice.  God replies honestly.

God’s reply is simple.  If Jeremiah is so worn out by the persecution Jeremiah is getting from the rest of the Hebrew people, how on earth will he tolerate being under the Babylonian captivity?  If Jeremiah is finding it difficult keeping up with people who have at least heard about God, how will Jeremiah ever survive in a nation where God’s name is not known or even cared about?  If Jeremiah is wearied by the prosperity of evil in Israel, how much more will Jeremiah be wearied by the prosperity of evil in the rest of the world!

Let me put a spin on this from the opposite angle.  If Jeremiah was questioning God in his current circumstances, imagine how hard it must be to follow God in Gentile lands!  If Jeremiah could only believe in God’s justice when things went well for Him, then how is anyone to ever believe God is just?  {Of course, I do have to wonder how “well” things are going for Jeremiah.  But then again, maybe that’s part of my problem.  Maybe as a human I have too much trouble focusing on the bad.}

The real answer to life is to step back and trust in God’s justice regardless of this current situation.  We must trust in things we cannot see.  We must trust in God’s justice in things we cannot understand.  Our faith and our spirituality must transcend this world or else it will always be threatened by this world.

God’ Timing

As the verses that finish the section of poetry indicate, God has already judged the Hebrew people.  They are not going to prosper.  They are not going to thrive.  They are going into captivity.  The decision has already been made.  God has already forsaken them to the Babylonians.

You see, here is the problem.  We see in the present.  We might occasionally see into the near-future (foreseeable future).  But we seldom if ever see into the real future.  We certainly cannot see into the eternal.  We can’t see what God is truly doing.  We cannot see where God is truly bringing judgment.  We can only see the prosperity of evil in the present rather than the truth of justice in the future.

Monday I had the opportunity to preview a series on the book of Revelation with a good spiritual friend.  As I was previewing some of the content, the speaker made an incredible statement.  I was blown away by the truth and the simplicity of it all that I have to share it here.

The speaker on the video was talking about the battle between Good and Evil.  He said – I paraphrase – “most of the world feels as though the fight against evil is futile because it appears that evil is strong and that evil is winning.  But the reality is that evil seems strong because it knows it is losing.  It’s time until judgment is ever-drawing shorter and shorter.  The less time that remains until judgment, the harder evil will fight.  Thus, we should not roll over to the power of evil but we should resist it because we also know that its time is short.”

I found this perception really enlightening.  So often it feels like evil is winning on every side.  So often I feel like Jeremiah at the beginning of this chapter and wonder what God is doing because it feels like evil is winning everywhere.  But in reality I need to remember that evil is ultimately losing.  Every day lived is a day closer to when evil loses forever.  The harder evil seems to fight, the less time remains until God judges evil and does away with it. 

We share in Jeremiah’s struggle.  But the problem isn’t that evil is winning; the problem is that our perspective readily loses sight of the fact that evil is on the verge of losing permanently.

Another Warning

Really quickly before ending the study of this chapter, let me point out the final words.  To the nation that turns and listens to God, they will be built up.  But any nation that refuses to listen will be plucked up and destroyed.  I think it is important to not skip over those verses today.  God’s Word is pretty clear.  There is an ability to repent.  We should not miss it.  The consequences for missing our opportunity to listen to God are dire.

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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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Year 3, Day 63: Jeremiah 10

False Gods

The first ten verses of this chapter are stunning.  Absolutely stunning.  They are stunning because in these verses we have such simple truth.  Here in these verses we find yet another open and honest expression of the problem with humanity.

A tree is cut down in the forest.  By a human hand, might I add!  That tree is shaped – again, by a human hand.  That shaped piece of lumber is inlaid with gold and silver and decorated in some prized way - again, by a human hand.  The soon-to-be-an-idol is now placed in a spot of worship – again, by a human hand.  In fact, it might even be tacked down by a nail or two – of course, by a human hand.

Two thoughts immediately jump to my mind.  First of all, how quick we are to worship our own creations!  How quick we are to create, because in creating “gods” we ourselves become the creators of gods!  Our worship of other gods is really all about us.  It is really all about our ability to manipulate and control the things of this life: fate, the weather, the economy, other people, etc.  These are the things of our own creation so that we can step back and worship ourselves!

The second thought that I had was to look at just how limited our “gods” really are.  We affix them, because if we don’t affix them properly they might fall from prominence.  Ever see someone who is far too obsessed with a personal achievement?  You get this point really quick in that context.  Or what about the person who has a habit that just can’t be ignored?  They find any excuse to lift such a habit into a place of prominence and put it on display for others to see.  Those activities and achievements don’t announce themselves.  They depend on us to announce them and make them prominent.  The things we make out to be gods are really no gods.

Before anyone feels picked on, I would add that I personally believe that every single person has some kind of idol that we make ourselves and affix to prominent places in our life.  I’m not trying to single anyone out in particular.  I think what I am saying is true of all of us.  I’m as guilty as the next person.

The Real God

Here’s the sad part about our false gods.  Can they really save us?  Can my bank account save me from myself and the trouble I bring upon myself?  Can my love for food save me from any trouble?  Can my thirst for entertainment truly satisfy even one of my innermost desires?

No.  That is the hard answer.  Nothing I do can satisfy who I am.  Nothing that I make can satisfy me fully and completely.  Nothing that I do can ever complete who I am like the God who created me and brought me into existence.  No fruit of my hands, no thought of my brain, no feeling in my soul can ever do what God can do within me.  The living God can change me, mold me, and shape me in far better ways than any god that I can change, shape, and mold myself.

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

I’m shifting gears pretty quickly now.  But moving on, let me confess.  I’ve never been a fan of Forrest Gump.  But every once and a while one of his truisms just fits.  After reading verse 14 I thought of this saying from Forrest Gump: Stupid Is as Stupid Does.

As God says through Jeremiah, every member of mankind is stupid and without knowledge.  Read that verse again.  It’s really humbling.  Now, let’s take that sentence one word at a time – just t make sure we don’t miss it. 

Every.  Not some.  Not even most.  Every.

Man.  Human.  Humanity.  Member of mankind.  Created beings.

Is.  Exists.  Contains the quality of.

Stupid.  Senseless. Lacking good judgment.

And.  There’s more.  You haven’t read all the bad news yet.

Without. Lacking.  Not possessing.  Existing in the absence of something.

Knowledge.  Skill.  Truth.

Do you hear the truth in that statement?  Without God’s spark of inspiration, we are stupid.  We are by definition lacking good judgment and in absence of truth.  This is really a humbling verse to consider.

More Stupid

As I continued through this chapter, I discovered that there was more stupid to come.  In fact, the explanation of why we are stupid is to be found here.  Look deeply into verse 21.  The shepherds are stupid and do not inquire of the Lord … therefore the flock is scattered.

I must hang my head here.  We do it to ourselves, and the leadership bears the greater burden.  We do not inquire of the Lord.  We think ourselves smart.  We think ourselves possessing of what is needed and we stop looking to the Lord.  Our ignorance brings out our stupidity and our stupidity results in the scattering of the flock.

I have said it before.  I will say it again.  When the leadership fails, then the company, structure, or organization will soon fail as well.  Watch your leaders closely.  Hold them {me included!} accountable.  According to these verses, holding your leadership accountable may be the best thing we can do to prevent stupidity!  I’ve never thought about it like that, but that statement is true in many more areas than just religion!

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Year 3, Day 62: Jeremiah 9

The Weeping Prophet

It is passages like the opening of Jeremiah 9 that give Jeremiah the nickname of the “Weeping Prophet.”  But there is a balance here that I think is important to bring out as we pour over these verses of Jeremiah’s lament.  We can learn leadership from this prophet’s witness.

Jeremiah laments.  He weeps.  He wishes his eyes could be continual fountains of weeping.  Jeremiah is torn apart because of the love He genuinely has for the people of God.

However, the balance to be found is that Jeremiah is repulsed by their idolatry.  He knows their behavior is akin to an adulterer.  He knows the people are treacherous.  Their tongues are wicked.  They go from one evil to the next without any kind of reprieve or repentance.  Neighbors fear one another.  People actively deceive each other.  They intentionally oppress one another for their own personal gain.

Jeremiah wishes for a reality that cannot be.  He weeps because he knows the truth.  The ideal that he desires will not happen.  If a country is so willing to devour one another to get what they want, then they will eventually be devoured themselves.  Jeremiah has good reason to weep.  But he doesn’t just weep.  He weeps with reason.

Judgment

God sees this, too.  God promises judgment.  I was amused by the focus of God’s pity, though.  God pities the mountains and the wilderness, not the people who live in them.  God’s pity is for creation.  Humanity – God’s chosen people – has done this to themselves.  Creation is an innocent victim caught up in the games that people play with one another.

So God will teach those who play games with sin.  He will judge them.  He will bring peace back to the land – even if that peace had to be bought by captivity.

A Moment of Prose Among Poetry

Jeremiah 12-16 leaves the poetry of God’s voice behind as Jeremiah and God engage in dialogue.  Jeremiah wonders who can comprehend what is happening.  I actually take great consolation at this point.  Jeremiah is essentially confessing that while he “gets it” he also doesn’t comprehend it.  He knows what God is doing and why it is happening, but he doesn’t know the answer to it.  Jeremiah sees and desires another reality where the people of God walk hand in hand with God.  He just doesn’t know how to get there from here.

I am consoled by this confession because I likewise often wonder if I know how to get from the present reality to God’s ideal.  I know that God can bring it about.  I have full confidence that God can do what He desires and in a manner of His desiring.  I even have the intelligence to know that perhaps the biggest thing I can do is make sure I get out of the way!  But that still doesn’t mean I know how it is going to happen.  I must merely humble myself – like Jeremiah – and know that I can believe in God’s ideal and trust Him to move me and those around me into that reality.  It is God whose hand is important in movement, not mine.

Before I leave this section of prose, I want to also make a comment on verse 16.  God tells Jeremiah that He will send the sword after them until He has “consumed” them.  I prefer a more literal translation of this word.  Literally, this word means finished, accomplished, or brought to an end.  God says that He will chastise the Hebrew people with the sword until He has finished with them.  There is a rich and dark meaning there that I don’t want to put into words.  But I do want us all to be able to contemplate – and swallow hard after contemplating – the meaning of those words.

A Return to Uncircumcision

As we bring this chapter of Jeremiah to a conclusion we see more and more calls to mourning.  But at the end of this chapter we have another one of these passages that flash brilliantly forward with the wisdom of the New Testament.  I’ve spoken recently about my love of one of my favorite trilogy of verses {Hosea 6:6, Psalm 51:15-17, Joel 2:13}.  But here at the end of Jeremiah we have another passage in like mind.  The time is coming when those who are uncircumcised or circumcised only in the outward appearance will stand in judgment.

God makes it clear as we end this chapter.  God wants a circumcision of the heart.  God wants people who truly desire to obey Him.  God wants people who strive to make His ways their ways.  Yes, such people will fail.  That is why God has made the means of repentance and forgiveness.  But our failure does not mitigate our effort.  God wants people who recognize His grace in this life and who respond to that grace by desiring to be His people.

God doesn’t want platitudes.  He doesn’t want large gatherings of people who can be whipped up into a frenzy that makes no change in who they are in the long run.  God doesn’t want scores of people who can recite mantras and put on a show of righteousness.

God wants genuine contrition of the heart.  He wants us to struggle and wrestle with who we are.  He wants us to know ourselves and know Him.  He wants us to live in that dichotomy.  He wants us to learn to chose Him as we live in that dichotomy.

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Year 3, Day 61: Jeremiah 8

Death is No Escape

Jeremiah continues the thoughts on judgment as we open this new chapter.  The dead will not escape judgment.  Their bones will be spread out before God and creation.  As the people are dragged into captivity, their dead will not find proper burial.  Those who remain alive will wish they were dead.  There really is no escaping the judgment of the Lord.

This verse on death being preferred to life is really striking to me.  I do wonder what has to happen for a person to genuinely prefer to be dead instead of alive.  In fact, much of my teenage life and early adulthood was spent dealing with incredible bouts of depression.  As a teen and a young adult I wrestled with this question perhaps more than any other question within my soul.  For well over a decade I sought the answer to the question: “Is death preferred to life?”

At the heart of this question is pain.  When the things that happen in this life bring more pain that a person can bear, we seek escape.  When the escapes we seek only serve to increase our pain, we begin to see only one escape: death.  That is what Jeremiah warns the Hebrew people about their life to come.  Jeremiah is saying that in captivity, life will be so bad they will desire to seek escape.  But the escapes they seek will only increase their pain.  People will literally want to die – but they likely won’t have the will to end their life.  They’ll wish they were dead, but not actually be able to get there.  This is about as miserable of an existence as a person can ever know.  It makes me mourn to think of those Hebrew people heading into exile.  It makes me mourn to think about the people who live right now who see no end to their pain therefore they long for their death.  They are hopeless – trapped in an existence of pain that they do not want.  I’ve been there.  I know that feeling.  I mourn for those who cannot see a way out.  In fact, I openly invite conversation.  If you or someone you know is there, talk to me.  The way out is difficult, but there is a way.

You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down

No doubt you’ve heard that expression before.  When you see someone trip and stumble, you expect to see them get up.  When you see someone dealing with stress, you long for the time that they eventually overcome it.  Human beings are resilient.  We don’t like living in the pit, we are always trying to climb and scratch our way back out.

In verses 4-7, however, God makes a case that His people are just the opposite.  When they stumbled from righteousness, they wallowed in the filth of sin.  When the sickness of sin came infectiously among them, they enjoyed being sick.  There was no resurgence to repent and try again.  There was none of the humbleness and fear of the Lord that we see in David.  The Hebrew people became engorged in the thrill of their sin.  They fell, and they stayed down.  Perhaps the old saying is true.  You can’t keep a good person down.  But a person who is wallowing in their sin is difficult to get back on their feet.

Peace?  There is no Peace.

One of my favorite and least favorite passages of Jesus’ teaching is Matthew 10:34.  “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.  I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”  I’ve found that passage difficult because I know we love to talk about Jesus as a person of peace.  In fact, Zechariah – John the Baptizer’s father – says of his son that John will “give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,

to guide our feet into the way of peace.”  {See Luke 1:79}  John the Baptizer came to point the way to Christ.  Christ points the way to God.  In fact, we teach that Christ is the bringer of peace between God and men.

You see, there is the reason why I find Matthew 10:34 so haunting.  Jesus came to bring peace between God and mankind.  But in doing so, those who find peace with God will automatically find war with the rest of humanity.  Jesus leads us to peace with God; Jesus leads us into strife with the world that rejects God.

Why have I jumped to the New Testament in the study of Jeremiah?  Jeremiah 8:11 and its context is a very similar passage.  The prophets in Jeremiah’s day were all about talking in terms of peace.  They proclaimed being at peace with God {when they really weren’t}.  They proclaimed peace in Jerusalem {when God was really bringing destruction}.  They proclaimed peace with the foreign powers {when the Babylonians were really going to enslave them}.  You see, false prophets always like to talk about peace in this world.  But this is simply not true.  True prophets know that they only way to be at peace with the world is to be at war with God.  Even then, we are usually not at peace in the world.  Trust me, being at war with God is not the answer any of us seeks.

No, the only way to find true peace is to find it with God and accept that world peace is not going to happen.  We find true peace with God when we humble ourselves.  We find peace with God when we realize how we are shamed in our sin and brought to repentance.  Until then, while we may declare “peace” the reality is that there is no peace.

Grief

As we ended yesterday, so we end today.  Jeremiah grieves for his people.  He grieves because He knows the Lord should be the star in Jerusalem but He is not.  He grieves – much like we talked about yesterday – because there is no reason to pray.  Yesterday the Lord told Jeremiah to stop praying and today Jeremiah sees the reality.  The Lord is not King in Jerusalem – although He should be.  There will be no peace with God or the outside world.  The harvest is past.  The summer has ended.  It is time to prepare for the bleak spiritual winter.

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Year 3, Day 60: Jeremiah 7

Is that the Trinity I Spy?

As I was reading the opening to Jeremiah 7, I couldn’t help but notice the message that the people proclaimed in verse 4.  The people were saying, “This is the temple of the Lord.”  In fact, they were saying it three times.  The Hebrew people believed that God’s number was 3.  So to say something three times was evoking God’s power to make it true.  In this case, they said that Jerusalem had the temple of the Lord multiple times to try and invoke God’s protection over Jerusalem.

However, that doesn’t change two facts.  First, how neat is it to see that even in the Old Testament that people use the number three symbolically to represent God?  They may not have had a concrete understanding of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but they absolutely understood that the number 3 was connected to the presence of God.  The foundation for the concept of the Trinity was being laid.

Second, in one respect the Hebrew people were absolutely right.  Jerusalem was God’s city.  But that means that it is God’s to do with as He pleases.  God can build up, tear down, protect, or destroy.  It’s God’s city to do with as He desires!  It’s like an artist making a sketch.  He can lay down some charcoal lines and then erase where needed.  He can fix things and add to it.  Or ultimately he can take the work, toss it away, and start all over again.  Ownership does not convey guaranteed protection.  Ownership conveys guaranteed authority.

A Lesson from the Past

God tells the Hebrew people that they are hypocrites.  It is bad enough that they sin.  It is bad enough that they sin and then come into the temple.  But what is absolutely abominable is that they sin, come into the temple, and then proclaim faith in their forgiveness without ever once thinking that they might need to change!  They are blind and ignorant as to how their lives and their faith are not compatible.  They live their life the way that they want to live their life and then they turn to the temple and say, “God will protect us, we are fortunate to live in space He calls Holy.”

Talk about cheap grace!  I think as I read these words in Jeremiah that I heard both Luther and Bonheoffer roll over in their graves!  God does not offer cheap grace, God offers costly grace.  God offers a grace that will cost His Son dearly.  God offers grace that cost the lives of those who follow Him! 

Look at the sacrifices Jeremiah is making to follow God!  Jeremiah is quite unpopular.  He has to go against the crowd.  He has to speak a publicly unpopular message.  And it’s not over yet.

Look at the sacrifices that God’s followers throughout time have made.  Abraham gave up home and family.  Moses gave up luxury in the Pharaoh’s house.  Elijah and Elisha gave up a normal life of teaching and simplicity.  Jesus gave up His life.  Paul gave up his heritage.  Peter and James gave up their work.  James and John gave up the family business.  I can keep going on and on.  The point here is that grace is not cheap.  We cannot enter into the worship of God and believe we can walk out the same person who came in.  That is not possible!  It is inconsistent with the call of the God who sent His Son to die for our sake.

To prove this point, God tells Jeremiah to remind them about Shiloh.  Shiloh was the place where the Ark of the Covenant rested before it was captured by the Philistines and eventually brought to Jerusalem.  It is where Eli – the priest with the horrible two sons who also trained Samuel – had his place of worship.  Because of the unfaithfulness and hypocrisy of Shiloh, God abandoned Shiloh and took the Ark of the Covenant elsewhere.  That is the point that God asks Jeremiah to drive home.  If we think that cheap grace is going to cut it, God will take His presence and move along.  How dare we ask God to work in our midst when we are not willing to recognize the hypocrisy in our life and repent of it?

God Makes a Hard Request

Then God turns to Jeremiah and says, “Stop praying for them.”  From a leadership perspective, this is the death blow.  This is the moment where the heartbeat of hope stops beating in Jeremiah.  To make an analogy to David’s life, this is the moment when David finds out that the baby born to Bathsheba has finally died.  When God asks us to stop praying for something, it is over.

God has asked for obedient hearts.  God has asked for followers who repent and rend their hearts.  God doesn’t want people who go through the motions.  He doesn’t want some Faberge Egg that is absolutely gorgeous on the outside but completely devoid of anything true on the inside.  God wants people who are going to wrestle with their imperfections and struggle with their inconsistencies.  He wants obedience and repentance, not perfection.

I cannot tell you how hard it is to hear God say, “Stop praying for them.”  As a spiritual leader, you truly grow to love those whom you are called to serve.  You love the ones who are repentant towards God and you love the stubborn ones who are blindly wrapped up in their sin.  You love them all.  When God says, “Stop praying for them, stop crying out for them, stop interceding for them” it breaks your heart.  I can only imagine what Jeremiah felt as he obeyed his Lord and cut his hair, signifying that the time for mourning is both present and past.  I wonder what Jeremiah’s lamentation – literally, funeral dirge in the Hebrew – sounded like. 

God’s decision has been made.  The people will be brought under judgment.

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