Jeremiah 4
When there is a great disaster coming, you want some public system of warning so that everyone will know and take appropriate action as quickly as possible. In our day, we have an emergency broadcasting system in place so that as many people as possible will know when some horrific event has occured. Since we live fairly near a nuclear power plant, we receive a calendar every year that contains emergency instructions about what to do in the case of a nuclear accident. Safety personnel throughout our nation have spent much time and money to come up with response plans in the event of a terrorist attack.
If we step back in time, we do not have to go back very many years before no such automated systems were in place. For centuries upon centuries, people relied on the sound that could be produced by a simple trumpet in order to give the alarm to a village concerning some immediate threat. There is a sense in which the prophets of God were sounding an alarm when they brought the truth of God to
What was the danger that they were warning against? They were soon to have unfriendly visitors from the north. A lion, a destroyer of nations, would decimate their cities, slaughtering many people and leaving them in ruins. Was this just a random occurrence, or something merely from the will of men and nations? No this was from the hand of God. The Lord says that He is the one bringing disaster from the north. This is from the fierce anger of the Lord. The Lord, who can bring an enemy before we are able to respond at all, is here sounding the alarm through His prophet.
There is a sense in which we must hasten to add that it is not God’s highest and best will to destroy His people and to reduce their property to rubble. He would have preferred, in some sense, that they would have listened to His entreaties, responded to His correction, and returned to His love. But they would not. How is it that such disaster is decreed by God against
This disaster would strike all of their leaders. King and officials, priest and prophets – they will all lose their courage when God speaks and acts in judgment upon them. When that day comes, they will know that they are ruined.
With God, there is always hope for His people. Even when the day of destruction will surely come, kings have learned that God may choose to delay His discipline. But as a father announces His intention do discipline His sons, any possibility of a different outcome will depend on the ears of those who hear His clear warning. What if God’s children are foolish? What if His children have no understanding? Even in the most severe acts of fatherly discipline, God always has a plan for grace. Here He says, “The whole land shall be a desolation, yet I will not make a full end.”
The answer for the people of God must come in some real change of heart. They cannot seek false hopes that come from false idols and foreign nations. They must return to God. This is the Lord’s plea to them in the opening verses of the chapter. They must actually return to Him. If they use His name, it must be in a real promise that is consistent with truth, justice, and righteousness. They cannot merely trust in some outward circumcision. They need the circumcision of the heart.
When Christ came as our only hope for true righteousness, He was despised and rejected by men. Yet after He gave His life for us on the cross, and the Spirit was poured upon the apostolic officers of the church, and the word of God was boldly preached by Peter, it was then that the people who once shouted for His death now admitted that they were cut to the heart. It was then that they consented to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. Those who once were trusting in a mark received in the flesh were now cut to the heart, and they truly turned to God.
The call to repentance is still a part of God’s plan for our spiritual reclamation. We who were dead in sin, are called through the preaching of the Word to turn from our sin and to rest upon the One who knew no sin. A genuine work of grace in our hearts will yield changes in our lives. The Lord was not pleased with mere outward ceremonies in the day of Jeremiah, and He is not fooled with such things today. Christ has offered up the perfect sacrifice of His own righteous life to the Father. The nations have heard of His love and have embraced His great mercy. Let us hear with the ears He provides, and let us live a life of grateful repentance.
posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home