February 4, Jeremiah 3
”Have you not just now called to me, ‘My father, you are the friend of my youth—will he be angry forever, will he be indignant to the end?’ Behold, you have spoken, but you have done all the evil that you could.” - Jeremiah 3:4-5
He was angry and embarrassed. His voice grew louder and his face grew redder by the minute. She sat, small, still and silent. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked down, shrinking into herself. Her hands trembled as they lay folded on her lap. As I looked across my desk at the troubled couple, he suddenly roared, “I…love… you!” She responded in an empty whisper, “You say you do, but you don’t treat me like you do.” The man had ruined their marriage with his angry, violent outbursts. If he had been willing to change, their marriage could have been saved. But it ended in divorce.
The language of Jeremiah 6 reminds us of the story of the prophet Hosea and his adulterous wife Gomer. God described his covenant relationship with Israel as a marriage. Israel’s idolatry and their stubborn refusal to repent had broken their marriage to the Lord, despite God’s patience, warnings and willingness to forgive them. They talked about God being their father and expressed dismay at his anger against them. But their actions disproved their professions of being God’s children as they continued to do all the evil they could.
Jeremiah lamented the fact that God put away Israel because of their serial and unrepentant idolatry. God showed them how idolatry ruins people who practice it, but they paid no attention. Judah watched as their kinsmen to the north went away into captivity. But Judah didn’t learn from Israel’s sad story. The people of the Southern Kingdom knew better, but did worse than the Northern Kingdom had done. They refused to confess their sin and forsake their idols and return to God. They were shameless in their guilt, and obstinate in their hearts and wills. They still talked about God being their father and wondered how long he would stay angry with them. But they did not confess and repent, although God gave them ample time in his patience to do so. Their disobedience doomed them to captivity, although God would save a remnant of the nation out of that captivity to keep the Messianic promises alive.
God wanted to restore these people to himself. He loved them and wanted to forgive them and bless them. Their sins were great, but God’s love and grace were greater. God wants his wayward children to repent and come home. But that repentance has to be real, from the whole heart, not just with words.
I thought of some questions I need to answer honestly as I meditated on this chapter. I want to share them with you and ask you to answer them for yourself. Do my words to and about God match my behavior? Do I really, truly see the folly of stubborn persistence in sinful disobedience? Or have I lost my sense of shame? When I repent, is it with genuine, heart-level sorrow for sin and firm resolve to turn back to God? Can I, will I learn from the tragic examples of Israel and Judah? Or must I learn from bitter personal experience the hard lessons I could have learned from what God told me about them?
This is a sad chapter, not because God was unwilling to forgive, but because the Israelites refused to repent and return to him. But it is also an encouraging chapter. Does it give you hope to know that, whatever you’ve done to disobey God, he loves you still and invites you to come back to him?
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—February 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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