February 6, Jeremiah 5
”An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?" - Jeremiah 5:30-31
Our words and actions reveal what is in our heart. Jesus himself said that our words are an overflow of the content of our hearts, and that sinful actions come from a sinful heart. Jeremiah 5 reveals the sinful hearts of the fallen nation of Israel. But the chapter also teaches us about the great heart of God.
Idolatry and its associated vices had engulfed the nation of Judah in Jeremiah's day. They still swore by the name of God, but they lived without regard for God. They disobeyed his plain commands and ignored his stern warnings. From the lowest to the highest people, they had cast off God's law that taught them what was right and restrained them from evil that would destroy them. They had repaid God's favor and blessings by turning away from the Lord and embracing the pagan neighbors' idols. They forsook God and embraced injustice and wickedness. Their leaders led them in rebellion against their Maker, and the people loved to do the wrong the false prophets and priests set before them. The people God called to be his holy ones became wholly corrupt.
If we marvel at the apostasy of Israel, let's see an even greater wonder in what this chapter teaches us about the great heart of God. How willing the good Lord is to extend mercy to the undeserving! Many centuries before, he agreed to Abraham's negotiated plea to spare Sodom if a certain number of righteous people could be found there. The final minimum was ten, but not even that many righteous people were left in that wicked city. God did destroy Sodom and the other wicked cities of the plain, but he mercifully spared Lot and his family. In Jeremiah 5, God challenged Jeremiah to find not ten, but only one person who did justice and loved truth. Jeremiah found none. God did not need Jeremiah to know it was true, but Jeremiah needed to see that the people fully deserved the judgment that was coming to destroy them.
This chapter reminds us that God is merciful, but he is also perfectly just. Eventually pleas turn to threats, and threats at last are carried out in righteous wrath against unrepentant sinners. They could have turned back to God when they heard Jeremiah's preaching. But the word that could have saved them became the fire that consumed them.
God did not forget his promises to Abraham. Even at this late date and sinful state of the patriarch's descendants, God renewed his promise to keep a remnant alive through which he would fulfill all that he had sworn to Abraham.
Let's think at last about God's assessment of Israel's spiritual condition and the question he asked the rebels at the end of the chapter. He called the situation "an appalling and horrible thing." Not only were they deeply entrenched in their sin, the prophets who should have been warning the people spoke lies instead of truth.
The priests who should have been the holy
mediators and intercessions for the people
before God had abandoned the Lord's guidance
to do as they pleased. Instead of crying out in
righteous indignation against these false and
fallen leaders, the people loved to have it so.
But God asked them a question that should
have awakened their sleeping consciences and
brought them to repentance: "But what will you
do when the end comes?” The God who chose
them to be his special people and loved them
knew the end from the beginning. So he
pleaded with them, was patient with them,
warned them and disciplined them. But they
would not turn back from their sins. So he asked
them what they would do when the end came.
When their idols proved worthless and they had
defiled and debauched themselves, what would
they do then? When God's patience ran out and
they faced destruction of their land and loss of
their freedom, what would they do?
One of Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly
Successful People is, "Begin with the end in
mind." Dear friend, God's question to
Jeremiah's ungodly generation is a good one for
us to consider as well. What will you and I do
when the end comes? When we find that sin
never blesses or satisfies, what will we do?
When we reap the bitter harvest of
consequences that came from the seeds we
sowed by disobeying God, what will we do?
When our time to die comes and we have
squandered opportunities to do good and
indulged our desires instead of living a godly
life, what will we do? And when we face
judgment and give account of ourselves to God,
what will we do when whatever we thought we
had gained by doing wrong costs us our soul?
This somber question and the answers it implies
should make us run from sin and run to God
long before the end comes.
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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