2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
It is not my wish to sound like a “goody-goody,” but I must say that I feel privileged to be able to write about the Lord Who loves us all and to share it with you. He never ceases to amaze me with how much there is to be said about Him. Having said that, He leads me to continue our examination of passages from the book of Jeremiah which give us a glimpse into the long standing problem of human sinfulness and reveal Him as our Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord our Righteousness. With all of the discussion going on about the financial activities of former president Clinton and his wife, I am once again reminded of how timely Scriptures written by Jeremiah between 627-582 BC still remain. You will remember that Jeremiah was commanded by God to give an unpopular message about living righteously to an ever-increasingly sinful nation. JER 6: 13-14 is an example. “Everyone great and small tries to make money dishonestly; even prophets and priests cheat the people. They act as if my people’s wounds were only scratches, ‘All is well,’ they say when all is not well.” A close friend of mine was chatting with me on the phone when she asked, “did you see that ad for two CD’s with worship and praise music on TV?” I told her that I had and that I was tempted to call the number given and order them. She warned me not to do this. It turned out that she had actually done that only to find out that there was small print barely visible in this ad that when you do, you are actually signing up for a series of CD’s to come in the mail every month at top prices. Her husband had to make call after call in an effort to cancel this order over several days before he was finally successful.
Jehovah Tsidkenu made what initially seemed a rather curious command to Jeremiah in JER 13: 1-5. He asked the prophet to purchase some linen shorts and then told him to put them on but not to put them in water. Anyone who has ever worked with linen in modern times knows that it must be dry cleaned. Then, the Lord told Jeremiah to hide the shorts in a hole in the rocks near the Eurphrates River (in modern Iraq). Later in (6-7), Jehovah Tsidkenu commanded Jeremiah to go back to that place where the shorts had been hidden and retrieve them. They had fit Jeremiah perfectly before he had hidden them. Now, they had shrunk and were too small for him. JER 13: 8-11, “Then the Lord spoke to me again. He said, ‘This is how I will destroy the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. These evil people have refused to obey me. They have been stubborn wicked as ever, and have worshipped and served other gods. So then, they will become like these shorts that are no longer any good. Just as shorts fit tightly around the waist, so I intended all the people of Israel and Judah to hold tightly to Me. I did this so that they would bring praise and honor to My name; but they would not obey Me.” Isn’t “holding tightly to Me” the very same wish that God has for us today? We must ask ourselves: Are we allowing our faith to shrink as that of the Jews of Jeremiah’s time did? We all know that toward the end of Jeremiah’s life, God did allow the Babylonians to take the Jews captive, including Jeremiah himself, in response to their refusal to heed His warnings through this prophet and others before him. Jehovah Tsidkenu simply had no other choice if He was ever to teach His unruly children about their need for righteousness in their lives.
Even more than Jeremiah’s spoken messages was carried out by Jehovah Tsidkenu in an effort to warn the people of their need to repent and reform their lifestyle. JER 14 speaks of a drought that God sent them. This left the people discouraged and confused. JER 14: 7-9 reveals this, “My people cry out to Me, ‘Even though our sins accuse us, help us, Lord, as you have promised. We have turned away from You many times; we have sinned against You. You are Israel’s only hope; You are the One Who saves us from disaster. Why are You like a stranger in our land, like a traveler Who stays for only one night? Why are You like a man taken by surprise, like a soldier powerless to help? Surely, Lord, You are with us! We are Your people; do not abandon us.’” This is a very revealing passage, because we must remember that God is omniscient, all-knowing. He knows the content of our hearts at all times. We may justifiably assume that He knew that these people had no plan to repent from their sin, despite their desperate pleas to God. It reminds me of the people who would go to confess, get absolution, and turn right around to commit the same sin again. If we stop and think about it, God has no choice but to punish people who are in this mind-set. If He didn’t, we would have no way to know that He is a righteous God. JER 14: 10-11, reveal God’s righteous wrath building, “The Lord says about these people, ‘They love to run away from Me and they will not control themselves. So I am not pleased with them. I will remember the wrongs they have done and punish them because of their sins.’ The Lord said to me [Jeremiah], ‘Do not ask Me to help these people.’”
The last thing we who believe would ever want is for God to be boxed into the kind of corner He was with the pre-exilic Jews. Our Lord wants nothing more than to love us, and I’m sure it pains Him to see people stubborn and stiff-necked in their unwillingness to turn from sin. These messages which reveal our Lord as Jehovah Tsidkenu should make us examine our own lives individually and our lives in communities, so that we will not have the attitudes and engage in the actions that force our righteous God to bring us to punishment or even allow us to die spiritually.
PRAYER: O Lord, we stand before You today in humility to carefully examine our lives both as individuals and in communities. It is our sincerest hope that we will use the discernment that You give us through the Scriptures and prayer to discover any sin that still remains in them. It is our intention to expunge that sin, openly confessing it to You. We acknowledge that this is what You want us to do and stand ready to obey You. The paths You take us on are not often easy or convenient for us. But You have given us the lessons like those in Jeremiah’s writing, not to make us miserable, but because Your love for us is so profound. When Christ died on the cross, You made the greatest sacrifice ever known, that of Your only and beloved Son, so that we could have the opportunity for salvation. That was followed by giving us the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that we could understand Your perspective on our lives and Your will for them. We know that we are living in an evil world and that You have promised us a real home in heaven with You if we will persist in courage of faith. We may look at the challenges of our lives as opportunities for forward motion in our sanctification, because You have given us the chance to work through them and better ourselves. For that love, compassion, patience, and so much more, we humbly offer You our adoration, worship, loyalty, trust, obedience, glory, honor, praise, and thanksgiving. We ask only that You be the Lord of our lives forever. In Christ’s name, amen.
The path that Jehovah Tsidkenu is taking us through in Jeremiah’s writing is one that can only be beneficial. I personally feel that I am being blessed by these lessons which are so timely today as they were when they were first written down. The patience that God shows with us becomes even more apparent which we realize how many times and in how many contexts over human history that He has taken the time to repeat them. What a great demonstration of His love that is! Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn