2002-01-01
Good Morning Fellow Believers,
We not only share faith in the one and true God, but we also share our participation in the solemn, binding agreements that are our part of the Covenant of Grace. As such, we are brought together to help each other live up to those agreements. Amazingly, the Lord never needs help or to be reminded as we do about keeping up His end of the Covenant of Grace. Understanding His perfection and that of His Son is as difficult for us as explaining what infinity or energy actually are. Yet, we must do our best, because the alternative is totally unacceptable. There are a number of Scriptures that remain as lessons to us about how serious a commitment this needs to be. Today, we will look at JER 22: 1-9 in an effort to better understand God’s sovereignty and our responsibility to respond to it.
Jeremiah was writing at a time when Judah was about to be taken captive, because of her long history of disobedience to God and ignoring of God’s warnings about this through the prophets. His ministry extended from 627-582 BC. Toward the end of his life, Jeremiah was actually taken captive himself. JER 22: 1-5, “The Lord told me to go to the palace of the king of Judah, the descendant of David, and there tell the king, his officials, and the people of Jerusalem to list to what the Lord said: ‘I, the Lord, command you to do what is just and right. Protect the person who is being cheated from the one who is cheating him. Do not mistreat or oppress aliens, orphans, or widows; and do not kill innocent people in this holy place. If you really do as I have commanded, then David’s descendants will continue to be kings. And they, together with their officials and their people, will continue to pass through the gates of this palace in chariots and on horses. But if you do not obey my commands, then I swear to you that this palace will fall into ruins. I, the Lord, have spoken.’” There are a few elements that are obvious in this passage and some that are not. The obvious ones are the commands from God to act with righteousness and justice. Things like cheating, oppression of aliens, orphans, and widows, and murdering innocent people (particularly in the Temple) are certainly acts of disobedience against God. Ezekiel, in EZK 8: 7-12, relates how God showed him secret rooms in the very walls of the Temple in Jerusalem in which the priests practiced idolatry and left drawings of snakes and other unclean things behind as proof.
What isn’t obvious is the long-term implications of allowing these practices to go on unchecked. What illuminates the bind that mankind’s sinfulness has brought upon God by it can be seen in JER 22: 4. This is the verse that refers to “if you do what I have commanded, then David’s descendants will continue to be kings…” God’s plan of salvation was at stake, and He knew that. His only choice was to take punitive action if the disobedience of the Israelites of Jeremiah’s time continued. It doesn’t hurt to think about how God must have felt either. Since we were created in His image [GN 1: 26], it is not a inappropriate to assume that God has emotions as we do. We certainly know He is capable of intense and consistent love. He is also capable of great wrath and all the other emotions in between. No Being wants to see what He created fail. Yet this Potter was watching His plan for a gorgeous, symmetrical water jug become something ugly and useless that is about to fly off the spinning potter’s wheel to land in a heap on the floor. Frustration had to have been God’s feeling coupled with a desire to make things right again. Let me take my metaphor one step further. If the water jug was to carry water that brings life, then this is one project God wanted to get right! He alone at that time knew that Jesus Christ would come out of the line of David-a pressing reason to correct the problem of Jewish disobedience toward Him.
JER 22: 6-9, “To Me, Judah’s royal palace is as beautiful as the land of Gilead and as the Lebanon Mountains; but I will make it a desolate place where no one lives. I am sending men to destroy it. They will all bring their axes, but down its beautiful cedar pillar, and throw them into the fire. Afterward many foreigners will pass by and ask one another why I, the Lord, have done such a thing to this great city. Then they will answer that it is because you have abandoned your covenant with Me, your God, and have worshipped and served other gods.” God didn’t get his wish here. God courageously yielded up a controlled portion of His power to mankind, so they could have the free agency necessary to demonstrate whether they would love or reject Him. Because of this, God risks having to deal with rejection. That is what was happening here. Because Christ’s very lineage is at stake, God’s risk is great. How many of us have ever thought about God taking risks for us? This is not the only time He did. We need to examine our lives to see if God is taking a risk for us and how well we are living up to our part of the Covenant of Grace we are in with Him.
PRAYER: O Lord, we come before You striving to better understand our responsibilities toward You and the Covenant of Grace. All too often, we think only about our part and the consequences to us. That is something that makes us like horses with blinders. If we are not only to be good servants for You but also to be Your friends, then we must consider the consequences of our misbehavior on both You and the others around us too. We stand before You today to dedicate ourselves to examining our lives, not to produce guilt or human judgment, but instead, to uncover any sin no matter how subtle and to get rid of it from our lives. While our sins may not be the same as those of the Jews in Jeremiah’s time, they are no less serious. If not revealed and stopped, the consequences to us can even be more serious than the Babylonian captivity was. That is because more has been revealed to us, including the great sacrifice You made of Your Son on the cross for us. We have less excuse for continuing to sin just as the unbelieving towns of Chorazin and Bethsaida did than Tyre and Sidon before them [MT 11: 20-24]. We take comfort in knowing that Your love for us is great enough that we can be forgiven if we repent from those sins and use the righteousness You gave us when we were justified to establish lives “in Christ” that will please You. As You richly deserve, we bow before You in humility to offer You our worship, adoration, loyalty, trust, obedience, glory, honor, praise, and thanks. In Christ’s holy name, amen.
Tomorrow, the issues of holiness, justice, and the sacraments will be my topic, as God leads. God reveals the mistakes of unfaithful people and their consequences to us, not to make us feel depressed. Instead, He wants us to know the blessings which contrast so acutely with these consequences that come from keeping up our part of the Covenant of Grace. Any parent raising his child to become a responsible adult wants the child to understand his choices, learn to make righteous decisions, and have the courage to act on them even if it isn’t the popular thing to do. God is no different. Out of His great love for His children (us), He gives us the chance to make informed and carefully considered decisions that are in keeping with His plan for us. Another way of saying that is that our love for Him can be measured by how willing we are to live by His teachings. We can take pleasure in knowing that as hard as it may be to trust and obey God at times, He will always bless us if we do. Peter and I also send our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn