Yesterday we asked the question: Is our relationship with God conditional or unconditional? Does our standing with the Lord depend on our faithfulness to the Lord, or on the Lord’s faithfulness to us?
Christians often say things like: my relationship with the Lord depends on Christ’s faithfulness, not my faithfulness. And as you know, that has opened the door to all kinds of excuses for sin, after all, it’s all up to Jesus. On the other hand, if my relationship with the Lord depends upon my faithfulness, am I not in danger of legalism, or works righteousness? Or in NT language, do I trust Christ’s work for my salvation or do I work out my own salvation with fear and trembling? And the answer is yes.
We make a mistake in trying to live our lives according to what the Bible says about the decree of God…that is, what God decided before time. What we fail to understand is that God has seen fit to use “means” in time, to accomplish what He decided before time. So, your Spirit led life of faithfulness, obedience which includes repentance and amending your sinful ways, as Jeremiah says, is the means God chose to fulfill his desire to bring you to eternity. Did God decide before time? Yes. And what He decided was that your spirit-led life of obedience would be what carries you to glory. And if this is still confusing let me put it this way: Stop worrying about the theology of what was in the mind of God before He created, and devote yourself to living for and unto the Lord, today…now.
It is said of Jesus that he delighted to do the will of the Father. Do that! And if you do that…then all that God has promised is yours. But if you do not do that, then all that God has promised is not yours. That might mess up your theological categories, but it is without question what the Bible says. You want God’s presence, pleasure and peace? Then be faithful. And if you are not faithful, then why would you expect to have God’s favor?
Now look at verse 4: Do not trust in these deceptive words. When danger is approaching, or the unknown seems to loom, you want a place of shelter…you want a place that is safe. In our text Babylon is looming, they are gaining strength and no nation is able to stand against them. Who or what will be the confidence of God’s people? Jeremiah hears them saying over and over again, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” And he says, “You are trusting a deception.”
But wait a minute Jeremiah, wasn’t the temple supposed to be a refuge? Wasn’t this the Lord’s house, dedicated to Him and His glory? Its origins went back to David, it is the city, the temple that bore the name of Yahweh! About 100 years before this, God said through Isaiah at the Assyrian threat, “I will defend this city and save it, for my sake and for the sake of my servant David”! And yet, for all their chanting, they were deceived into a false security. But remember, the reason it is false is not because the temple was no longer the Lord’s house, but because their behavior separated them from the Lord.
And Jeremiah explains that in verses 8-11. Their words were worthless and deceptive because the lives of the people had become a daily round of breaking the commandments of God. He lists the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth commandment. This is how they lived for 6 days and then went to church on the 7th and thought everything was fine. When worship is divorced from life…when we speak to the Lord, right and true words, but live wrong and untrue lives, we have no reason to hope in God’s protection, for He is not our refuge, but our judge.
He might be gracious and warn us…or put our backs against the wall so that we finally see what we have not been willing to see. If he does this for you…no matter how much it hurts…you need to be thankful and in your humiliation give yourself to Him as you never have. He is showing you kindness, and this might be His last warning. Jeremiah says they had turned the temple into a den of robbers. “This scandalous comparison likens the temple to the hideout where robbers would flee after committing their crimes, a place where they would be safe and unseen by the authorities.” (Wright, pg. 112)
Look what God says in verse 11, “Hey, you…I have been watching…I have seen…Who do you think you are fooling??? Have you ever been in that place where you are looking back at your own sin, your own life where you did not deal with yourself in truth and thought, “What in the world was I thinking?” Did I really think that God didn’t know? That He didn’t see? Haven’t you been amazed, dumbfounded at your own blindness? We must be very careful in reading this text so that we do not sit in self-righteous judgment on these folks…have we not all done the same?
You of course remember that Jesus quoted this verse when he cleansed the temple. But Jesus wasn’t just saying that he didn’t like the buying and selling that was going on, after all many of the people coming to worship had to purchase animals for sacrifice…even the law of Moses said that if you had a long journey you could buy the animal when you arrived at the temple. So, the sellers could easily have argued that they were providing a necessary liturgical function.
Jesus was not objecting to selling and buying, it was the fact that the entire enterprise was linked to oppressing the poor and lining one’s own pockets to exploit the poor and even the exploitation of worship itself. The warning for us is that we must look very hard at ourselves: Is our security a deception? Are we comfortable when we shouldn’t be? Do we suppose that the Lord is pleased with us because we thinkall the right things?
Today is a dangerous day for slogans and security blankets but these things are dangerous self-deceptions when they are divorced from living obedience. Even true words, “trust the Lord”, “Wait upon Yahweh”, “God is in control”, even true words are false, when our lives are not seeking holiness. That is the point. Is our security in what we think about Jesus or is our security IN Jesus? And if it is IN Jesus, is that proved by the way we live our lives? Is it proved in our affections, our desires, the way we spend our time, the words we speak, and the love that is extended to others?
To drive this point home, Jeremiah says, you best remember your history. Look in verse 12, God says, remember Shiloh? This would have stunned them. They knew Shiloh very well. It was a few miles north in what had been the northern kingdom, but now was under Assyrian rule. It had once been the Lord’s place, a place where the Lord, “…first made a dwelling for My name.” The ark of the covenant had remained there and it had been a sanctuary for the tribes of Israel. The prophet Samuel grew up there! Now? Abandoned. Desolate. Empty. Jeremiah says, go to Shiloh…have a look around…do you see the desolation, don’t be deceived, that could be you. And so Christians look at other believers who have shipwrecked their lives and take no care to guard their hearts…be careful…that could be you.
He continues with this history lesson and reminds them about their forefathers who came out of Egypt, saying that all he required of them was that they walk in the way that God set before them. (23) But they would not listen. And not only did they not listen, but instead of God’s way they took a different path…one that Jeremiah’s hearers were taking as well. Look at verse 24. They did not obey and instead, walked in their own counsel.
God gave them counsel but they said, no, I will take counsel from myself…what do I want…what do I think…what do I desire. This is sheer arrogance. To think that you know…to think you don’t need anyone else, the prophets in Jeremiah’s case, the church in your case and mine…Oh how many of us are tempted to keep our own counsel! To shut our doors and to think we don’t need anyone speaking into our lives. As though we know! Why do you think you know?
Jeremiah continues to expand on this: they walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their own hearts and went backwards, not forwards. Listen to this commentator: When any culture, or any generation of God’s people, turns brazenly deaf ears and dumb mouths to all God’s appeals and warnings, there comes a point when all reasoned discipline and truth are lost and nothing remains but the deathly implosion of judgment.
Are we not dangerously close to this? Our culture has most definitely reached a point of no return, there is nothing left but for God to bring his wrath. No one listens or cares to listen to what God says. Truth is nowhere to be found and to even say there is a truth to be believed is met with violent reaction. But what about the church? What about you and me? I certainly don’t want anyone to think that the Lord is not and will not be victorious, for certainly He is and He will be.
But again, how? How does this victory come? It comes through the church, through Christians, through you and me and our brothers and sisters, being faithful, not only in our worship, but in our living!
As we go about our lives, let’s ask the Lord to give us eyes to see…to see and make connections between every aspect of our days and the faithfulness we are called to live, IN each of those areas. That is where the victory is manifest in your life, in my life, in your marriage and mine, in your family and my family, in our church and other faithful churches. It might sound small, but it’s not because all these little victories, all these pieces of living faith, THEY are all connected…Connected to the victory of Jesus and our life in the heavens and the new earth.
Prayer: Father, I pray that You not give me over to my own heart. I pray that You would keep me from arrogance and from thinking that I need no one or that I have all the answers in my own mind and heart. Keep me from speaking words that later need to be repented of because I do not live what I so boldly profess. May my words be true and my behavior, faithful and holy. Through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Song: Canon in D