JEREMIAH 7:16-28
- 16
The Lord said, “Jeremiah, do not pray for these people. Do not cry or
pray on their behalf; do not plead with me for I will not listen to
you. 17Don't you see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in
the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather firewood, the men
build fires, and the women mix dough to bake cakes for the goddess they
call the Queen of Heaven. They also pour out wine-offerings to other
gods, in order to hurt me. 19 But am I really the one they are
hurting? No, they are hurting themselves and bringing shame on
themselves. 20 And so I, the Sovereign Lord, will pour out my fierce
anger on this Temple. I will pour it out on people and animals alike
and even on the trees and the crops. My anger will be like a fire that
no-one can put out.”
- 21 “My people, some sacrifices you burn
completely on the alter, and some you are permitted to eat. But I, the
Lord, say is that you might as well eat them all. 22 I gave your
ancestors no commands about burnt-offerings or any other kinds of
sacrifices, when I bought them out of Egypt. 23 But I did command them
to obey me, so that I would be their God and they would be my people.
And I told them to live as I had commanded them, so that things would
go well for them. 24 But they did not obey or pay any attention.
Instead they did whatever their stubborn and evil hearts told them to
do and they became worse instead of better. 25 From the day that your
ancestors came out of Egypt until this very day, I have kept on sending
my servants, the prophets, to you. 26 Yet no one listened or paid any
attention. Instead, you became more stubborn and rebellious than your
ancestors.”
- 27 “So, Jeremiah, you will speak all these words to
my people, but they will not listen to you; you will call them but they
will not answer. 28You will tell them that their nation does not obey
me, the Lord their God, or learn from their punishment. Faithfulness is
dead. No longer is it even talked about.
Good News Bible
WHAT IS THE MESSAGE FOR US?
Clearly
the time is upon us when God will substitute individual Christian’s
names for Jeremiah. It is our duty to pray for our nation but the time
is coming when God will be saying to us, just as He said to Jeremiah,
that enough is enough and the nation, as a whole, is not to be prayed
for anymore. Nor will we be allowed to intercede on behalf of
individuals or the nation. It doesn’t take too much insight to be able
to see that the world is currently heading down a lawless and Godless
path, which can only bring destruction.
Sadly verse 18 is very applicable today.
- 18
The children gather firewood, the men build fires, and the women mix
dough to bake cakes for the goddess they call the Queen of Heaven.
They also pour out wine-offerings to other gods, in order to hurt me.
Who
does it refer to? I truly believe that it refers to the false religion
practised by people who inhabit much of the church in the world. These
people practice a religion that is not dissimilar to Christianity but
does not have Christ as its centre and its lifeblood. They practice a
religion that is best described as Churchianity. Sadly the world sees
Christianity and Churchianity as one and the same because satan has so
cleverly created churchianity to look like Christianity that ordinary
people cannot tell the difference. As Isaiah so rightly said:
- The
Lord said “These people claim to worship me, but their words are
meaningless, and their hearts are somewhere else. Their religion is
nothing but human rules and traditions, which they have simply
memorised.” Isaiah 29: 13
Can we really blame people?
Yes and no! Yes: because they do have God’s Word and should be
listening to what it says. No: because they have been so brain-washed
by the false teachings so rife in our churches today that unless they
are challenged to see what God is really saying, they firmly believe in
their hearts that what they have been taught is the truth and nothing
less. People within the churches of today have no concept,
understanding nor acceptance of the power of Christ and the Truth of
His Word.
The ‘no’ answer is a sad reflection on those who
would call themselves Christians. The blame for the failure to correct
these false teachings rests fair and square on our shoulders and we
cannot say that somebody else is responsible (unless, of course, if we
really aren’t Christians at all but only churchian). When some Church
leader pops their head up and openly denies the truth of the Gospel, do
they chastise that person? Of course not. The response is usually -
“Well they are entitled to their view point.” Thus the truth is
sacrificed in order that the rights of the individual can be protected.
Verse 19, in light of this, becomes all too clear.
- 19 But am I really the one they are hurting? No, they are hurting themselves and bringing shame on themselves.
Whilst
churchians think that they are being really good about their actions
and God will understand, they are in fact adding further fuel to the
fire that will burn them for eternity, as verse 20 goes on to point out.
- 20
And so I, the Sovereign Lord, will pour out my fierce anger on this
Temple. I will pour it out on people and animals alike and even on the
trees and the crops. My anger will be like a fire that no-one can put
out.”
Now the contents of this verse should really shake
us (if what has been said before hasn’t already done so). If we
substitute Church for Temple, in the first instance, we can see that
those who wish to follow the path of churchianity will only face God’s
anger. But this verse goes even further: it offers no exceptions -
people, animals, trees and crops. What the passage tends to imply is
that the people, and all they hold dear, will be destroyed by the fire
of God’s anger.
If we look now at verses 24 to 26 we can summarise these things in two ways.
- 24
But they did not obey or pay any attention. Instead they did whatever
their stubborn and evil hearts told them to do and they became worse
instead of better. 25 From the day that your ancestors came out of
Egypt until this very day, I have kept on sending my servants, the
prophets, to you. 26 Yet no one listened or paid any attention.
Instead, you became more stubborn and rebellious than your ancestors.”
In
the first part it covers the aspect of just how churchianity has taken
God’s Word and twisted it to allow these broader and false
interpretations of what His instructions actually say. It is so very
easy to misquote scriptures by taking them out of context. For an
extreme example, let’s take Numbers 31:17 totally out of context. The
verse is very clear in its instructions.
- So now kill every boy and kill every woman who has had sexual intercourse. Numbers 31:17
Clearly
the Bible’s instructions to us is to kill every boy and to kill every
woman who is not a virgin. You may well say, how ridiculous, but there
it is in black and white. I recall a student I was at school with who
used God’s word as a most powerful tool to convince people that
Christianity was wrong. I have never ever met another person who could
quote scripture like he could but it was all for satanic use. Now
whilst false teachings may not go to this extreme (though some sects
are known to be so extreme), it shouldn’t be very hard to see that if
we don’t look at the overall picture, we can be painted a “Biblical
picture” that is not truth. Sadly this is something that is too
frequently happening and is usually accepted without question. We must
read God’s word regularly and totally in a way that allows it to be a
Living Word, making sure that we allow the Holy Spirit to speak
directly to us through God’s Word and not through the way someone else
would have it speak to us. When we allow God’s Word its freedom it will
meet our every need. If we restrict it then its is just another book
that contains some nice things.
Events of recent times really
show how sad the world has become. We see a great tragedy occur and we
stand and condemn the action and then, hypocritically, say that we
should retaliate with further terrorism (that is what George Bush was
really proposing back in 2001 after that terrible tragedy in New York).
The Bible is very clear about one thing
Vengeance is mine, says the Lord Romans 12:19.
Although there are those who believe the President of the USA is a god,
he is NOT God and therefore acts of retribution only further the
lawlessness of our society, the very reason this act was perpetrated in
the first place.
Verses 24 to 26 go on to describe what really
happened despite God’s commands to the contrary and, such commands
coupled with such great promises of reward. You would wonder how
people could be so stupid as to sacrifice such great rewards for a
little bit of disobedient pleasure, but a close look at our society
within the world clearly shows the very strong evidence of this
disobedience to God’s clear commands.
The burden of
responsibility is clearly laid on the shoulders of true Christians. It
is our duty to tell people they are wrong. This, of course, will not go
over real well, particularly in our “politically correct” society
where we must adhere to the rules of men rather than the rules of God.
In a society where the lawbreaker is guaranteed more protection than
the victim, how can we expect that people will want to listen to the
truth. The old saying the truth hurts has been shielded from people in
our society because if you tell the truth and another person doesn’t
like that truth, then they have the right to sue you. Truth no longer
matters and may well be dead in our society.
Many of us think
that if we face these trials, we will be the only ones and God really
won’t understand how we feel. Let’s take a look at what God had to say
to Jeremiah.
- 27 “So,
Jeremiah, you will speak all these words to my people, but they will
not listen to you; you will call them but they will not answer. 28You
will tell them that their nation does not obey me, the Lord their God,
or learn from their punishment. Faithfulness is dead. No longer is it
even talked about.
- Clearly this passage tells
us that God does know exactly what will happen and how people will
react when they are told the truth.
I remember reading a very
interesting book when I was at school and the essence of that book was
the re-writing of the Gospel story with a setting in the 1960's. The
author concluded, and I now believe quite rightly, that it was the
church of its day, in particular church leaders, who would have again
sent Christ to his death. Nothing changes. Where does the greatest
criticism of Christ’s truth generally come from - it comes from church
leaders whom you would think would know better.
BUT WHERE DO I FIT IN?
Clearly,
God’s elect are starting to be called to identify themselves and if we
look carefully at scripture we will realise that the price for being
chosen by God will be high. Look at the prophesies of the end time
throughout the New Testament and you will see that it promises a really
tough time for those who will make their stand for Christ.
I,
personally, have been told that death is the resulting option for my
faith. This was revealed to me some 40 years ago. I could choose which
path I walked down, but if I chose God, the path would be very rough
and would ultimately lead to my death. It took me many weeks to come to
grips with that and many a false prophet has tried to tell me since
that such a prophecy could not be from God because God looks after his
chosen people. That He does, but it is a promise for the afterlife and
not necessarily for this one.
My road of faith has been a
rough one: I don’t say I haven’t had any blessings along the way for
that would be clearly a lie, but the choices I have had to make have
often left me hurt, sometimes badly, and that has been reinforced in
recent years. But I have found a great deal of strength in the life of
St Paul and those famous words from Phillipians
- All
I want to know is Christ and to experience the power of His
resurrection, to share in His suffering and to become like Him in His
death, in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life.
Phillipians 3:10-11
You may be thinking, “How could
God be a God of love and yet take such a hard line?” I suggest that a
look through Biblical history will show that God clearly gives us
plenty of chances to change our ways but if we continue to ignore His
message then His promise has always been to punish those who persist in
disobeying Him. Its far from being a new message. In fact, in human
terms, God is far too tolerant. If we were to allow such tolerance in
our society it would be ten times as bad as it is these days and we
would be the first ones to complain, but when it comes to God, then the
attitude of “Oh it’ll be all right - God will forgive” comes to the
forefront and we just go on ignoring His message. The time is rapidly
coming when this will no longer be the case.
In conclusion, let
me just say this. Take a very close look at where you walk in the way
of faith. Follow only what is written in God’s word and cross check
most church teaching. It is a sad state of affairs that most churches
are not in line with God’s Word but, in fact, have followed thee path
that Judaism had taken by the time of Christ and received His
condemnation.
Be sure you do not stand condemned when judgement comes.
