As we said a couple of weeks ago, Jeremiah was given the burden of speaking the truth to Israel at a time they would have been surprised to hear what God had to say. From their perspective, they were in a time of renewal: economic, social, political and spiritual.
They thought of themselves as experiencing good times, finally, and turning the country around. Things were looking up and prophets should have been encouraging them – not calling them to judgment. At first they were quizzical and then angry…but Jeremiah does not change in response to the pressure. Powerful and persuasive people were leaning on Jeremiah to stop because he was hampering all the good that was going on. People needed positive messages – not indictments. He was speaking “inconvenient truth” and they would have preferred he move on or go back to being a priest.
He would stand at the door of the church or in the parking lot and say, “Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the Lord..Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place..Do not trust in deceptive words..But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.”
Prophets are more trouble than priests. The priests were on the inside making everyone comfortable while Jeremiah was standing by the doors making everyone uncomfortable. The priests would assure the people that they were safe and Jeremiah would say, “Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury..and follow other gods..and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, ‘We are safe – safe to do all these detestable things?” Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching declares the Lord.”
Here is, for me, the most disturbing message. “Truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips. Cut off your hair and throw it away; take up a lament on the barren heights, for the Lord has a rejected and abandoned this generation that is under his wrath.” We saw that when we studied the book of Daniel and the feast of Belshazzar. While the Persians are digging tunnels under the city the king is hosting a party for his supporters and those dependent on his support. This is an act of rare stupidity. Banners have been hoisted around the room and motivational speakers hired to come and assure the crowd that everything was going just as planned and the best is yet to come. All the while the Persians are tunneling underneath them. They had literally become stupid – incapable of seeing, hearing and understanding. They had become completely insensitive to reality.
In his novel, The House of the Dead, Dostoevsky wrote:
“Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate … the return of human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.”
I think that was a good description of Belshazzar. He had no respect for anyone or anything and had lost his own sensations. That is literally what it means to be dumb or stupid. It means having no sensations. He had gone so far in negligence of wisdom and common decency that the return of human dignity, repentance and regeneration had become almost impossible. As it turns out, he never gets the chance.
We can all do that when we wish to block out a truth that is inconvenient or uncomfortable. We just make our own noise that keeps us from hearing the crumbling of the foundations from beneath us. Is it possible that out of a thousand people at the feast there were not a few who looked at each and said, “I think he’s lost his mind. What are we doing here?”
I’m not sure Belshazzar was as much an evil king as he was unusually ignorant and plain dumb.
That is the same message God has for Judah’s leaders and people years earlier through Jeremiah. A society with no truth is a society whose foundations are being destroyed. “Beware of your friends; do not trust your brothers. For every brother is a deceiver, and every friend a slanderer. Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie, they weary themselves with sinning. You live in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me, declares the Lord.”
So, here in the 16th chapter he tells them that God has withdrawn his blessing even though all the evidence points otherwise. The facts will soon catch up with their fantasy. In 1 Samuel 4 the word Ichabod is used to describe the same situation. That word means “the glory has departed from Israel.” That is what Jeremiah is saying to Israel. The Lord has departed and you are totally unaware of it. You are blind to it.
He then goes on to say there is coming a time when all of Judah will be without the presence of God. What would it be like to live in a world where there is no joy or gladness as well as no mourning, sorrow or remorse? It would be a world devoid of what John Calvin termed the “common grace” of God. It would be a world without basic human goodness or compassion. A world without feeling or remorse or sorrow or pity. A world without conscience and sham.
I have been in a number of conversations with friends who discount some of the great work Matt Damon, Bill Gates, USAID, the Clinton Initiative and others are doing in Africa because they are not specifically Christian and evangelistic. I always take issue with this a bit because of the Reformed doctrine of common grace. Common grace states that God has provided blessings and benefits that are common to everyone at all times and places. These benefits are intended for the whole human race without distinction. “Common grace curbs the destructive power of sin, maintains in a measure the moral order of the universe, thus making an orderly life possible, distributes in varying degrees gifts and talents among men, promotes the development of science and art, and showers untold blessings upon the children of men.” Good things can be done through people and institutions other than those specifically Christian. Just because they are not Christian does not mean they are not good or do not in some way glorify God. So, it is hard for us to imagine what a world would be like without even the common grace of God – a world where sin is unconstrained and there is no love of any kind. It would be hell – and that is what Jeremiah is describing for the people of Israel. No one will mourn or feel sorrow. No one will celebrate or feel any gladness. People will consume each other without any feelings or anything to hold them back.
As well, they will serve other gods with no rest. They will serve with no satisfaction and no fulfillment. They will be slaves not only to other men but to the idols they have created for themselves. You will always be anxious and restless. There will be no deep rest. You will always be on edge and unsettled. You will never be able to trust. You will be caught in a never ending search that will lead nowhere. That is what it is to serve idols. Some of us understand that kind of restlessness and anxiety better than others. I’ve been there. Work does not satisfy. It is demanding. It promises satisfaction and fulfillment but cannot deliver. That is exactly the opposite of what God desires for our lives. He wants us to have genuine rest. In fact, he even describes our relationship with Him as one of rest for our souls. What could be better than that?
Instead, we choose to make good things like work, career, financial success, family, education and accomplishment into bad things. We chase those things until they catch us. Remember a verse from several weeks ago? “They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves”? That is what happens. We give more than we get. In fact, we give everything and get nothing in return. Tim Keller puts it this way “The human heart takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them. If anything in all the world is more fundamental than God to your happiness, to your meaning in life, then that thing has become an idol. You will pursue that thing with an abandon and intensity that should be reserved for God alone.”
In contrast to this, Jeremiah talks in the 17th chapter about the blessing of the Sabbath – genuine rest and trust in God. It is a regular reminder that all of our success and achievement can be set aside. We can let it go and depend on God. It’s hard, isn’t it? The world and its idols want to take away our rest and replace it with worry and anxiety but God alone gives us the rest we were created to enjoy. One author has called it “the act that hands life back to God.” That’s exactly what it is and exactly the opposite of what we experience when we make good things into ultimate things. We take life completely into our own hands and look for ways to control it. We become worthless and empty people over time when God intends us to be full and know what it means to be created in His image. It’s a sorry trade! We worship the idol of self-sufficiency and independence from others.
I have found people on this track can neither give or forgive. They never have enough. They can never turn loose. I’m going to hold on to money because it is part of my identity. I am going to hold on to this resentment or grievance because I don’t know what it would be like to be free of it. It’s become a part of who I am. It defines me. It’s the source of the first temptation in the Garden and the source of virtually every temptation afterwards. “How can you trust God?” How can you be sure He loves you and is not simply tolerating you? I think this is one of two or three basic questions in life and the answer means everything. “Can I trust God and find rest in Him?” The Sabbath is simply a way of saying we trust Him and we can hand our lives back to him.
Jeremiah goes on to describe two lives – those who trust and those who do not. The one who does not trust God is “like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.” Desert plants are not designed to thrive – merely to survive. There are a number of characteristics of desert plants that help us here. First, desert plants do not have leaves. Why not? They cannot afford the loss of moisture. They cannot survive evaporation. We all know people like that. They cannot afford to lose what is most precious to them and keeps them alive. Second, many desert plants form heavy wax coating that conserves their moisture and protects them from insects getting inside. I know people like that. They have built up a heavy coat of protection. Third, instead of leaves they produce thistles and needles to protect them from predators. Fourth, they have extensive root systems because they have very little access to water. However, they can only find enough water to keep them alive but not enough to produce fruit. They are all root and no fruit. In other words, they live a life of scarcity and protection. They cover themselves to survive and compete for what little moisture there is. Not much of a life, is it? Yet, that is what the Lord says life is like when we trust ourselves or others instead of Him. We do not flourish. We only survive. It’s not really living.
Jeremiah compares that to a life that trusts in the Lord and whose confidence is in Him. It is to live a life where you always have access to what you fundamentally need. You don’t need to protect yourself. You can afford to have broad leaves and to produce fruit. You may have hard times but your roots are fed by a constant stream. This is not a life of scarcity. It is a life of openness and blessing. It is not a life of fear but of trust.
Os Guinness has said that wealth is either a blessing, a curse or a test. He is right. Ill-gotten gain is incapable of producing a life God blesses. It is incapable of producing rest and trust. It is incapable of producing fruit. We have talked before about the distinction I make between “wealth” and merely being rich. Rich describes accumulation while wealth is a mark of blessing. I like the way Ecclesiastes 5:19-6:2 puts it: “Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work – this is a gift of God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart. I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on men: God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them, and a stranger enjoys them instead.” This is the difference between wealth and riches. If you can enjoy what God has given you that is wealth. If all it produces is restlessness then it is merely rich. Wealth is a wonderful thing. I have known people who know how to be wealthy because they know how to relax and be grateful for wealth instead of being constantly focused on being rich. Wealth is the ability to enjoy what God has given you in humility. Our friends who loaned us their house last week are people like this. Because they truly enjoy what they have it allowed us to as well. They included us in their enjoyment instead of our being worried we might leave something out of place. They were comfortable with wealth and not focused on being rich. They were not concerned with comparisons.
In closing, these chapters are about two worlds. One is the world of fear and the other of trust. One, the world of deceit and the other truth. One is holding on and the other is letting go. One is pride and the other humility. One is blessing and the other curse. One is false and the other real. One is living and the other is dead. One is plenty and the other is scarcity. One is closed and the other open. One is worry and the other enjoyment.
Everything in your life hinges on how you respond to who you will trust. You will pick one world or the other. God’s desire is to plant you by a river. The desire of our deceitful hearts is to live in the desert surviving on our own in a world without pity, compassion, love, mercy or gladness. Trust me in this. Trust God.