Jeremiah 11:14-17 – Praying for Rescue, or Regeneration?
14 “So do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them; for I will not hear them in the time that they cry out to Me because of their trouble.
15
“What has My beloved to do in My house,
Having done lewd deeds with many?
And the holy flesh has passed from you.
When you do evil, then you rejoice.
16
The Lord called your name,
Green Olive Tree, Lovely and of Good Fruit.
With the noise of a great tumult
He has kindled fire on it,
And its branches are broken.
17 “For the Lord of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced doom against you for the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done against themselves to provoke Me to anger in offering incense to Baal.”
"Many people seem to embrace the good news without embracing God," divides John Piper in 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die. He explains, "There is no sure evidence that we have a new heart just because we want to escape hell. That’s a perfectly natural desire, not a supernatural one. It doesn’t take a new heart to want the psychological relief of forgiveness, or the removal of God’s wrath, or the inheritance of God’s world. All these things are understandable without any spiritual change."
That dichotomy is present in Jeremiah 11:14-17. God has predisposed and positioned Jeremiah to be the people's intercessor. Now He says to stop. Don't pray for this people. We read on almost warily, our consciousness of God's covenant with this people to a thousand generations and His determination to bring about Messiah wrestling with His Jeremiah 11 pronouncement of their deserved predicament. While we process, Jeremiah uses the enforced silence to listen on as God describes this people.
This people occupy God's house, the position of His blessing, the extension of His reputation for better or for worse. They absorb grace after grace, yet they use these blessings to indulge themselves in scandalous ways the nations notice. What God has positioned as the great fruit-bearing olive tree is condemned because of the wild fruit it is bearing. The name, Israel or olive tree, is not enough. They will be known by their fruit.
So will we, and those for whom we plead. Where we ask for quick fixes, for rescues, for God's intervention between fleshly cause and logical effect, God says stop. Whether Jeremiah understood fully or not, on the other side of the cross we can see the folly in praying for Him to continue striving with the same people over the same behaviors. He can make us new. In fact, He must if His glory, His efficacy is to be on display in the good fruit of His people.
We ask, then, for revolutionary, identity-changing grace and mercy. More than circumstances must change, more than God indulging our manipulation for less of a penalty must take place. The people from whom we spring, heirs to the first Adam, they must die out and their propagation prayed for no more. In their place, the heirs to Christ, the second Adam, must thrive to the glory of the Godhead.
The furtherance of who we are in Christ by grace individually enhances the testimony of His house rather than undermining it. As the branches of the olive tree of the old identity are broken, the branches of the new identity are grafted in and are fruitful. Real renewal replaces repetitive rescue.
15
“What has My beloved to do in My house,
Having done lewd deeds with many?
And the holy flesh has passed from you.
When you do evil, then you rejoice.
16
The Lord called your name,
Green Olive Tree, Lovely and of Good Fruit.
With the noise of a great tumult
He has kindled fire on it,
And its branches are broken.
17 “For the Lord of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced doom against you for the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done against themselves to provoke Me to anger in offering incense to Baal.”
"Many people seem to embrace the good news without embracing God," divides John Piper in 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die. He explains, "There is no sure evidence that we have a new heart just because we want to escape hell. That’s a perfectly natural desire, not a supernatural one. It doesn’t take a new heart to want the psychological relief of forgiveness, or the removal of God’s wrath, or the inheritance of God’s world. All these things are understandable without any spiritual change."
That dichotomy is present in Jeremiah 11:14-17. God has predisposed and positioned Jeremiah to be the people's intercessor. Now He says to stop. Don't pray for this people. We read on almost warily, our consciousness of God's covenant with this people to a thousand generations and His determination to bring about Messiah wrestling with His Jeremiah 11 pronouncement of their deserved predicament. While we process, Jeremiah uses the enforced silence to listen on as God describes this people.
This people occupy God's house, the position of His blessing, the extension of His reputation for better or for worse. They absorb grace after grace, yet they use these blessings to indulge themselves in scandalous ways the nations notice. What God has positioned as the great fruit-bearing olive tree is condemned because of the wild fruit it is bearing. The name, Israel or olive tree, is not enough. They will be known by their fruit.
So will we, and those for whom we plead. Where we ask for quick fixes, for rescues, for God's intervention between fleshly cause and logical effect, God says stop. Whether Jeremiah understood fully or not, on the other side of the cross we can see the folly in praying for Him to continue striving with the same people over the same behaviors. He can make us new. In fact, He must if His glory, His efficacy is to be on display in the good fruit of His people.
We ask, then, for revolutionary, identity-changing grace and mercy. More than circumstances must change, more than God indulging our manipulation for less of a penalty must take place. The people from whom we spring, heirs to the first Adam, they must die out and their propagation prayed for no more. In their place, the heirs to Christ, the second Adam, must thrive to the glory of the Godhead.
The furtherance of who we are in Christ by grace individually enhances the testimony of His house rather than undermining it. As the branches of the olive tree of the old identity are broken, the branches of the new identity are grafted in and are fruitful. Real renewal replaces repetitive rescue.
What a powerful thought in this passage --- that God told Jeremiah to stop interceding for the people and that it was "folly in praying for Him to continue striving with the same people over the same behaviors." In reality, Jeremiah had to cease praying for God's reprieve on Israel so that Messiah could enter the world as God had ordained before the foundation of the world. Israel had to be broken nationally, spiritually, religiously, economically, etc. They had to be trampled by the nations and subjugated to incite their rebellious spirits to grow weary of their taskmaster's burdens. How this should challenge our notion of prayer and our concept of good/bad against God's sovereignty!
ReplyDeleteGood point.
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