Jeremiah 11:9-13 – The Loneliness of Idolatry
From Jeremiah 11…
9 And the Lord said to me, “A conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 10 They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers who refused to hear My words, and they have gone after other gods to serve them; the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers.”
11 Therefore thus says the Lord: “Behold, I will surely bring calamity on them which they will not be able to escape; and though they cry out to Me, I will not listen to them. 12 Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to whom they offer incense, but they will not save them at all in the time of their trouble. 13 For according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you have set up altars to that shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal.
"The thing that you complain of in God," discerns Spurgeon in his sermon "Two Talents," is the very thing that you love in yourselves. Every man likes to feel that he has a right to do with his own as he pleases. We all like to be little sovereigns."
Little wonder, then, as little sovereigns that we would seek first co-conspirators who recognize our ascendancy in the way the world does not yet, and then a little enclave gathered around our disordered affections. This is the digression God diagnoses in Jeremiah 11:9-13.
In seeking validity apart from God, in trying to find a faux foundation, such temporary huddles of idolatry turned back to the reasons humans have rejected God's true authority in the past. As persistent as God tells Jeremiah He has been in "waking up" early in the morning and exhorting the return on His people, people have been almost that persistent in rejecting Him and bringing their own narrative that justifies their hard hearts in their own eyes. The company of co-conspirators aids with distraction from the conviction He prompts.
The huddles around false belief get bigger as we seek to drown out who we are in God's eyes, and how much we have degraded that design. The little sovereign that each idolater desires to be isn't satisfied with a shovel of the feet and a wink of the eyes to indicate common complicity. He or she seeks thicker insulation from conviction. If a handful of followers won't entirely thwart God's confrontation, what about a whole city?
Something like this has happened by Jeremiah 9:13. God says by this point there are as many different false gods in Judah as there are cities. The desire to build apart from from God which started in unity at the Tower of Babel is fragmented because idols and idolaters can agree only that they don't want to follow God. Each city goes to pieces in its own way.
Got anticipated this, and the remedy. He has already told Jeremiah in this chapter to travel to each city. He likewise tells Jeremiah's peripatetic, prophetic heirs to take stock of the cultures around us, and with each one we engage to point to the aspect of His glory they most desperately need. The rival cities and comparative ages will point accusingly to each other's idolatries and extremism, but only the wholeness and healing everlasting in God can provide the intimacy and glory that each has sought.
9 And the Lord said to me, “A conspiracy has been found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 10 They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers who refused to hear My words, and they have gone after other gods to serve them; the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers.”
11 Therefore thus says the Lord: “Behold, I will surely bring calamity on them which they will not be able to escape; and though they cry out to Me, I will not listen to them. 12 Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to whom they offer incense, but they will not save them at all in the time of their trouble. 13 For according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem you have set up altars to that shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal.
"The thing that you complain of in God," discerns Spurgeon in his sermon "Two Talents," is the very thing that you love in yourselves. Every man likes to feel that he has a right to do with his own as he pleases. We all like to be little sovereigns."
Little wonder, then, as little sovereigns that we would seek first co-conspirators who recognize our ascendancy in the way the world does not yet, and then a little enclave gathered around our disordered affections. This is the digression God diagnoses in Jeremiah 11:9-13.
In seeking validity apart from God, in trying to find a faux foundation, such temporary huddles of idolatry turned back to the reasons humans have rejected God's true authority in the past. As persistent as God tells Jeremiah He has been in "waking up" early in the morning and exhorting the return on His people, people have been almost that persistent in rejecting Him and bringing their own narrative that justifies their hard hearts in their own eyes. The company of co-conspirators aids with distraction from the conviction He prompts.
The huddles around false belief get bigger as we seek to drown out who we are in God's eyes, and how much we have degraded that design. The little sovereign that each idolater desires to be isn't satisfied with a shovel of the feet and a wink of the eyes to indicate common complicity. He or she seeks thicker insulation from conviction. If a handful of followers won't entirely thwart God's confrontation, what about a whole city?
Something like this has happened by Jeremiah 9:13. God says by this point there are as many different false gods in Judah as there are cities. The desire to build apart from from God which started in unity at the Tower of Babel is fragmented because idols and idolaters can agree only that they don't want to follow God. Each city goes to pieces in its own way.
Got anticipated this, and the remedy. He has already told Jeremiah in this chapter to travel to each city. He likewise tells Jeremiah's peripatetic, prophetic heirs to take stock of the cultures around us, and with each one we engage to point to the aspect of His glory they most desperately need. The rival cities and comparative ages will point accusingly to each other's idolatries and extremism, but only the wholeness and healing everlasting in God can provide the intimacy and glory that each has sought.
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