Jeremiah 16:16-18 – Accountability with Blessing
16 “Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says the Lord, “and they shall fish them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. 17 For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity hidden from My eyes. 18 And first I will repay double for their iniquity and their sin, because they have defiled My land; they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable and abominable idols.”
"Until we feel some measure of dread about God's future wrath," suspects John Piper in 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die, "we will probably not grasp the sweetness with which the early church savored the saving work of Christ in the future."
The same dynamic seems to be at work in the hairpin turns required to explore God's character and expand our notions of it in Jeremiah 16. Piper's words resonate especially as God lingers on His impending wrath in verses 16 through 18.
God has been teaching Jeremiah to hope in Him rather than immediate evidence of the repentance of His countrymen. He has been establishing that the exile is certain to happen and is well deserved. Then, in verses 14 and 15, we waft a scent of hope.
Deserved condemnation won't last forever. God is going to use the exile of His people as part of reviewing the continuity of His character. This correction will make the rescue and reprieve all the more dramatic – so dramatic, in fact, that it will surpass the exodus of their forbearers from Egypt in their collective memory.
Just then, God changes keys in Jeremiah 16:16-18 to emphasize coming judgment. With this national blessing, with this renewed sense of His Presence comes tangible and serious accountability to Him. His act of mercy and grace in the preceding verses wasn't indulgent. It too was character-building and designed to insist on reliance on Him. He will, He says, along with the relocation of His people to their homeland, send people come, He calls them hunters and fishermen, to confront and convict their sin.
You see, as we explore and are sometimes befuddled by His character, God already knows ours. It doesn't change much from century to century. No sooner do we get back the toys or the times He has taken from us then we forget the lessons He taught us by the removal.
Our sigh of relief is, at the same time, an inhaling of that inveterate sense of entitlement which measures how much we can get away with in our new season of freedom before correction comes again.
Countering that is the sweet humility of Psalm 16, sensing the seamlessness of God's blessing and accountability to Him. He, declare Psalm 16:5 is the portion of our inheritance and our cup, the REASON we celebrate that the lines have fallen for us according to verse six in pleasant places. We have a good inheritance, yes, just as God has proven to the Israelites in Jeremiah 16 by putting them back into the land, but it is good because it is God's gift given on His terms.
The psalmist's response, then, is one we would aspire to. Psalm 16:7 pledges, "I will bless the Lord Who has given me counsel; my heart also instructs me in the night seasons." For the regenerate, humbled heart the counsel of the Lord is as valuable as His material blessings, more so because we can experience it and Him even in the night when our new or restored goodies are not visible. The response of the renewed heart, more deeply aware of blessing, then, is the resolve of verse eight, "I have set the Lord always before me."
Because of seasons of correction like that which the prophet charts out in Jeremiah 16, and which he promises will end, we can with Thomas Watson in The Art of Contentment put our reproaches in the inventory of our riches. He gives and He takes away according to what will reveal the most about Himself.
Neither the estrangement of exile nor the giddiness of blessing come apart from His intimate awareness of His overall plan. With the bounce of Psalm 16, we can look for the Lord's cautioning counsel in seasons of blessing's flood tide, aware from Jeremiah 16 of the cost of not doing so.
Even as we shudder, then, at how prone we are to wander when we are awash in blessings and freshly aware of them, even as we tend to cringe at Jeremiah 16:8's pledge of a double penalty for those who are aware of God's extravagant goodness in their own generation and STILL turn away, our recourse is in Christ.
He took so much more than the double penalty laid out there. He paid for the Christian's righteousness and rest at the cost of His own perfect life. Because He did, we can enjoy blessings without dread of what comes next. We can listen for direction in their midst without resenting that still, small voice.
"Until we feel some measure of dread about God's future wrath," suspects John Piper in 50 Reasons Jesus Came to Die, "we will probably not grasp the sweetness with which the early church savored the saving work of Christ in the future."
The same dynamic seems to be at work in the hairpin turns required to explore God's character and expand our notions of it in Jeremiah 16. Piper's words resonate especially as God lingers on His impending wrath in verses 16 through 18.
God has been teaching Jeremiah to hope in Him rather than immediate evidence of the repentance of His countrymen. He has been establishing that the exile is certain to happen and is well deserved. Then, in verses 14 and 15, we waft a scent of hope.
Deserved condemnation won't last forever. God is going to use the exile of His people as part of reviewing the continuity of His character. This correction will make the rescue and reprieve all the more dramatic – so dramatic, in fact, that it will surpass the exodus of their forbearers from Egypt in their collective memory.
Just then, God changes keys in Jeremiah 16:16-18 to emphasize coming judgment. With this national blessing, with this renewed sense of His Presence comes tangible and serious accountability to Him. His act of mercy and grace in the preceding verses wasn't indulgent. It too was character-building and designed to insist on reliance on Him. He will, He says, along with the relocation of His people to their homeland, send people come, He calls them hunters and fishermen, to confront and convict their sin.
You see, as we explore and are sometimes befuddled by His character, God already knows ours. It doesn't change much from century to century. No sooner do we get back the toys or the times He has taken from us then we forget the lessons He taught us by the removal.
Our sigh of relief is, at the same time, an inhaling of that inveterate sense of entitlement which measures how much we can get away with in our new season of freedom before correction comes again.
Countering that is the sweet humility of Psalm 16, sensing the seamlessness of God's blessing and accountability to Him. He, declare Psalm 16:5 is the portion of our inheritance and our cup, the REASON we celebrate that the lines have fallen for us according to verse six in pleasant places. We have a good inheritance, yes, just as God has proven to the Israelites in Jeremiah 16 by putting them back into the land, but it is good because it is God's gift given on His terms.
The psalmist's response, then, is one we would aspire to. Psalm 16:7 pledges, "I will bless the Lord Who has given me counsel; my heart also instructs me in the night seasons." For the regenerate, humbled heart the counsel of the Lord is as valuable as His material blessings, more so because we can experience it and Him even in the night when our new or restored goodies are not visible. The response of the renewed heart, more deeply aware of blessing, then, is the resolve of verse eight, "I have set the Lord always before me."
Because of seasons of correction like that which the prophet charts out in Jeremiah 16, and which he promises will end, we can with Thomas Watson in The Art of Contentment put our reproaches in the inventory of our riches. He gives and He takes away according to what will reveal the most about Himself.
Neither the estrangement of exile nor the giddiness of blessing come apart from His intimate awareness of His overall plan. With the bounce of Psalm 16, we can look for the Lord's cautioning counsel in seasons of blessing's flood tide, aware from Jeremiah 16 of the cost of not doing so.
Even as we shudder, then, at how prone we are to wander when we are awash in blessings and freshly aware of them, even as we tend to cringe at Jeremiah 16:8's pledge of a double penalty for those who are aware of God's extravagant goodness in their own generation and STILL turn away, our recourse is in Christ.
He took so much more than the double penalty laid out there. He paid for the Christian's righteousness and rest at the cost of His own perfect life. Because He did, we can enjoy blessings without dread of what comes next. We can listen for direction in their midst without resenting that still, small voice.
Comments
Post a Comment