Jeremiah 17:19-20 – Countering Impatience and Immaturity with the Word
19 Thus the Lord said to me: “Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, by which the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem; 20 and say to them, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates."
"Proverbs," typifies Tim Keller in God's Wisdom for Navigating Life, "insists that wisdom takes time to develop, and this makes sense if wisdom is a person and we have to learn how he thinks, what his attributes are, and what actions would please him."
What Keller attributes to Proverbs, we can attribute to the Word of God as a whole and see in particular in Jeremiah 17:19-20. Previously, Jeremiah has notated his patience in delivering this Word and has vented that this patience has expired. God is marvelously indirect in dealing with the pique of his prophet, not diagnosing for us whether Jeremiah is hungry for the full revelation of His glory which judgment will bring – or just fed up with his countrymen. Perhaps there is enough of both in us that we need to see a broad-spectrum application play out.
God's remedy for both Jeremiah and the people he addresses is another message, more of the Word of God to and through Jeremiah. For him, is to keep communing and speaking. For us, it's to keep reading God's Word, and then communing and speaking.
The phrases God gives Jeremiah as a part of this installment of the Word yield particular perspective as to the people we deal with and the inappropriateness of our impatience with them. As God calls Jeremiah to deliver this Word at the gate where the people of Israel go in and out, so He calls us to be where the people are, to resist that impulse to pull up the ladder of grace after we have been delivered by it because we are impatient with those who haven't yet followed in the same way.
But among WHOM does He called Jeremiah to persevere in ministry? Even, location, location, location reveals the difference between the perspective of God and the perspective of men. This gate, this gate is used by the children of the people, the kings of Judah.
Such phrasing captures the entire scope of human existence, sometimes pitiable and sometimes majestic in human eyes. Aspects of God's glory remain on us, discernible reflections of the image of the One Who created us, even while, like the audience Jonah similarly resisted in Nineveh, thousands do not know our right from our left spiritually. Glory and vulnerability pass through the same gates.
We are, then, like Jeremiah, to place ourselves there and to see men as God sees them. His Word over mankind transcends our temper tantrums. It transcends our sense of what His timing in revealing Himself OUGHT to be. We go BY His Word to DELIVER His Word, and we leave Him, by grace, to reveal the regal aspects of those who could simultaneously be referred to as helpless children.
Before we even receive the latest message and reflexively use it as a cudgel to separate our maturity from the immaturity of those around us, God uses the preamble, the set-up, to change the hearts of His messengers.
Perhaps by this deliberately slowed wind-up, we will realize what else we have in common with Jeremiah. As God looks at grown men and pronounces them children, so He once looked at Jeremiah, but a youth chronologically, and pronounced him the one God would use to set his face before the nations.
God calls us, brothers and sisters, along with our immaturity and inexperience. He has borne with us as we have learned His ways, and as we have gotten angry with those who don't meet our expectations in doing so. May His next Word to our hearts soften them toward compassion for our brethren. There are kings among them.
"Proverbs," typifies Tim Keller in God's Wisdom for Navigating Life, "insists that wisdom takes time to develop, and this makes sense if wisdom is a person and we have to learn how he thinks, what his attributes are, and what actions would please him."
What Keller attributes to Proverbs, we can attribute to the Word of God as a whole and see in particular in Jeremiah 17:19-20. Previously, Jeremiah has notated his patience in delivering this Word and has vented that this patience has expired. God is marvelously indirect in dealing with the pique of his prophet, not diagnosing for us whether Jeremiah is hungry for the full revelation of His glory which judgment will bring – or just fed up with his countrymen. Perhaps there is enough of both in us that we need to see a broad-spectrum application play out.
God's remedy for both Jeremiah and the people he addresses is another message, more of the Word of God to and through Jeremiah. For him, is to keep communing and speaking. For us, it's to keep reading God's Word, and then communing and speaking.
The phrases God gives Jeremiah as a part of this installment of the Word yield particular perspective as to the people we deal with and the inappropriateness of our impatience with them. As God calls Jeremiah to deliver this Word at the gate where the people of Israel go in and out, so He calls us to be where the people are, to resist that impulse to pull up the ladder of grace after we have been delivered by it because we are impatient with those who haven't yet followed in the same way.
But among WHOM does He called Jeremiah to persevere in ministry? Even, location, location, location reveals the difference between the perspective of God and the perspective of men. This gate, this gate is used by the children of the people, the kings of Judah.
Such phrasing captures the entire scope of human existence, sometimes pitiable and sometimes majestic in human eyes. Aspects of God's glory remain on us, discernible reflections of the image of the One Who created us, even while, like the audience Jonah similarly resisted in Nineveh, thousands do not know our right from our left spiritually. Glory and vulnerability pass through the same gates.
We are, then, like Jeremiah, to place ourselves there and to see men as God sees them. His Word over mankind transcends our temper tantrums. It transcends our sense of what His timing in revealing Himself OUGHT to be. We go BY His Word to DELIVER His Word, and we leave Him, by grace, to reveal the regal aspects of those who could simultaneously be referred to as helpless children.
Before we even receive the latest message and reflexively use it as a cudgel to separate our maturity from the immaturity of those around us, God uses the preamble, the set-up, to change the hearts of His messengers.
Perhaps by this deliberately slowed wind-up, we will realize what else we have in common with Jeremiah. As God looks at grown men and pronounces them children, so He once looked at Jeremiah, but a youth chronologically, and pronounced him the one God would use to set his face before the nations.
God calls us, brothers and sisters, along with our immaturity and inexperience. He has borne with us as we have learned His ways, and as we have gotten angry with those who don't meet our expectations in doing so. May His next Word to our hearts soften them toward compassion for our brethren. There are kings among them.
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