Jeremiah 18:21-22 – Which Legacy Will Last?
21
Therefore deliver up their children to the famine,
And pour out their blood
By the force of the sword;
Let their wives become widows
And bereaved of their children.
Let their men be put to death,
Their young men be slain
By the sword in battle.
22
Let a cry be heard from their houses,
When You bring a troop suddenly upon them;
For they have dug a pit to take me,
And hidden snares for my feet.
The song "King of My Heart," recorded powerfully by Bethel Music and Kutless, pledges to focus on the Lord's enthronement in a series of metaphors. My favorite, especially as I pass middle-age and consider impact and the distractions from it, is "May the king of my heart be the echo of my days."
Without constant re-centering there, the prophet's honesty in Jeremiah 18:21-22 prints off the reality of our heart blockage. Jeremiah's legacy has been threatened by those around him. Being slandered but otherwise ignored so hurts Jeremiah that he escalates this scuttlebutt to constitute an attempt on his life. His sense of identity is bound up with his ministry. He isn't intact without it, and he reacts vehemently as one against the possibility of a life-threatening injury.
To those who would threaten his legacy, Jeremiah calls down curses on their physical legacy in prayer. He uses precious time before his Creator and Defender to ask that the children of his accusers starve or die in battle. The weeping prophet who has so often interceded for the renewal of this culture, in a moment of defensive indignation would rather see it cut off entirely. So personal is the issue of undermining his ministry impact that he, at least momentarily, no longer sees a common purpose with this people.
If we've never asked that the children of those who would threaten our spiritual legacy be killed, the heart issue may still remain. Abraham and Sarah didn't ask that, and yet when they felt the time passing in which they could leave the legacy their hearts desired, they took matters into their own hands. Artlessly, they started pushing buttons to accelerate the process. In so doing, they left divisions between the eventual son of the promise God did provide, Isaac, and their own effort at propagation, Ishmael.
Has our restlessness to see the promises of God fulfilled in our lives reach the point where we would take up carnal means to see this accomplished? Have we begun to believe the staying power of a testimony unto Christ is so feeble that we must crowded out or extinguish competitors by any means necessary? Or, is the root unbelief that we ache to see action toward the fulfillment of God's promises before our own arbitrary deadlines? If we don't, we may struggle to believe altogether.
God, of course, plays a longer game than we do. He can leave the Canaanites in place for 400 years that their sin may more fully manifest itself and more plainly demonstrate the righteousness of His judgment. He can simultaneously temper his people's testimony in the furnace of affliction in Egypt, thereby to render a testimony even they won't forget.
He knows how to fashion the sounds that will be the echo of our days. Aslan as Christ in CS Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader intones, "I call all time soon." He isn't compelled by the haste that would so often undercut more subtle and lasting glory.
Beginning to see as God sees, we can, as Peter does in Acts, see the fulfillment of precatory Psalms against the legacy of Judas without completing for it ourselves. In the fate those who set themselves against the preservation and propagation of the Gospel deserve, we can, as Peter the fellow betrayer no doubt did see ourselves. We can, as Jeremiah has in his moments taken more with majesty than malice, see God's capacity to grant new, soft, worshipful hearts in what order, humanly speaking, the most unlikely circumstances.
We would not, then, preclude future grace which might be extended to those who have yet to appreciate it. We know with Spurgeon in Morning and Evening, "The only reason why anything virtuous or lovely survives in us is this, "the Lord is there.'" He still is, whether by grace we can see the seeds He has allowed us to plant begin to sprout, or whether He is allowing men to move against them.
Therefore deliver up their children to the famine,
And pour out their blood
By the force of the sword;
Let their wives become widows
And bereaved of their children.
Let their men be put to death,
Their young men be slain
By the sword in battle.
22
Let a cry be heard from their houses,
When You bring a troop suddenly upon them;
For they have dug a pit to take me,
And hidden snares for my feet.
The song "King of My Heart," recorded powerfully by Bethel Music and Kutless, pledges to focus on the Lord's enthronement in a series of metaphors. My favorite, especially as I pass middle-age and consider impact and the distractions from it, is "May the king of my heart be the echo of my days."
Without constant re-centering there, the prophet's honesty in Jeremiah 18:21-22 prints off the reality of our heart blockage. Jeremiah's legacy has been threatened by those around him. Being slandered but otherwise ignored so hurts Jeremiah that he escalates this scuttlebutt to constitute an attempt on his life. His sense of identity is bound up with his ministry. He isn't intact without it, and he reacts vehemently as one against the possibility of a life-threatening injury.
To those who would threaten his legacy, Jeremiah calls down curses on their physical legacy in prayer. He uses precious time before his Creator and Defender to ask that the children of his accusers starve or die in battle. The weeping prophet who has so often interceded for the renewal of this culture, in a moment of defensive indignation would rather see it cut off entirely. So personal is the issue of undermining his ministry impact that he, at least momentarily, no longer sees a common purpose with this people.
If we've never asked that the children of those who would threaten our spiritual legacy be killed, the heart issue may still remain. Abraham and Sarah didn't ask that, and yet when they felt the time passing in which they could leave the legacy their hearts desired, they took matters into their own hands. Artlessly, they started pushing buttons to accelerate the process. In so doing, they left divisions between the eventual son of the promise God did provide, Isaac, and their own effort at propagation, Ishmael.
Has our restlessness to see the promises of God fulfilled in our lives reach the point where we would take up carnal means to see this accomplished? Have we begun to believe the staying power of a testimony unto Christ is so feeble that we must crowded out or extinguish competitors by any means necessary? Or, is the root unbelief that we ache to see action toward the fulfillment of God's promises before our own arbitrary deadlines? If we don't, we may struggle to believe altogether.
God, of course, plays a longer game than we do. He can leave the Canaanites in place for 400 years that their sin may more fully manifest itself and more plainly demonstrate the righteousness of His judgment. He can simultaneously temper his people's testimony in the furnace of affliction in Egypt, thereby to render a testimony even they won't forget.
He knows how to fashion the sounds that will be the echo of our days. Aslan as Christ in CS Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader intones, "I call all time soon." He isn't compelled by the haste that would so often undercut more subtle and lasting glory.
Beginning to see as God sees, we can, as Peter does in Acts, see the fulfillment of precatory Psalms against the legacy of Judas without completing for it ourselves. In the fate those who set themselves against the preservation and propagation of the Gospel deserve, we can, as Peter the fellow betrayer no doubt did see ourselves. We can, as Jeremiah has in his moments taken more with majesty than malice, see God's capacity to grant new, soft, worshipful hearts in what order, humanly speaking, the most unlikely circumstances.
We would not, then, preclude future grace which might be extended to those who have yet to appreciate it. We know with Spurgeon in Morning and Evening, "The only reason why anything virtuous or lovely survives in us is this, "the Lord is there.'" He still is, whether by grace we can see the seeds He has allowed us to plant begin to sprout, or whether He is allowing men to move against them.
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