Jeremiah 18:6-7 – Pretensions of Proportion
6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the Lord. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel! 7 The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it."
"There's a lot of ruin in a nation, Adam Smith once said," as quoted by The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik, who hopefully adds, "meaning that it is born ruined – that any social system is rotten already, yet it still keeps most people fed and placated. Those systems and practices can be dysfunctional while the whole still works, more or less. In the same way," extends Gopnik, "there is always a lot of chaos in the hero – meaning not all heroes are chaotic but that the elements of heroes and flow back and forth uncertainly through a life."
Because we become accustomed to systems and men a certain amount of dysfunction and chaos, we need direct reminders like Jeremiah 18:6-7. For, otherwise, we begin to credit ourselves when complete collapse does not occur. Our systems may shake, but our arrogance actually lays deeper foundations, covering over what remains of the softness of our hearts in its concrete.
We need to hear from Jeremiah the Word of the Lord that the instant He decrees that a culture will fall, it falls. Quickly accustomed to system redundancy, to professionals with a backup plan, to delayed consequences which pundits will point out years in advance, we need emissaries like Gabriel to the doubtful Zacharias who remind us that God speaks, and it is done. This is the norm. It is our sense of insulation that is perverse in the eyes of eternity.
Alas, the religious, even the biblically religious are not immune. We may be even more prone to protestations against the dictates of God. Remember, the religiously respectable assured Jeremiah that God would never move against the home of His Temple. In the very signs of His gracious faithfulness, they took, and we take, confirmations of our own righteousness, exhibits God as Prosecutor (before some Higher Tribunal?) will have to explain away before He can move against us or our sense of collective entitlement as His people.
Jeremiah 18:6-7 offers the essence of confrontational grace. God doesn't do anything, He says, without first telling His servants the prophets. Even here, where He would emphasize His prerogative to swiftly tear down what human pride has accreted over centuries, He still provides the leading indicator of His Word.
Will we hear it, or are our thoughts and hearts so captivated by rehearsing the arguments of our self-justification that we will be deaf to the reality that whatever stability or slowing of demise we enjoy, we enjoy solely by His purposeful forbearance?
By His Grace, as He quickens us, or re-quickens us to the instant reality of that Word, He can give us both to will and to do according to His good pleasure. As He heeds no human sense of proportion in calculating how long it will take Him to tear down what we have spent years building up, the corollary is also true. Hearts that could not be harder than if we had spent years training them to that purpose, He can replace instantly with hearts of flesh supple before Him, treasuring what He speaks, even in correction.
Would you see the grace, dear reader, in the Jeremiah 18:6-7 reality of His declared sovereignty? What we have, we have by His leave it only for a season. Better to cling to His eternal promises than Earth's momentary consolations which are His to manipulate for His glory on that timeline.
"There's a lot of ruin in a nation, Adam Smith once said," as quoted by The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik, who hopefully adds, "meaning that it is born ruined – that any social system is rotten already, yet it still keeps most people fed and placated. Those systems and practices can be dysfunctional while the whole still works, more or less. In the same way," extends Gopnik, "there is always a lot of chaos in the hero – meaning not all heroes are chaotic but that the elements of heroes and flow back and forth uncertainly through a life."
Because we become accustomed to systems and men a certain amount of dysfunction and chaos, we need direct reminders like Jeremiah 18:6-7. For, otherwise, we begin to credit ourselves when complete collapse does not occur. Our systems may shake, but our arrogance actually lays deeper foundations, covering over what remains of the softness of our hearts in its concrete.
We need to hear from Jeremiah the Word of the Lord that the instant He decrees that a culture will fall, it falls. Quickly accustomed to system redundancy, to professionals with a backup plan, to delayed consequences which pundits will point out years in advance, we need emissaries like Gabriel to the doubtful Zacharias who remind us that God speaks, and it is done. This is the norm. It is our sense of insulation that is perverse in the eyes of eternity.
Alas, the religious, even the biblically religious are not immune. We may be even more prone to protestations against the dictates of God. Remember, the religiously respectable assured Jeremiah that God would never move against the home of His Temple. In the very signs of His gracious faithfulness, they took, and we take, confirmations of our own righteousness, exhibits God as Prosecutor (before some Higher Tribunal?) will have to explain away before He can move against us or our sense of collective entitlement as His people.
Jeremiah 18:6-7 offers the essence of confrontational grace. God doesn't do anything, He says, without first telling His servants the prophets. Even here, where He would emphasize His prerogative to swiftly tear down what human pride has accreted over centuries, He still provides the leading indicator of His Word.
Will we hear it, or are our thoughts and hearts so captivated by rehearsing the arguments of our self-justification that we will be deaf to the reality that whatever stability or slowing of demise we enjoy, we enjoy solely by His purposeful forbearance?
By His Grace, as He quickens us, or re-quickens us to the instant reality of that Word, He can give us both to will and to do according to His good pleasure. As He heeds no human sense of proportion in calculating how long it will take Him to tear down what we have spent years building up, the corollary is also true. Hearts that could not be harder than if we had spent years training them to that purpose, He can replace instantly with hearts of flesh supple before Him, treasuring what He speaks, even in correction.
Would you see the grace, dear reader, in the Jeremiah 18:6-7 reality of His declared sovereignty? What we have, we have by His leave it only for a season. Better to cling to His eternal promises than Earth's momentary consolations which are His to manipulate for His glory on that timeline.
I don't think we often see grace in His sovereignty. Rather, we prefer to think of God's success and ours as synonymous. After all, how could God possibly work through my ruin (financial, economic, physical)?? Paul nails this down in Romans 9-11 as God does through discussing the futility of idols and the supremacy of his sovereign will in and through all of the prophets surrounding the exile. It is not a God whose sovereignty melts hearts in a greeting card sort of way, but He is worthy of worship.
ReplyDelete"I am the LORD; that is my name. My glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols" Isa. 42:8