Jeremiah 19:3 – The Full-Spectrum Word
3 and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will bring such a catastrophe on this place, that whoever hears of it, his ears will tingle. Jeremiah 19:3, New King James Version
“A contemporary Catholic opponent of Martin Luther complained, records Robert Lane Greene of the Bible in the German language in Greene's book You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity "Even tailors and shoe-makers – even women and ignorant persons, who could read but little – studied it with the greatest avidity as the fountain of truth. Some committed it to memory and carried it about in their bosoms. Within a few months such people deemed themselves so learned that they were not ashamed to dispute about the faith and the Gospel, not only with Catholic laymen, but even with priests and monks and Doctors of Divinity.”
God's confidence in the impact of His Word was that resident when it was delivered. At the end of Jeremiah 18, God's veteran prophet were stuck in the morass of rejection and self-pity. One facet of the culture threatened to ignore him and erase his legacy, and he internalized this as an attack on his very life. He turned from intercessor for a wayward people to implicator ready to hasten the wrath which before made him weep. This was personal, not so much for the offended majesty of God but for His prophet's prevarication on what Jeremiah's vindication was supposed to look like.
Opening Jeremiah 19, God did that prophet move, turn the page, change his vantage point, and get ready to speak to a different audience. God bids move, and Jeremiah moves, whether his heart was reluctant or relieved. Now, in Jeremiah 19:3, God foretells the impact of that obedience.
The Father Who crowns kings in order that they might in their best, fleeting moments, make a hunger for His Son on an everlasting throne is neither intimidated nor begrudging when He speaks of the world's most influential receiving His Word. He says hear, and they will, to the impact He dictates. The heart of the king, Proverbs says, is in the heart of the Lord.
We note the lack of a warm-up, windup, or measurable momentum in human terms. Broadway shows work out their flaws in lesser-known locations. Politicians on the make work out their mastery of issues and the presentation of them in relative obscurity, gaining people's confidence as they build a following. Jeremiah, God says, can go from the indifference which hurt so much, indeed the earlier rejection of his family in his little hometown to carrying God's command that kings will hear.
But not just kings. In the age of Facebook, advertisers fine-tune a message to exactly what tiny slice of the culture they want to reach. But God's Word reaches the king and the commoner alike according to His sovereign plan. Through smarting Jeremiah, God tells kings to hear, the kings AND the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They, so different in splendor, so disparate in numbers experience parity with one conjunction before Him.
He is no respecter of persons, not put off by the pomp of kings, but neither will he hold back from presenting the populace with accountability. He will not excuse them because of the advantages they did not possess. His Word confronts all classes.
Because it does, because it levels all men in all social structures before Him, because it marks the contrivances of each age and subculture, it outlasts the presumptions of the moment. God says to the entire social strata of his people whom He confronts that their downfall will have a lasting impact beyond that which they could have supposed of their societal safety.
The world will hear, God is confident, and their years will tingle. Contemporaries from other cultures who did not have the specific direction of His Word which Israel and Judah often ignored will be drawn to Him by their collapse. Even their captors, He has told Jeremiah, will gain new hearts through what they see of His correction.
You and I, citizen of the 21st century, are in that whoever as well. We still study that collapse, whether for the cultural credibility that a knowledge of the Bible still brings or for a genuine reverence before His Word is just as true and confrontational as it was when He gave it to Jeremiah. Doubtless there are aspects of both responses in us. Doubtless, part of our hearts would give passive assent to what happened to Judah and Israel – and go no further. By the ministry of the Holy Spirit, however, the kingdoms within our hearts would be convicted.
By His work, then, would open the gates of our heart's presumptions and let the King of glory in. We surrender willingly, and in retrospect see His sovereignty even in our will, or as in Jeremiah 19:3, He will bring those fortifications of our vain imaginations down.
Where we strutwith kings in the areas where we think we are strong, we lay our crowns before Him. Where we think we escape notice and responsibility because we are with the many, blended into the populace, we recognize His discerning eye to judge each heart for its arrogance against Him. The Word is sharper than any two-edged sword, not dulled by the ages. It still divides what God bids split asunder.
“A contemporary Catholic opponent of Martin Luther complained, records Robert Lane Greene of the Bible in the German language in Greene's book You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity "Even tailors and shoe-makers – even women and ignorant persons, who could read but little – studied it with the greatest avidity as the fountain of truth. Some committed it to memory and carried it about in their bosoms. Within a few months such people deemed themselves so learned that they were not ashamed to dispute about the faith and the Gospel, not only with Catholic laymen, but even with priests and monks and Doctors of Divinity.”
God's confidence in the impact of His Word was that resident when it was delivered. At the end of Jeremiah 18, God's veteran prophet were stuck in the morass of rejection and self-pity. One facet of the culture threatened to ignore him and erase his legacy, and he internalized this as an attack on his very life. He turned from intercessor for a wayward people to implicator ready to hasten the wrath which before made him weep. This was personal, not so much for the offended majesty of God but for His prophet's prevarication on what Jeremiah's vindication was supposed to look like.
Opening Jeremiah 19, God did that prophet move, turn the page, change his vantage point, and get ready to speak to a different audience. God bids move, and Jeremiah moves, whether his heart was reluctant or relieved. Now, in Jeremiah 19:3, God foretells the impact of that obedience.
The Father Who crowns kings in order that they might in their best, fleeting moments, make a hunger for His Son on an everlasting throne is neither intimidated nor begrudging when He speaks of the world's most influential receiving His Word. He says hear, and they will, to the impact He dictates. The heart of the king, Proverbs says, is in the heart of the Lord.
We note the lack of a warm-up, windup, or measurable momentum in human terms. Broadway shows work out their flaws in lesser-known locations. Politicians on the make work out their mastery of issues and the presentation of them in relative obscurity, gaining people's confidence as they build a following. Jeremiah, God says, can go from the indifference which hurt so much, indeed the earlier rejection of his family in his little hometown to carrying God's command that kings will hear.
But not just kings. In the age of Facebook, advertisers fine-tune a message to exactly what tiny slice of the culture they want to reach. But God's Word reaches the king and the commoner alike according to His sovereign plan. Through smarting Jeremiah, God tells kings to hear, the kings AND the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They, so different in splendor, so disparate in numbers experience parity with one conjunction before Him.
He is no respecter of persons, not put off by the pomp of kings, but neither will he hold back from presenting the populace with accountability. He will not excuse them because of the advantages they did not possess. His Word confronts all classes.
Because it does, because it levels all men in all social structures before Him, because it marks the contrivances of each age and subculture, it outlasts the presumptions of the moment. God says to the entire social strata of his people whom He confronts that their downfall will have a lasting impact beyond that which they could have supposed of their societal safety.
The world will hear, God is confident, and their years will tingle. Contemporaries from other cultures who did not have the specific direction of His Word which Israel and Judah often ignored will be drawn to Him by their collapse. Even their captors, He has told Jeremiah, will gain new hearts through what they see of His correction.
You and I, citizen of the 21st century, are in that whoever as well. We still study that collapse, whether for the cultural credibility that a knowledge of the Bible still brings or for a genuine reverence before His Word is just as true and confrontational as it was when He gave it to Jeremiah. Doubtless there are aspects of both responses in us. Doubtless, part of our hearts would give passive assent to what happened to Judah and Israel – and go no further. By the ministry of the Holy Spirit, however, the kingdoms within our hearts would be convicted.
By His work, then, would open the gates of our heart's presumptions and let the King of glory in. We surrender willingly, and in retrospect see His sovereignty even in our will, or as in Jeremiah 19:3, He will bring those fortifications of our vain imaginations down.
Where we strutwith kings in the areas where we think we are strong, we lay our crowns before Him. Where we think we escape notice and responsibility because we are with the many, blended into the populace, we recognize His discerning eye to judge each heart for its arrogance against Him. The Word is sharper than any two-edged sword, not dulled by the ages. It still divides what God bids split asunder.
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