Jeremiah 21:13-14 – The Safest Location
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“Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley,
And rock of the plain,” says the Lord,
“Who say, ‘Who shall come down against us?
Or who shall enter our dwellings?’
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But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings,” says the Lord;
“I will kindle a fire in its forest,
And it shall devour all things around it.” ’ ”
Asking us to picture a rising kindergartner's claims on self-sufficiency, Jon Hauser admits our claim to "autonomy is really pretty humorous."
Jeremiah 21:13-14 rails against the same pretensions, only the prophet is past laughing. He has labored chapter after chapter against exceptionalism. The people he warns against God's coming judgment, it seems, are even willing to use geography to justify to themselves that the most dire of his warnings won't apply to them. You and the valley, the Babylonians are coming for you, Jeremiah confronts specifically. You who think your stability is in your position on the plains, judgment still applies to you.
Andrew Murray in Absolute Surrender reduces such flimsy constructs with the realization, "Faith always means helplessness. That is the beginning of faith, utter despair of self." Yet, before we can reach that point, we cycle through every aspect of ourselves that could possibly protect or exempt us from accountability before the Lord. When we can come up with semi-biblical grounds, we offer our offerings, we recite our Bible readings, or church attendance as the reason judgment should pass us by.
When God remains impassably unimpressed, rather than confess with the Bible we say we read and hear preached that we are but dust dependent on His grace and mercy, we resort to nonsensical justifications. This is where I live, and therefore why judgment should pass me by.
Thus God's Word to Jeremiah characterizes His righteous judgment as fire, much as Paul will the evaluation of our works in the New Testament. Fire wouldn't stop to evaluate the individual's ZIP Code, and neither will God's consuming wrath against all that sets itself up as a contender against His glory. Only by facing the fire absolutely reliant on the protection of His impervious Presence, as did Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, can we conceive of a life beyond all-consuming judgment.
With us as Christ's, as with those three, there is, as Hillsong announces, Another in the fire. Christ's own are not proven by escaping the fire by legitimate or illegitimate means. We are proven by going through it with Him, proving that His righteousness is sufficient to cover His own. With Him, even in the flames, is the safest location. There, His doings are our doings. There, we have died to our highly flammable self-righteousness and live in Him.
“Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley,
And rock of the plain,” says the Lord,
“Who say, ‘Who shall come down against us?
Or who shall enter our dwellings?’
14
But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings,” says the Lord;
“I will kindle a fire in its forest,
And it shall devour all things around it.” ’ ”
Asking us to picture a rising kindergartner's claims on self-sufficiency, Jon Hauser admits our claim to "autonomy is really pretty humorous."
Jeremiah 21:13-14 rails against the same pretensions, only the prophet is past laughing. He has labored chapter after chapter against exceptionalism. The people he warns against God's coming judgment, it seems, are even willing to use geography to justify to themselves that the most dire of his warnings won't apply to them. You and the valley, the Babylonians are coming for you, Jeremiah confronts specifically. You who think your stability is in your position on the plains, judgment still applies to you.
Andrew Murray in Absolute Surrender reduces such flimsy constructs with the realization, "Faith always means helplessness. That is the beginning of faith, utter despair of self." Yet, before we can reach that point, we cycle through every aspect of ourselves that could possibly protect or exempt us from accountability before the Lord. When we can come up with semi-biblical grounds, we offer our offerings, we recite our Bible readings, or church attendance as the reason judgment should pass us by.
When God remains impassably unimpressed, rather than confess with the Bible we say we read and hear preached that we are but dust dependent on His grace and mercy, we resort to nonsensical justifications. This is where I live, and therefore why judgment should pass me by.
Thus God's Word to Jeremiah characterizes His righteous judgment as fire, much as Paul will the evaluation of our works in the New Testament. Fire wouldn't stop to evaluate the individual's ZIP Code, and neither will God's consuming wrath against all that sets itself up as a contender against His glory. Only by facing the fire absolutely reliant on the protection of His impervious Presence, as did Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, can we conceive of a life beyond all-consuming judgment.
With us as Christ's, as with those three, there is, as Hillsong announces, Another in the fire. Christ's own are not proven by escaping the fire by legitimate or illegitimate means. We are proven by going through it with Him, proving that His righteousness is sufficient to cover His own. With Him, even in the flames, is the safest location. There, His doings are our doings. There, we have died to our highly flammable self-righteousness and live in Him.
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