Jeremiah 21:2 – Wonder in Word Only?
2 “Please inquire of the Lord for us, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon makes war against us. Perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all His wonderful works, that the king may go away from us.” Jeremiah 21:2, was I
"We often worship not Your true self," confesses a congregational prayer printed in the bulletin for a friend's church, "but Who we wish You to be. We too often ask You to bless what we do rather than seeking to do what You bless. Forgive us," it asks, "when our worship shapes You into what we want, instead of shaping us into what You want."
This is the pragmatic shape of Pashhur's summoned awe. When Jeremiah in chapter 20 presented a boisterous, confrontational Word from the Lord in the Temple court, Pashhur didn't allow for wonder. If it wasn't in the order of service for which he was responsible, he wasn't willing to humbly search his character or the history of his people to allow for the possibility that God might be doing something new. Instead, he struck Jeremiah and slapped him in the stocks.
Now, showing himself powerless before a besieging human king in a way he would not before Heaven's King, somehow he finds wonder. Somehow he allows for mystery and submission. NOW God's works are wonderful. Now he proclaims a fishy faith, now that he is out of more practical options and now that his own cherished authority over what happens next in God's realm isn't proving effective.
Residual controller that he is, he no more gets the word wonder out of his mouth than he at least partially negates it with a singular suggestion as to how God can prove Himself in Pashhur's eyes. His faith is not, then, "I would confess God as my King whatever the outcome." It is, "I would have no King but myself and my control over others." The state of his heart is that to which Jars of Clay confesses in "Unforgettable." "I never minded calling You a King, if that meant that I could count on You to give me everything."
The same transparently manipulative pragmatism beckons to us through the ages. Cautions John Flavel in "Warning against Backsliding #1," "Worship may be right as to its object, and yet idolatrous with respect to its manner." Where has wonder lost its meaning to our hard, cold hearts except as to wondering whether we can talk our way out of the particular predicament? Even knowing this, though, God often enters into such parameters, delivers for such a bargaining heart, that He might thereby prove Himself, and surreptitiously plant seeds of real faith which will eventually subvert our quest for a controllable, contractual arrangement.
Look back, brother or sister in Christ, at where wonder and worship were passwords to get what your cornered heart wanted. The results God can bring about from this unpromising state are truly wondrous.
His replacement of a heart of stone with a heart of flesh, a transactional religion with an authentic, submitted relationship is often so gradual that we don't marvel except in retrospect. When we don't, then, compare the posturing bargainers we were to the genuine supplicants we are now, we look askance at others who come to God and to us with manipulative motives.
Let us at least hear them out, as Jeremiah does. Let us wait for God's Word on their behalf, trusting Him to enact His purposes which are so much greater than our having the last word in the moment. He directs nations and ages to His everlasting glory. We would rather be in that train than feel the momentary satisfaction of turning another human away from His grace.
"We often worship not Your true self," confesses a congregational prayer printed in the bulletin for a friend's church, "but Who we wish You to be. We too often ask You to bless what we do rather than seeking to do what You bless. Forgive us," it asks, "when our worship shapes You into what we want, instead of shaping us into what You want."
This is the pragmatic shape of Pashhur's summoned awe. When Jeremiah in chapter 20 presented a boisterous, confrontational Word from the Lord in the Temple court, Pashhur didn't allow for wonder. If it wasn't in the order of service for which he was responsible, he wasn't willing to humbly search his character or the history of his people to allow for the possibility that God might be doing something new. Instead, he struck Jeremiah and slapped him in the stocks.
Now, showing himself powerless before a besieging human king in a way he would not before Heaven's King, somehow he finds wonder. Somehow he allows for mystery and submission. NOW God's works are wonderful. Now he proclaims a fishy faith, now that he is out of more practical options and now that his own cherished authority over what happens next in God's realm isn't proving effective.
Residual controller that he is, he no more gets the word wonder out of his mouth than he at least partially negates it with a singular suggestion as to how God can prove Himself in Pashhur's eyes. His faith is not, then, "I would confess God as my King whatever the outcome." It is, "I would have no King but myself and my control over others." The state of his heart is that to which Jars of Clay confesses in "Unforgettable." "I never minded calling You a King, if that meant that I could count on You to give me everything."
The same transparently manipulative pragmatism beckons to us through the ages. Cautions John Flavel in "Warning against Backsliding #1," "Worship may be right as to its object, and yet idolatrous with respect to its manner." Where has wonder lost its meaning to our hard, cold hearts except as to wondering whether we can talk our way out of the particular predicament? Even knowing this, though, God often enters into such parameters, delivers for such a bargaining heart, that He might thereby prove Himself, and surreptitiously plant seeds of real faith which will eventually subvert our quest for a controllable, contractual arrangement.
Look back, brother or sister in Christ, at where wonder and worship were passwords to get what your cornered heart wanted. The results God can bring about from this unpromising state are truly wondrous.
His replacement of a heart of stone with a heart of flesh, a transactional religion with an authentic, submitted relationship is often so gradual that we don't marvel except in retrospect. When we don't, then, compare the posturing bargainers we were to the genuine supplicants we are now, we look askance at others who come to God and to us with manipulative motives.
Let us at least hear them out, as Jeremiah does. Let us wait for God's Word on their behalf, trusting Him to enact His purposes which are so much greater than our having the last word in the moment. He directs nations and ages to His everlasting glory. We would rather be in that train than feel the momentary satisfaction of turning another human away from His grace.
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