Jeremiah 22:1-3 – At Depravity's Doorstep
1 Thus says the Lord: “Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and there speak this word, 2 and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, you who sit on the throne of David, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates! 3 Thus says the Lord: “Execute judgment and righteousness, and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong and do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. Jeremiah 22: 1-3, New King James Version
In the movie We Are Marshall, the school is devastated when almost all of the football team dies in an airplane crash. Seeking to recover, the athletic department wants an NCAA exception to field freshmen, against the rules at the time. When no response is forthcoming, the athletic director rallies in reasons, how many of us proposed marriage by mail? He then decides to show up in person and plead his case.
Within issue more important than resuming football, God leads His prophet to do the same in Jeremiah 22:1-3. He already put Jeremiah at the king's gate to the Temple courtyard. He already had Jeremiah answer the king through Pashhur in the last chapter with a reminder that the Lord wasn't just the solution to the national problem the king faced but also the ultimate Sovereign to Whom the king was accountable as a man.
If I'm Jeremiah with the weariness of constant confrontation and contention that the prophet has expressed, I'm ready to satisfy myself that the watchman's duty toward the king has been fulfilled and that any failure on the king's part to respond is his responsibility.
Yet, we know on this side of the cross that Jeremiah serves God Who will come to Earth. He serves God Who will become Man, will translate Divine glory into service, and persuasion, and confrontation, and sacrifice, and Resurrection power. Leaving the 90 and nine and going after the one He seeks is personal to Him, and so He takes on the risks that come with relocation, repetition, and confrontation.
Christ was renewed in doing His Father's will, in speaking His Father's words whether the message was new or not, whether the heart or hearts to whom He spoke promised to be especially receptive, or not.
As He came in person, so He positions His own in a constellation of relationships, with more capital in some than in others, with a heavier burden for some than for others. We have tools for a wider national and international reach, an artillery barrage of general Gospel accountability, of which Jeremiah could not have dreamed.
We can stand at the gates of various cultures. We can, by grace, personify Wisdom in Proverbs and plead emphatically to those passing by that God's way is better.
But are we willing to be the ordered infantry that follow the artillery barrage? Do we count out duty done having broadcast in general, having used intermediary tools like social media to proclaim the wrongs of the age and the rescue of the Gospel?
Would we trust the likes of Pashhur who persecuted Jeremiah to carry the message accurately? Or, are we waiting for the next quarter's in Christ our Captain's Master plan, the plan for us to follow up and to bring the Gospel to somebody's threshold with emphatic language of accountability?
I've done it. It's awkward. It's rude by the standards of the age, to show up unannounced on the doorstep of a friend who has drifted and to say I want to go to dinner and hear what's on your heart, and I'm going to stand here until you come with me.
What exact ingredients the Lord used to free my brother from the sinful mindset in which he was trapped, I couldn't analyze, but he came, both to a dinner he did not want to join and out of the bitterness in which he was enmeshed.
That this directness is still the exception for me, for us, is an indictment. Surely the God Who exemplified initiative in Christ and foreshadowed it in Jeremiah 22:1-3 still has emphatic, individual messages to deliver. Surely He has particular people to tell that the wages of sin is death, and particular people He would use to deliver the bad news before the Good News.
Your challenge, and mine, is probably not to crash the repose of a president or king, but it is to follow obediently where God leads and when. It is truly our influence with the influential on His alter, to fear Him reverently as the everlasting King more than we do those crowned with the ability to spread our ridicule in this age.
In the movie We Are Marshall, the school is devastated when almost all of the football team dies in an airplane crash. Seeking to recover, the athletic department wants an NCAA exception to field freshmen, against the rules at the time. When no response is forthcoming, the athletic director rallies in reasons, how many of us proposed marriage by mail? He then decides to show up in person and plead his case.
Within issue more important than resuming football, God leads His prophet to do the same in Jeremiah 22:1-3. He already put Jeremiah at the king's gate to the Temple courtyard. He already had Jeremiah answer the king through Pashhur in the last chapter with a reminder that the Lord wasn't just the solution to the national problem the king faced but also the ultimate Sovereign to Whom the king was accountable as a man.
If I'm Jeremiah with the weariness of constant confrontation and contention that the prophet has expressed, I'm ready to satisfy myself that the watchman's duty toward the king has been fulfilled and that any failure on the king's part to respond is his responsibility.
Yet, we know on this side of the cross that Jeremiah serves God Who will come to Earth. He serves God Who will become Man, will translate Divine glory into service, and persuasion, and confrontation, and sacrifice, and Resurrection power. Leaving the 90 and nine and going after the one He seeks is personal to Him, and so He takes on the risks that come with relocation, repetition, and confrontation.
Christ was renewed in doing His Father's will, in speaking His Father's words whether the message was new or not, whether the heart or hearts to whom He spoke promised to be especially receptive, or not.
As He came in person, so He positions His own in a constellation of relationships, with more capital in some than in others, with a heavier burden for some than for others. We have tools for a wider national and international reach, an artillery barrage of general Gospel accountability, of which Jeremiah could not have dreamed.
We can stand at the gates of various cultures. We can, by grace, personify Wisdom in Proverbs and plead emphatically to those passing by that God's way is better.
But are we willing to be the ordered infantry that follow the artillery barrage? Do we count out duty done having broadcast in general, having used intermediary tools like social media to proclaim the wrongs of the age and the rescue of the Gospel?
Would we trust the likes of Pashhur who persecuted Jeremiah to carry the message accurately? Or, are we waiting for the next quarter's in Christ our Captain's Master plan, the plan for us to follow up and to bring the Gospel to somebody's threshold with emphatic language of accountability?
I've done it. It's awkward. It's rude by the standards of the age, to show up unannounced on the doorstep of a friend who has drifted and to say I want to go to dinner and hear what's on your heart, and I'm going to stand here until you come with me.
What exact ingredients the Lord used to free my brother from the sinful mindset in which he was trapped, I couldn't analyze, but he came, both to a dinner he did not want to join and out of the bitterness in which he was enmeshed.
That this directness is still the exception for me, for us, is an indictment. Surely the God Who exemplified initiative in Christ and foreshadowed it in Jeremiah 22:1-3 still has emphatic, individual messages to deliver. Surely He has particular people to tell that the wages of sin is death, and particular people He would use to deliver the bad news before the Good News.
Your challenge, and mine, is probably not to crash the repose of a president or king, but it is to follow obediently where God leads and when. It is truly our influence with the influential on His alter, to fear Him reverently as the everlasting King more than we do those crowned with the ability to spread our ridicule in this age.
The more we dig down into our natural aversion to the awkwardness that we perceive will result from sharing the gospel with others, we find that our silence can truly violate the Royal law. Is there any greater disdain for God and neighbor than to not fulfill the command to spread the gospel, or desire the salvation of our neighbors because we truly love them?
ReplyDeleteIt is sad that most writings and sessions on sharing the faith often take the form of guilt-laden lectures rather than encouragement on to greater faith. It does take great faith to share the gospel with others after all. It has always amazed me that Paul, writing in chains, would ask the Ephesians to pray that he would have boldness to share the gospel when he had opportunity. Paul actually phrases it as a danger-defying boldness (parresia) of which Christ was often described as exhibiting.
It should encourage us on to greater faith and maturity in sharing the gospel to remember that the apostle who was in chains for sharing his faith needed prayers for boldness to continue sharing the same faith. It reminds me that I should not take previous boldness to share as proof that the future will be easier - in fact, it may be more difficult.
amen
ReplyDelete