Jeremiah 22:20-21 – The Threefold Distraction of Riches
20
“Go up to Lebanon, and cry out,
And lift up your voice in Bashan;
Cry from Abarim,
For all your lovers are destroyed.
21
I spoke to you in your prosperity,
But you said, ‘I will not hear.’
This has been your manner from your youth,
That you did not obey My voice.
"I felt lucky," confesses Pat Conroy's Will McLean in Lords on Discipline upon the discovery of a tiny sand dollar with a cross in the middle. "You had to decide what was estimable and precious in your life and set out to find it. The objects you valued defined you."
So declares Jeremiah 22:20-21. The Word of the Lord, in fact, shows three ways in which Jehoiakim was defined by giving inordinate value material prosperity. He Who is Himself Pearl above price is in a unique position to declare to men what is comparatively inferior.
The pursuit of comfort out of proportion shaped Jehoiakim's relationships and doomed them. Lebanon was the home of the great cedars with which Solomon paneled his palace, and there is every chance Jehoiakim as Solomon's less lustrous successor nevertheless sought to demonstrate Solomon's level outward opulence.
Thus, rather than testifying to the Lord in the process of trade as Lebanon's former King says was the legacy of David and Solomon, Jehoiakim gives his love to wealth's precincts, and they are pulled into the vortex of his destruction as a result.
Give our hearts to the pursuit of wealth, and we will begin to see men as means to more of it. We will, day by day and year by year, hollow out what otherwise could be a meaningful conduit of God's grace, less pointing others to His sufficiency as they do the same for us.
Prosperity can directly distract us from God's voice. It gives us a comfortable status quo to defend, a confidence with so many measurable confirmations of our self-righteousness in our own eyes, that we, like Jehoiakim, hear the voice of the Lord is an opportunity to assert ourselves.
Potentially convicted, we say, "I will not hear," because riches offer a sweeter song in the short term. Like this suddenly prospered man in Jesus' parable, our self-talk is too full of the braggadocio we are imposing on our future narrative to hear and be humbled by God's voice in the present moment.
Riches merchandise our relationships. They give us false standing in our own eyes to challenge the Holy Spirit's conviction. They also set a seductive standard over time. As God has been tracing the descent of Jehoiakim's heart, He can see with clarity the that the king likely cannot, and that we often cannot.
Proverbs guides away from ruining a young man with riches for much the same reason. What we experience in our youth set our gauge for what is normal. It establishes what we tell ourselves we need to have for a minimal sense of well-being.
From this baseline, in order to tell ourselves we have matured or accomplished, or in order to stir with novelty the zeal which in Truth can only be stirred by union with Christ, we determine the next purchase, or the next appealing arrangement of our purchases.
We lose sight of the Lord as Giver of daily bread. If we turn our hearts to Him at all, it is with a self-serving, embittered attitude that reverses His queries to wander what He has done for us lately. Of course, if we have sharpened this defiant spirit from youth onward, it does not strike our ears as demanding to the point of idolatry the way it might others who have esteemed walking with Him.
“Go up to Lebanon, and cry out,
And lift up your voice in Bashan;
Cry from Abarim,
For all your lovers are destroyed.
21
I spoke to you in your prosperity,
But you said, ‘I will not hear.’
This has been your manner from your youth,
That you did not obey My voice.
"I felt lucky," confesses Pat Conroy's Will McLean in Lords on Discipline upon the discovery of a tiny sand dollar with a cross in the middle. "You had to decide what was estimable and precious in your life and set out to find it. The objects you valued defined you."
So declares Jeremiah 22:20-21. The Word of the Lord, in fact, shows three ways in which Jehoiakim was defined by giving inordinate value material prosperity. He Who is Himself Pearl above price is in a unique position to declare to men what is comparatively inferior.
The pursuit of comfort out of proportion shaped Jehoiakim's relationships and doomed them. Lebanon was the home of the great cedars with which Solomon paneled his palace, and there is every chance Jehoiakim as Solomon's less lustrous successor nevertheless sought to demonstrate Solomon's level outward opulence.
Thus, rather than testifying to the Lord in the process of trade as Lebanon's former King says was the legacy of David and Solomon, Jehoiakim gives his love to wealth's precincts, and they are pulled into the vortex of his destruction as a result.
Give our hearts to the pursuit of wealth, and we will begin to see men as means to more of it. We will, day by day and year by year, hollow out what otherwise could be a meaningful conduit of God's grace, less pointing others to His sufficiency as they do the same for us.
Prosperity can directly distract us from God's voice. It gives us a comfortable status quo to defend, a confidence with so many measurable confirmations of our self-righteousness in our own eyes, that we, like Jehoiakim, hear the voice of the Lord is an opportunity to assert ourselves.
Potentially convicted, we say, "I will not hear," because riches offer a sweeter song in the short term. Like this suddenly prospered man in Jesus' parable, our self-talk is too full of the braggadocio we are imposing on our future narrative to hear and be humbled by God's voice in the present moment.
Riches merchandise our relationships. They give us false standing in our own eyes to challenge the Holy Spirit's conviction. They also set a seductive standard over time. As God has been tracing the descent of Jehoiakim's heart, He can see with clarity the that the king likely cannot, and that we often cannot.
Proverbs guides away from ruining a young man with riches for much the same reason. What we experience in our youth set our gauge for what is normal. It establishes what we tell ourselves we need to have for a minimal sense of well-being.
From this baseline, in order to tell ourselves we have matured or accomplished, or in order to stir with novelty the zeal which in Truth can only be stirred by union with Christ, we determine the next purchase, or the next appealing arrangement of our purchases.
We lose sight of the Lord as Giver of daily bread. If we turn our hearts to Him at all, it is with a self-serving, embittered attitude that reverses His queries to wander what He has done for us lately. Of course, if we have sharpened this defiant spirit from youth onward, it does not strike our ears as demanding to the point of idolatry the way it might others who have esteemed walking with Him.
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