Jeremiah 23:13-14 – Whose Hand Is Strengthened?

13
“And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria:
They prophesied by Baal
And caused My people Israel to err.
14
Also I have seen a horrible thing in the prophets of Jerusalem:
They commit adultery and walk in lies;
They also strengthen the hands of evildoers,
So that no one turns back from his wickedness.
All of them are like Sodom to Me,
And her inhabitants like Gomorrah. Jeremiah 23:13-14, New King James Version

“We should not be overly shocked and disillusioned when our leaders are revealed as having clay feet," advises Tim Keller in God's Wisdom for Navigating Life, continuing, "nor should we be blasé and shrug. If we are to trust God as our only true hope for social order and peace, we must avoid either adulatory naïveté or bitter cynicism about human leaders.”

This is the aspect of His glory on display in Jeremiah 23:13-14. He calls out the state of those purported to be set apart for His ministry. He doesn't revere them for the social respect they engender or the tradition they tap into, but neither does he leave them, their misdeeds, their impact on their followers, as hopeless. He speaks His Word, and preserves it, that we might see a more accurate reflection of Him in those in His service.

He cautions us against putting too high a premium on our bodily location. Our adherence to assembling ourselves together with God's covenant people may be habit, but we are not saved or sanctified by ZIP Code. The depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah, He says, can still go on in the rarefied precincts of Jerusalem. Simply because we faithfully go on a pilgrimage away from our weekday routine doesn't mean our hearts follow our feet.

It takes an act of God toward unflinching honesty on our part to determine whose hand is being strengthened in our lives, to break associations with those who encourage us to devalue the things of God, or whose gilded religious words sanction our tendency in that direction. By God's grace, and by that grace only, we can see ourselves as we are and repent directly to Him. We can be a testimony right where we are that He is as present in our work, in our marriage, in our parenting, as in Jerusalem.


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