Coming Up For Air

Now therefore, amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God; then the Lord will relent concerning the doom that He has pronounced against you. Jeremiah 26:13, New King James Version On an episode of the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel Air , Will Smith as a college student seeks to get his uncle to choose a new car based on collegiate considerations rather than more practical aspects. As he paints the picture of the purchase accordingly, the dealership's manager is impressed and offers Will the chance to use his persuasive acumen as an employed car salesman. As Will succeeds in this, the manager challenges him further. He tells Will that real leadership in accordance with his gifts involves more than endorsing what people already want and adding alluring details. He needs to be able to deliver bad news. A leader needs to be able to fire people. In the sitcom truncation of life and 22-minute increments, we don't really see the transformation, but we do ...

12 Then Jeremiah spoke to all the princes and all the people, saying: “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city with all the words that you have heard." Jeremiah 26:12, New King James Version "Faith is as much the rule of temporal as of spiritual life," equates Charles Spurgeon in Morning and Evening. "We ought to have faith in God for our earthly affairs as well as for our heavenly business. It is only as we learn to trust in God for the supply of all our daily need," he lifts, "that we shall live above the world." Jeremiah 26:12 shows a man learning to live above the world. How impressive must Jerusalem's spires have seemed to this small-town boy? How readily must his forming mind and affections have associated the Temple's splendor on countless ascents of the Temple Mount with well-being before God? Yet, maturing into, as the New Testament will phrase it, walking by faith rather than by sight, Jeremiah's foc...

10 When the princes of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king’s house to the house of the Lord and sat down in the entry of the New Gate of the Lord’s house. 11 And the priests and the prophets spoke to the princes and all the people, saying, “This man deserves to die! For he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your ears.” Jeremiah 26:10-11, New King James Version "In television, as in politics," connects Kasey S. Pipes in the Nixon conclusion After the Fall , "a person explaining is a person losing." In Jeremiah 26:10-11, we see the loss in more scarring terms that immediate competitive disadvantage. Yes, strictly speaking, the party who has to turn his or her attention to justifying past actions rather than inspiring toward future goals is losing. But here, and in every like, sad reenactment, the loss is more grievous. The attention of fallen man in particular is so fleeting. The consideration of spiritual things is so awkw...

9 Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without an inhabitant’?” And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the Lord. Jeremiah 26:9, New King James Version "Statements should not be evaluated only by what they say," insists Timothy Keller in God's Wisdom for Navigating Life , "but also by what they intend to do." Even this, as reveals Jeremiah 26:9, can be an attempt at redirection. The collective outrage of the Temple crowd focuses itself on Jeremiah's motives rather than on the individual and cumulative responsibility before God to which Jeremiah points. They want to know, "Why have you prophesied?" It's as though they think the critical threshold was crossed when Jeremiah decided to speak, not when God imparted His Word, or when the people acted contrary to what of His Word they already had. Men's motives are a miasmac phenomenon....

7 So the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. 8 Now it happened, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, “You will surely die! Jeremiah 26:7-8, New King James Version My wife and I just finished watching ER on Hulu. We got a good deal on the subscription service, in exchange for which we granted forbearance for commercials. In one of them, we are asked to believe that the implacable Geico lizard has gone from the company's advertising frontman to the lowest position in the corporate hierarchy. With pluck, and it seems no small amount of ingenuity given his small size, he has managed to follow orders and ready the new advertising campaign for launch. All the literature is ready to go. Then his boss appears in the doorway, and, while munching on something, absently mentions a cha...

4 And the Lord has sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear. 5 They said, ‘Repent now everyone of his evil way and his evil doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers forever and ever. 6 Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands; and I will not harm you.’ 7 Yet you have not listened to Me,” says the Lord, “that you might provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt. Jeremiah 25:4-7, New King James Version "Men can be content to be anything," deduces Thomas Watson in The Art of Contentment , "but what God would have them be." There doesn't seem to be this sense of purposeful spite in Jeremiah 25:6-7. He created us with a need for the transcendent to be fulfilled in Himself. Yet we, according to verse six, "go after" other gods. We are,...

4 And you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: “If you will not listen to Me, to walk in My law which I have set before you, 5 to heed the words of My servants the prophets whom I sent to you, both rising up early and sending them (but you have not heeded), 6 then I will make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.” ’ ”Jeremiah 26:4-5, New King James Version "Repetition is unavoidable," laments William Manchester in A World Lit Only by Fire , "when the same offenses turned up again and again." So it is that in Jeremiah 26:4-5, the Lord points to the dirge in Israel's one note. The forefathers of those to whom Jeremiah spoke joyfully brought Him materials for the tabernacle which was set up at Shiloh, but this was destroyed when their practice, when the perpetual meditations of their hearts did not follow this singular act of spasmodic giving. The passersby, those who only reserve the mental RAM to note one thin...

3 Perhaps everyone will listen and turn from his evil way, that I may relent concerning the calamity which I purpose to bring on them because of the evil of their doings.’ Jeremiah 26:3, New King James Version Simon Bolívar's last words were reported to be, "I go to seek to be Great Perhaps." At first, in character, I bristled. Why reduce the promises of Scripture to such fuzziness, especially when about to cross the threshold into Eternity? Why not take up the Savior's costly emphasis with among His last, painful breaths as He promises the former thief and mocker on the cross beside Him, "Today you will be with Me in Paradise." But in Jeremiah 26:3, there's that word again, at least as rendered in English by the new King James version. This time, tantalizingly, it comes from God Himself. Look where He puts the perhaps. Not, perhaps the promises of Scripture are true. Not, perhaps biblical faith is something more solid than Marx's panacea of the mass...

1 In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from the Lord, saying, 2 “Thus says the Lord: ‘Stand in the court of the Lord’s house, and speak to all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the Lord’s house, all the words that I command you to speak to them. Do not diminish a word. Jeremiah 26:1-2, New King James Version "It is usually very simple concrete things of daily living," concedes Henri Nouwen in Life of the Beloved , "that provide the raw materials for our conversations. The question, 'How are you doing?' usually leads to very down-to-earth stories about marriage, family, health, work, money, friends, and plans for the immediate future. It seldom, however, leads to deep thoughts about the origin and goal of our existence." In such unpromising soil, also, God plants the Word He is setting up in Jeremiah 26:1-2. He is allowing in advance of his latest message to and through Jeremiah that there are...

He has left His lair like the lion; For their land is desolate Because of the fierceness of the Oppressor, And because of His fierce anger.” Jeremiah 25:38, New King James Version Thomas  Mallon writes in The New Yorker , "Photographer Arthur Felig, known as Weegee never got his wish to shoot a murder as it was happening, but his real gift was for photographing targets after they ripen into corpses." Jeremiah 25:38 is such a freeze-frame. The wages of sin, as Romans will connect more explicitly in the New Testament, will have brought forth death once the exile Jeremiah foretells takes place. Targets will ripen into corpses. People will get something like what they deserve for flouting God's glory. God's reflection on this moment in advance is something like Warren Buffett's in the compendium of his wisdom Warren Buffett on Business . "Trying to write good contracts with bad people doesn't work." God's covenant with His people, though communicated...

35 And the shepherds will have no way to flee, Nor the leaders of the flock to escape. 36 A voice of the cry of the shepherds, And a wailing of the leaders to the flock will be heard. For the Lord has plundered their pasture, 37 And the peaceful dwellings are cut down Because of the fierce anger of the Lord. Jeremiah 25:35-37, New King James Version "The slothful think of themselves first, even in the work they choose to do," discerns Tim Keller in God's Wisdom For Navigating Life . "They select work for their own comfort or benefit rather than for how it helps others, the community, and society." Jeremiah 25:35-37 reveals just how thoroughgoing such a selfish tendency is. Those who are positioned by God's sovereign grace as shepherds, familiar with His Word enough to feed others, are not stirred to action when the flocks scatter in search of spiritual food. God then moves to touching what they are more likely to notice, the threefold preoccupations of their...

“Wail, shepherds, and cry! Roll about in the ashes, You leaders of the flock! For the days of your slaughter and your dispersions are fulfilled; You shall fall like a precious vessel. Jeremiah 25:34, New King James Version On the political drama The West Wing , personable assistant Donna Moss continues her everyperson education on behalf of the viewer unacquainted with some of the realities with which the show deals. In one instance, she is helping new watch commander Jack Reese set up his office. She is taken with him, and she can't understand why someone so honorable would vote against her Democratic boss. She tries to differentiate between spending for vital weapons and the waste her boss would cut, say, on overpriced ashtrays for which the Pentagon pays so much more than market value. Jack opts for an expensive and memorable lesson. He smashes one of those ashtrays and notes for Donna's benefit that it breaks in three dull pieces. He instructs calmly that when a s...

32 Thus says the Lord of hosts:“Behold, disaster shall go forth From nation to nation, And a great whirlwind shall be raised up From the farthest parts of the earth. 33 And at that day the slain of the Lord shall be from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth. They shall not be lamented, or gathered, or be shouldered; they shall become refuse on the ground. Jeremiah 25:32-33, New King James Version CS Lewis's fictional demon Screwtape is tutoring his nephew on a rearguard action after their human target has become a Christian. Not surprisingly, pride is still a choice weapon. Screwtape says of the "patient's" upward mobility, "the new circle in which he finds himself is one in which he is tempted to be proud for many reasons other than its Christianity. It is better educated, more intelligent, more agreeable society than any he has yet encountered." Jeremiah 25:32-33 also warns us of the deadly distraction of "other than." Perhaps,...

30 “Therefore prophesy against them all these words, and say to them: ‘The Lord will roar from on high, And utter His voice from His holy habitation; He will roar mightily against His fold. He will give a shout, as those who tread the grapes, Against all the inhabitants of the earth. 31 A noise will come to the ends of the earth— For the Lord has a controversy with the nations; He will plead His case with all flesh. He will give those who are wicked to the sword,’ says the Lord.” Jeremiah 25:30-31, New King James Version "The cosmic story intersects your personal story," measures Russell Moore in Tempted and Tried , "and it's dangerous if you can't see where." So it is in Jeremiah 25:30-31. The Lord's declared roar of His glory, the prerogative enmeshed in His character is before every earthling. The heavens themselves, Scripture says elsewhere, declare the glory of God. He pleads His case, attests Jeremiah 25:31, with all flesh. The end verdict is that ...

27 “Therefore you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Drink, be drunk, and vomit! Fall and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.” ’ 28 And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink, then you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “You shall certainly drink! 29 For behold, I begin to bring calamity on the city which is called by My name, and should you be utterly unpunished? You shall not be unpunished, for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth,” says the Lord of hosts.’ Jeremiah 25:27-28, New King James Version Tim Keller in God's Wisdom for Navigating Life sources Derek Kidner's realization that true friendship is both "reassuring and bracing." This is a reality behind the cup of wrath the prophet is to offer the nations in Jeremiah 25. Fearsome as that is, convicted as we are when we realize that we, especially as Gentile Christians, would have t...

19 Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his princes, and all his people; 20 all the mixed multitude, all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the land of the Philistines (namely, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod); 21 Edom, Moab, and the people of Ammon; 22 all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon, and the kings of the coastlands which are across the sea; 23 Dedan, Tema, Buz, and all who are in the farthest corners; 24 all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the mixed multitude who dwell in the desert; 25 all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes; 26 all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world which are on the face of the earth. Also the king of Sheshach shall drink after them. Jeremiah 25:19-26, New King James Version In his sermon, "The Devil's Banquet," Charles Spurgeon discerns a deeper principle in the hospitality by which the host in John's Gos...

17 Then I took the cup from the Lord’s hand, and made all the nations drink, to whom the Lord had sent me: 18 Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is this day. Jeremiah 25:17-18, New King James Version Susan B. Glasser points out in The New Yorker that a political consultant she is profiling had become too familiar in her efforts to arrest current trends. In gradually being ignored, Glasser says, she is a victim of, "the soft bigotry of low expectations." Jeremiah might fear the same fate. Again and again, he has striven with his countrymen over the same issues, insistent on the glory of God. He has been derided or ignored from his family circle in his hometown to the Temple environs in Jerusalem. He could see the global commission God gives him in Jeremiah 25 to confront other cultures as an opportunity to engage ears and hearts who have not built up a tolerance for his mess...

15 For thus says the Lord God of Israel to me: “Take this wine cup of fury from My hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it. 16 And they will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them.” Jeremiah 25:15-16, New King James Version "The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men," traces Henry David Thoreau in Walden , "and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains." Jeremiah has not been on a cabin passage below decks. He has been before the mast. He has, by God's grace, been able to perceive the Almighty's character and the ways in which the worn and dusty patterns of men deviate from that. He has by the gentle moo...

13 So I will bring on that land all My words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied concerning all the nations. 14 (For many nations and great kings shall be served by them also; and I will repay them according to their deeds and according to the works of their own hands.)’ ”Jeremiah 25:13-14, New King James Version "Every sin," discerned Spurgeon in "The Loved Ones Chastened" has one twig in God's rod appropriated to itself." We see this in Jeremiah 25:13-14. The Babylonians have sinned as a culture. Pride has so intoxicated their collective consciousness that God foretells to Jeremiah that He will bring judgment on the land itself. Beyond Babylon's borders, inspired Paul says in Romans 8 that Creation GROANS to be free of the general judgment on man's hubris. Yet, to Spurgeon's point, there is individual accountability. It's not just that our race deserves the rod, and has ...

12 ‘Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,’ says the Lord; ‘and I will make it a perpetual desolation. Jeremiah 25:12, New King James Version In The Screwtape Letters , a seasoned tempter is teaching his nephew how to make the most of human terror. He tells him that he does not need to set his sites on convincing his target that a given trouble will last forever. He only needs to convince him that the trouble will last longer than he can stand it. By God's grace, the prophet's audience in Jeremiah 25:12 is given a timeframe for how long the upheaval of exile will last. They can look forward to it ending. They can look forward to returning home, to a land which God in His simultaneous grace has pledged to preserve for them as Abraham's heirs for a thousand generations. They, knowing this, can swat aside tempters' goads toward despair and can, Jerem...

10 Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. 11 And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Jeremiah 25:10-11, New King James Version "I like curmudgeons," judges Kael Weston in The Mirror Test , "and wars tend to produce them in all ranks, at all ages." Thus the prophet serves that role in Jeremiah 25:10-11. The war that is coming, he warns, is going to up and all that the people have taken for granted. Though the people have attested their adherence to God by defending what goes on in the Temple, God reminds them through Jeremiah that His glory and grace are more pervasive. It is He, He reminds, Who gives true laughter, and He can take it away as His people turn toward frivolity as a distraction from their duty toward Him. It is He Who gr...

8 “Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Because you have not heard My words, 9 behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,’ says the Lord, ‘and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations. Jeremiah 25:8-9, New King James Version Charles Dickens's David Copperfield catches the oily Uriah in a moment of candor. ‘Be umble, Uriah,’ says Father to me, ‘and you’ll get on. It was what was always being dinned into you and me at school; it’s what goes down best. Be umble,’ says Father, ‘and you’ll do!’ And really it ain’t done bad!” "It was the first time," reflects Copperfield as narrator, "it had ever occurred to me that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never thought of ...

6 Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands; and I will not harm you.’ 7 Yet you have not listened to Me,” says the Lord, “that you might provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt. Jeremiah 25:6-7, New King James Version In “A New Heart“ Spurgeon confesses, “The Lord is angry not only against our overt act, but against the nature of which dictates the acts.“ He diagnoses to this sin-infected core in advance of the disease's impact in Jeremiah 25:6-7. The Great Physician of souls discerns the impact of what we "go after." He knows the curiosities after which our idle thoughts wander. He knows what our idle energies pursue. He knows in advance the what if's we set up as hypothetical alternatives to complete submission to and satisfaction in Him. He knows and declares to Jeremiah how this idle speculation distills into identity-corrupting habits. We may not call them wors...

4 And the Lord has sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear. 5 They said, ‘Repent now everyone of his evil way and his evil doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers forever and ever. Jeremiah 25:4-5, New King James Version My friend Chuck has been investing his retirement in part in word roots. He was marveling yesterday at one of the meanings of the word translated salvation among the Psalms. He said it means to move from a more constricted place to a more free place, an open pasture. That revolutionary idea takes deeper root as it is followed up in my immediate experience with the continual insistence of the prophetic message according to Jeremiah 25:5. The prophets have been saying, God repeats to Jeremiah, let go of evil ways and evil doings. This is a narrow place, a place of conviction, confrontation, and confession. It is hard to hear the word evil applie...