Jeremiah 26:4-5 – Leaden Hearts, Leaden Habits
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 thing about Israel as they are mostly subsumed with their own daily doings, what they will note of her is not her occasional obedience in moments of ecstasy but that even she could not escape the curse demanded of violating God's honor.
Even while the history of God's Presence and advocacy for her was preserved in the ark at Shiloh, and even after the visible glory of the ark had departed when He was faithful to send prophets to remind them of His character and interventions, even then they debased to deserve His wrath.
The book of Hebrews reminds the Christians that we are even more accountable. We must, that inspired author pleads in Hebrews 2:1-3, "give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. 2 For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him?"
We have our Shilohs, indeed, where we experienced corporate enthusiasm. But have we developed deep roots in Him which withstand the times when falling away is the cultural norm around us? Would the legacy in the Lord to which we aspire to be swallowed up in the just condemnation of our culture's sense of sufficiency apart from Him?
Or will we, more distinctly His as sprinkled across the globe then beholden to any city, any country, any ideology, so readily give account for the hope that is within us that we are counted even by the spiritually blind as a separate people, CHRIST'S people? Yes, this loss of tractability will scandalize some as we stand apart. Yes, we will experience some of the same enmity our Savior did in John 8 as His enemies mistook His exuberant ministry for domination by the demonic.
But we will have already begun the process of, like Lot, coming out of the culture which is falling down around us, sounding a separate note in the eyes of the world. We live, by His allotment, in the city, in bodies of this skin color, of these abilities. We handle goods of this quantity. We worship in the forms of this current dispensation, as sure to be surpassed as those at Shiloh. But our identity is in CHRIST, all in all, worth the admiration of the ages.
"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 thing about Israel as they are mostly subsumed with their own daily doings, what they will note of her is not her occasional obedience in moments of ecstasy but that even she could not escape the curse demanded of violating God's honor.
Even while the history of God's Presence and advocacy for her was preserved in the ark at Shiloh, and even after the visible glory of the ark had departed when He was faithful to send prophets to remind them of His character and interventions, even then they debased to deserve His wrath.
The book of Hebrews reminds the Christians that we are even more accountable. We must, that inspired author pleads in Hebrews 2:1-3, "give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. 2 For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him?"
We have our Shilohs, indeed, where we experienced corporate enthusiasm. But have we developed deep roots in Him which withstand the times when falling away is the cultural norm around us? Would the legacy in the Lord to which we aspire to be swallowed up in the just condemnation of our culture's sense of sufficiency apart from Him?
Or will we, more distinctly His as sprinkled across the globe then beholden to any city, any country, any ideology, so readily give account for the hope that is within us that we are counted even by the spiritually blind as a separate people, CHRIST'S people? Yes, this loss of tractability will scandalize some as we stand apart. Yes, we will experience some of the same enmity our Savior did in John 8 as His enemies mistook His exuberant ministry for domination by the demonic.
But we will have already begun the process of, like Lot, coming out of the culture which is falling down around us, sounding a separate note in the eyes of the world. We live, by His allotment, in the city, in bodies of this skin color, of these abilities. We handle goods of this quantity. We worship in the forms of this current dispensation, as sure to be surpassed as those at Shiloh. But our identity is in CHRIST, all in all, worth the admiration of the ages.
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