Return To The Lord
Scripture References: Lamentations 3:40, Jeremiah 7:1-11, 30-31, Matthew 21:12-13, 1 John 1:9, Psalm 139:23-24
Introduction:
40 Let us test and examine our ways,
and return to the Lord! – Lamentations 3:40 ESV
One of the most dangerous states we can fall into is complacency. When I step back and reflect on my own life, I can remember times where I probably thought rather highly of myself. I may have been doing a lot of ‘church stuff’, I may have been reading my Bible regularly, praying and maybe even doing the occasional service project.
What did the rest of my life look like outside of that? Well, that’s the problem…I probably tuned that stuff out thinking: “My actions outside of church related activities may or may not be ‘right’…but I’m doing so much ‘good’ that I’m covered. God understands that I mess up sometimes, but at least I’m being obedient and doing all my ‘church stuff’”…This is a dangerous place to be. When we get to a point where we are not honestly examining ourselves and repenting — That is, doing a 180 and turning from our sin, back to God…then we end up hurting others and sinning against God.
As I’ve studied through Jeremiah, there is a particular scene that causes me to pause and once again examine myself. Am I becoming complacent? Am I holding on to some false sense of security that somehow my sin doesn’t matter as long as I’m faithfully doing other ‘stuff’ for God? Jeremiah addressed a similar attitude with the people of Judah…
Devotional:
1 “The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. 3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. 4 Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’” – Jeremiah 7:1-4 ESV
You can’t get much more direct than this. The Lord commands Jeremiah to stand in the gate of the Temple itself as people are coming and going for worship. What is the Lord’s message to these ‘church going’ people? Repent! Amend…or in other words, ‘make right’ your ways. What are they doing so wrong that God is commanding Jeremiah to preach these words right in the Temple gate?
5 “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, 6 if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.” – Jeremiah 7:5-7 ESV
Injustice. Oppression of sojourners, orphans and widows — the people who are among the most vulnerable in their society. On top of that, going after other gods and shedding the blood of the innocent. We get a more gruesome glimpse of this shedding of innocent blood later in the chapter…
30 “For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the Lord. They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name, to defile it. 31 And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.” -Jeremiah 7:30-31 ESV
If you’ve read our ‘Why the conquest?’ devotional a few weeks ago, this may sound familiar. The people of Judah have fallen so low that they’re bringing their items of idol worship into the house of the Lord and practicing child sacrifice. The Lord declares – ‘I did not command this…nor did it come into my mind!’ This is why God sends Babylon as an instrument of His divine judgement. This is why Judah is eventually exiled. Yet in the midst of their evil…these people still have the audacity to walk into the temple chanting “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord”! Christopher J.H. Wright in his BST series volume: ‘The Message of Jeremiah’ comments on this attitude…
“For all their chanting, they were deceived in regarding the temple as their ultimate security. Get in there and you’ll be safe from any enemy, they thought. Right, said Jeremiah — unless you make God himself your enemy; then it becomes a rather dangerous place to be. And that is exactly what they were doing with their persistent covenant-breaking…”
“Their worship was deluded and divorced from morality. Their lives made a mockery of the words they spoke in God’s presence. Sadly, it was a practice that did not end with Old Testament Israel but remains a temptation among God’s people to this day.”1
In Jeremiah’s words…
8 “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations?” -Jeremiah 7:8-10 ESV
Translation: “You’re gonna go out and do all this evil…and then come into my house and act like everything is ok? Only to go back out and do it all again?”
Not a chance. The proverbial ‘gauntlet’ has been thrown down. We then come across some very familiar words…
11 “Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?”
-Jeremiah 7:11a ESV
Time to play my favorite Bible study game called: “Where have I heard this before?”…
12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” -Matthew 21:12-13 ESV
Just as Jeremiah confronts the people of Jerusalem in the temple, so Jesus confronts the people of Jerusalem in the temple for their evil and their defilement of the house of God. This is a people who did not learn from their past. But are we much different?
Takeaway
This is where we must make it a practice to stop and examine ourselves as I suggest in the introduction. Am I being complacent about my sin? Am I justifying, or turning a blind eye to the ways I’ve sinned against others and against God? Do I have that same audacity to walk into church on a Sunday and act like everything is ok while I go on doing evil? My point is not to say stop coming to church if you’ve answered ‘yes’ to any of those questions. My point is that if we honestly examine ourselves and find that we’ve answered ‘yes’ to any of those questions…our response should be what Jeremiah called the people of Judah to do…Repent! Admit our sin. Turn away from our sin and turn back to God. Amend…’make right’ our ways. When this is our response to sin…then as Pastor Chuck so often says, God’s response to our repentance is: ‘What sin? It’s at the bottom of the ocean!’
9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” -1 John 1:9 ESV
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting! – Psalm 139:23-24 ESV
Amen.
Sean Wagner
- Christopher J.H. Wright, The Message of Jeremiah, The Bible Speaks Today (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014), 102. ↩︎