Jeremiah

Chapter 12:5-13 (ESV) - “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you,
    how will you compete with horses?
And if in a safe land you are so trusting,
    what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?
For even your brothers and the house of your father,
    even they have dealt treacherously with you;
    they are in full cry after you;
do not believe them,
    though they speak friendly words to you.”

“I have forsaken my house;
    I have abandoned my heritage;
I have given the beloved of my soul
    into the hands of her enemies.
My heritage has become to me
    like a lion in the forest;
she has lifted up her voice against me;
    therefore I hate her.
Is my heritage to me like a hyena's lair?
    Are the birds of prey against her all around?
Go, assemble all the wild beasts;
    bring them to devour.
Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard;
    they have trampled down my portion;
they have made my pleasant portion
    a desolate wilderness.
They have made it a desolation;
    desolate, it mourns to me.
The whole land is made desolate,
    but no man lays it to heart.
Upon all the bare heights in the desert
    destroyers have come,
for the sword of the LORD devours
    from one end of the land to the other;
    no flesh has peace.
They have sown wheat and have reaped thorns;
    they have tired themselves out but profit nothing.
They shall be ashamed of their harvests
    because of the fierce anger of the LORD.”

Question to consider: What did the LORD mean by His question about competing with horses?

When we read Jeremiah, we are doing so from the perspective of a historical observer. We know what happens to Judah by the Babylonians. We know that they eventually came back into the land and continued to be ruled by cruel nations all the way up until Christ came. We know that after Christ was crucified and rose from the dead, He ascended to the right hand of the Father and sent the Holy Spirit to establish the church. Once the gospel made its way throughout the Roman empire, the temple of Jerusalem was fully and finally destroyed. From that time, Israel did not even exist on a map until 1948.

I think it is worth considering the perspective of Jeremiah. Up until the LORD told him to proclaim the coming judgment by Babylon, Jeremiah had a normal life. The priests and scribes all spoke of the majesty of Judah and the holy city of Jerusalem as a place at peace with God and the surrounding nations. Jeremiah looked up to these men and desired to follow in their footsteps. All he had known was peace and prosperity.

Now he’s been made to realize that these men whom he respected had been lying to him. Judah was not at peace with God, and their relationship with the nations was tenuously based on their willingness to welcome their gods into the holy city. They hadn’t even considered the fact that this would be abhorrent to the LORD, and that He would lift His hand of protection on the land and use Babylon as His sword against them.

Once Jeremiah realized this, he pleaded with the LORD to not let this happen while at the same time bringing this message to the men he respected thinking that they would share in his desire to turn back to the LORD. Once the Law was discovered and read to the people, I’m sure Jeremiah was confident that these men would see where they had drifted away from the LORD and return in sackcloth and ashes.

However, instead of this, these men confronted Jeremiah and threatened to kill him if he continued to preach this message from the LORD. This was a gut punch that had Jeremiah reeling and crying out to God for the injustice of it all.

The LORD’s response in today’s passage was to say, if Jeremiah was defeated by the opposition of men who shared his heritage and knew the LORD and His Law, how was he going to handle the tribulation that was coming by the hands of the Babylonians?

Jeremiah definitely needed to prepare himself for battle if he was going to continue to declare the truth of the LORD and save some, and most of all, he couldn’t trust anyone— even those who acted like they were still his friends. The LORD had completely forsaken Judah, and its shepherds (the priests, scribes and prophets) brought about its destruction. Their continued teaching would profit them nothing, and they would only experience the fierce anger of the LORD.

Prayer

Dear heavenly Father, we confess that the whole world looks exactly like Judah in this passage. Please open our eyes to it like You did for Jeremiah so that we may preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins through Christ before He returns to judge the living and the dead. Amen.