Jeremiah 5:10-6:8
‘A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and My people love it this way’(31)! The people were happy to listen to the ‘prophets’- so long as their preaching wasn’t too challenging. They were happy to attend the services conducted by the ‘priests’- so long as nobody expected them to change their way of life. The last thing they wanted was ‘prophets’ and ‘priests’ who took God’s Word seriously. Jeremiah was exactly what they didn’t want! He was serious about preaching the Word of God. He was serious about living in obedience to God’s Word. He wasn’t popular. He didn’t give the people what they wanted. Jeremiah was exactly what the people needed - a prophet who would keep on challenging them to ‘get real’ with God.
Jeremiah 6:9-30
‘Their ears are closed... The Word of the Lord is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it’(10). Jeremiah must have felt like he was ‘hitting his head off a brick wall’. So few people showed any real interest in hearing and obeying the Word of the Lord. It seemed like God’s Word was ‘going in one ear and out the other’. It would have been so easy for Jeremiah just to ‘settle down’, to start ‘taking it easy’. This was what so many of the ‘prophets’ and ‘priests’ had done: ‘They dress the wound of My people as though it were not serious. “Peace, peace”, they say, when there is no peace’(13-14). This was what Jeremiah refused to do. Jeremiah made his choice. We must make our choice. Will we choose to be faithful to God or will we settle for being popular with those whom ‘the Lord has rejected’(30)?
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Blessings in Christ
Christ in all the Scriptures
http://christinallthescriptures.blogspot.com
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