Equipped for God's Calling

 

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. --Lamentations 3:22-23

 When I was growing up in a small-town Baptist church, there was an emphasis on evangelism.  One of the tools that we were given was a tract, a small booklet with large letters and bold colors, called "Steps to Peace With God."  Published by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, it went through four easy steps to salvation: God's Plan (peace with God, citing John 3:16), Our Problem (sin separates us from God, citing Romans 3:23), God's Remedy (the cross, citing Romans 6:23), and Our Response (receive Christ, citing John 1:12).

It was short, simple, and to the point.  It was designed to explain salvation to your friends without getting taking up too much time (so they wouldn't lose interest) and without getting too deep theologically (so they wouldn't lose focus).  The "hook" was the opening statement: "God loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your life."

I go to a men's Bible study at our church most Saturday mornings.  They are studying heroes of the faith in the book of Acts.  The current study is on Stephen, the first Christian martyr in Scripture.  I thought it was interesting that the leader titled the lesson, "What if God's plan for your life isn't so wonderful?"

I have just finished reading the book of Jeremiah in my daily Bible readings, and have just started the sequel written by Jeremiah, the book called Lamentations.  Jeremiah was called "the weeping prophet" because his writings expressed genuine grief over the sin of the people, sins which would lead them into Babylonian exile for the next 70 years.  He was forbidden by God to marry or to bring children into the land because of the wickedness of the people.  He was once thrown into a cistern because of his message of gloom and doom; it took 30 men to pull him out of the mire with ropes and rags under his arms so that he wouldn't starve.  

Was this God's plan for Jeremiah?  Was this his calling?

As I was doing my daily Bible readings this week in the book of Jeremiah, God repeatedly brought to mind 2 Peter 1:3, that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness.  What, I thought, was the connection between the life of Jeremiah and this passage in 2 Peter?  Then I started reading Lamentations, and I got to one of my favorite verses, Lamentations 3:22-23.  It started to make sense to me.  God's endless mercy is evidence of His love; His faithfulness is shown by the mercies that are new every morning.  This uplifting testimony was written by Jeremiah the "weeping prophet", who expressed deep grief and sorrow for the sinfulness of God's people and the impending destruction of Judah.

Hymn writer Reginald Heber wrote these words in the early 1800s:

Holy, Holy, Holy! though the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,
Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
Perfect in pow'r, in love, and purity.

Jeremiah tried to show God's glory to the people in Judah, but their eyes were blinded because of their sin.  He tried desperately to get his countrymen to repent, to turn from their sins and to obey God, to no avail.  How discouraged Jeremiah must have been!  Like Stephen, Jeremiah spoke the truth, and although Jeremiah was not martyred for his message, it must have broken his heart every time he spoke God's truth and it fell on deaf ears.

There were three different times in Jeremiah's ministry when people came to him specifically asking for God's guidance.  When the message from God was not what they wanted to hear, these people went their own way, continuing in their disobedience.  Not only that, but they persecuted Jeremiah for not being more positive and upbeat.  Talk about shooting the messenger. 

Pashhur the Priest

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Machiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maasieah, saying, "Inquire of the Lord for us, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is making war against us. Perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all His wonderful deeds and will make him withdraw from us."  Then Jeremiah said to them: "Thus you shall say to Zedekiah, 'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands and with which you are fighting against the king of Babylon and against the Chaldeans who are beseiging you outside the walls.  And I will bring them together into the midst of this city.  I Myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath.'"  (Jeremiah 21:3-5)

The people had heard of the power of God.  They knew the story of God delivering them through Moses at the Red Sea.  They had heard of God fighting through Joshua to secure the land of Israel for their forefathers.  Every story that they brought to mind was when God had intervened for the benefit of His people.  They were looking for a similar message from Jeremiah: tell us, O man of God, how God will use His power to deliver us.

Unfortunately, God's message was not one of deliverance this time.  The word that came to Jeremiah was not that God would fight for them; it was quite the opposite--that because of their sinful hearts, God would fight against them.

How often do we hear the world misrepresent the nature of God? "God is love," they might say, "so why is there suffering, or famine, or war?"  They presume that if God loved as they think of love, that He would always work for good.  In his famous sermon called Sinners In The Hand Of An Angry God Johnathan Edwards said, "The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood.”

Jeremiah even gave them an out.  

And to the people you shall say: "Thus says the Lord: Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.  He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, but he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live and shall have his life as a prize of war.  For I have set my face against this city for harm and not for good, declares the Lord: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire."  (Jeremiah 21: 8-10)

What was the priest's response?  "Then Pashhur beat Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the upper Benjamin gate of the house of the Lord." (Jeremiah 20:2)  Jeremiah then condemned Pashhur, saying the Lord did not call his name Pashhur (which means "Freedom"--ironic, isn't it, that a man named Freedom would beat and imprison the prophet of God.)  Instead, God called him "Terror on Every Side". 

When word got back to the king what Jeremiah had said, Zedekiah had Jeremiah thrown in prison (32:3) and then tried to sneak out of the city under cover of darkness (39:4) before being captured by the Babylonians, who killed Zedekiah's sons in front of him, then gouged out his eyes so that the death of his children was the last image he would see.  If only he had listened to Jeremiah, Zedekiah could have been spared.  The Babylonians would have taken him and all of Judah into exile, sure, but he would have been allowed to live in the court of the king of Babylon and eat from his table.

Hananiah the Horrible Liar

A brief word here may be in order.  Jewish literature is not always in chronological order.  You may have noticed in the example above that the account of Pashhur beating Jeremiah (chapter 20) came before the account of the prophecy of Jeremiah that earned him the beating (chapter 21).  This may have something to do with the accounts first being passed down orally, from one generation to another, before being written down on a scroll.  Imagine a grandfather telling the story of Jeremiah 20 to his grandchildren.  "Then there was the time that Jeremiah was beaten and put in the stocks."  A child might interrupt, "But grandpa, why was Jeremiah beaten?"  The old man might reply, "Well, let me tell you: King Zedekiah sent Pashhur the priest to ask if God might deliver them, and Jeremiah said no.  That was not what they wanted to hear."

A more concrete example of the book of Jeremiah being written in thematic rather than chronological order would be the story of the false prophet Hananiah, found in chapter 28.

In that same year, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah the king of Judah, in the fifth month of the fourth year, Hananiah the son of Axxur, the prophet from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.  Within two years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the Lord's house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon.  I will also bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon, declares the Lord, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon." (Jeremiah 28: 1-4)

Now, we know that Zedekiah had already been identified as king of Judah back in chapter 20 and 21.  The point Jeremiah was making was that Hananiah was a false prophet.

And Jeremiah the prophet said to the prophet Hananiah, "Listen, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie.  Therefore thus says the Lord: 'Behold, I will remove you from the face of the earth.  This year you shall die, because you have uttered rebellion against the Lord.'"  In that same year, in the seventh month, the prophet Hananiah died." (Jeremiah 28:15-17) 

Johanan and Jezaniah call Jeremiah a Liar

Then all the commanders of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaniah, and all the people from the least to the greatest, came near and said to Jeremiah the prophet, "Let our plea for mercy come before you, and pray to the Lord your God for us, for all this remnant--because we are left with but a few, as your eyes see us--that the Lord your God may show us the way we should go, and the thing we should do."  Jeremiah the prophet said to them, "I have heard your.  Behold, I will pray to the Lord your God according to your request, and whatever the Lord answers I will tell you.  I will keep nothing back from you." Then they said to Jeremiah, "May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act according to all the word with which the Lord your God sends you to us.  Whether it is good or bad, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God to whom we are sending you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God." (Jeremiah 42: 1-6)

Notice the use of pronouns here.  The men come to Jeremiah, and ask him to pray "to the Lord your God."  Jeremiah puts it back on them: don't you mean the Lord your God?  I can see them shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other before awkwardly admitting, "Yes, you're right, the Lord our God."

Except they had no intention of following God's instructions.  Jeremiah prayed for 10 days (verse 7) and came back with this word from God: stay put.  "If you will remain in this land," he told them, "then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plan you, and not pluck you up; for I relent of the disaster that I did to you." (verse 10).  He tells them not to fear the king of Babylon, "for I am with you, to save you and deliver you from his hand." (verse 11).  He goes on to tell them not to go to Egypt, because if they do, the sword will follow you there, as the king of Babylon will also take Egypt into exile.

During the ten days that Jeremiah was praying, the men must have been planning to go to Egypt, because they did not accept Jeremiah's message to them.  In fact, Johanan said to Jeremiah, "You are telling a lie.  The Lord our God did not send you to say, 'Do not go to Egypt to live there'." (42:3)  How often do we ask God to validate our own plans, instead of waiting to know God's plan?  Ten days must have seemed like an eternity for them.  It is also ironic that this was the message that Pashhur and Zedekiah were looking for earlier--if God had told them to stay put, that the king of Babylon would let them stay in Judah, they would have been overjoyed, and they would not have beaten Jeremiah or put him in prison.

Jeremiah was always true to the word of God, whatever the consequences.  He knew that God was faithful, that His mercies were new every morning.  He also knew what the Apostle Peter would write centuries later: 

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.  For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:10-11)

 Jeremiah was true to his calling, despite his circumstance and in spite of the consequences.  He knew that his only hope was in obedience to God.  As Jonathan Edwards said in the sermon quoted earlier, “What are we, that we should think to stand before Him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down?”  God is sovereign, and if He wants us to walk with Him in suffering, we know our reward is great.

The world may not think this part of obeying God is part of a "wonderful plan" promised in 1970s gospel tracts.  Thankfully, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has changed the wording in the booklets.  They now say, "God loves you, and wants you to experience His peace and life."  So many worldly minded people say, "I just want to live my life," meaning live without interference from any authority, much less from God or the Church.  Little do they know that they cannot live their life in a vacuum.  One day they will stand before God.  When that day comes, what will their answer be?

I, for one, would like to hear the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant."  Those are the words Jeremiah heard when he went on to glory.  It made all his preaching, all his persecution, all his perseverance worth it in the end.

He loved me to death

 

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to the the propitiation for our sins.  --1 John 4:10

How can we describe the love of God?  It's hard to describe in the current age of cheap grace.  We grew up reciting John 3:16, "For God so loved the world..." but our attention span is so short that we stop reading before we get to the part about "whosoever believes in Him."  The part that sticks in our mind is that God loves the whole world.  That means He loves everyone, right? Meanwhile the world has redefined the word "love" to mean universal tolerance and acceptance no matter what.  Hey, we're all sinners, right? Christ died for the sins of the world, right?  So we can keep on sinning, right?

We never talk about what God hates. 

• Psalm 5:5 says God hates the workers of iniquity.
• Psalm 11:5 says God hates the wicked.
• Proverbs 15:8 says God hates the sacrifices of the wicked.
• Proverbs 15:9 says God hates the ways of the wicked.
• Proverbs 15:26 says God hates the thoughts of the wicked.

So who are the wicked?  Honestly, that's you.  It's me.  It's everybody on earth.  No matter how hard we try to be good and righteous, we still have wicked thoughts, we still go our wicked ways, we are all workers of iniquity, sacrificing ourselves to wickedness.  That's why God provided a sacrifice for us, to be a "propitiation", meaning to appease God's wrath.

With that in mind, let's look at the sacrifice God made for us.  Let's start in Genesis chapter 15.  The word of the Lord came to Abram, and Abram believed the word, "and He (God) counted it to him as righteousness." (Genesis 15:6).  Later in that same chapter, Abram asked for some assurance of God's love, some proof that His promise would be fulfilled.  I want us to watch carefully God's response.

He (God) said to him (Abraham), "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."  And he brought Him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other.  --Genesis 15:9-10

In response, God did something incredible: He cut a covenant with Abraham. Now, cutting a covenant was an ancient ritual in which someone quite literally cut a series of animal carcasses in half and then walked through the midst of them, as if to say, “May what happened to these beasts befall me as well, should I ever break my faithfulness to you.”  We see an example of this in Jeremiah 34:18, which says, "And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make them like the calf that they cut in two and passed between its parts."

See, a covenant is not a contract. It’s much more open-ended than that. A covenant is a promise of faithful relationship, no matter what.  But what are we to do? In our humanity, we are sinful, wicked, worthy of death in this covenant relationship with God.

Let's look further in Genesis 15.  I think we'll see something pretty amazing.  Here we have the word of God in a physical form on one side, and on the other side we have Abraham, a believer whose only righteousness was his faith.  If Abraham had walked between the two halves, he would be bound by the covenant.  When he sinned, the covenant would be broken.  He would be doomed to become like the animals who laid dead before him.  Verse 12 says, "As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram.  And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him."  A few verses later in verse 17 we see this: "When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces."

It isn't Abram that walks between the carcasses, it's God.  God was ritually promising Abram that should He renege on His promise, He would deserve to be severed in two as well.  Here's a quote from fellow-blogger on this passage:

But in the story of Abraham’s covenant, it isn’t Abraham who walks between the beasts, is it? Abraham doesn’t say, “May I be killed if I break my promises to God.” No! Amazingly, it is the Spirit of God who passes through the bisected animals. God cuts the covenant, not Abraham. In the midst of a darkness most terrible, the fire of God appears and proclaims, not in words but in deed, “I will be with you. I will be faithful to you. And I will keep every single one of My promises to you, and yet more than these, even if it kills Me.” God here promises, brothers and sisters, to be faithful to us even unto death—not simply our death, but His own. Faithful to this covenant, faithful to this relationship, even if it kills Him. Faithful to us, even if we kill Him.

Imagine the Source of All Being, the One True God Most High, who created and sustains all things in the entirety of existence, proclaiming aloud, “I love this silly old man whom I have made so much that I will lay down everything I am and everything I have just to love him, to abide with him, to be faithful to him forever.” It’s insane. When we talk about being heirs of Abraham, my brothers and sisters, this is what we’re talking about. Not the bloodlines of Isaac and Ishmael, but a promise so powerful that the very Author of Life would lay down His own Life out of love for us. (https://rdgstout.blogspot.com/2016/02/cutting-covenant.html)

When I was in college I wrote some pretty bad poetry trying to express in words the love that God has for us.  Thinking of an old Southern expression, "I just love him/her to death!" I wrote these words:

Jesus I love You, my Savior and Friend.
You loved me to death, but that wasn't the end;
The same power that raised You still conquers sin.
And Jesus I love you again and again.

The musical group Glad wrote it much better:

And this is Love
Not that I have first loved You
And this is Love
That You have first loved me
And You give up Your life
One perfect sacrifice
And this is Love
That You have first loved me

You did not wait for me
To make myself a worthy man
You did not wait for me
To make a good and righteous stand
For there was nothing I could do
In sin I had died
Yet Your love conquered death
And raised me to Your side

Like the story in Genesis, the Gospel of John also talks about the Word of God made manifest in the flesh. "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:4-5)  Like the torch that pierced the darkness in Genesis 15, passing through death to seal the covenant with the man who would later be called Abraham, Jesus was the light of life that passed through death to seal the covenant of love to all who believe.  We deserve death and hell, but like Abraham, when we believe, our faith is counted as His righteousness.

Now that's what I call love.

Clothed in white garments for His praise and glory

Righteous are You, O Lord, when I complain to You; yet I would plead my case before you.  Why does the way of the wicked prosper?  Why do all who are treacherous thrive? You plant them, and they take root; they grow and produce fruit; You are near in their mouth and far from their heart.  --Jeremiah 12:1-2

Jeremiah has been called "the weeping prophet."  He shed many tears over the sins of his people.  Unfortunately, his crying over them did not turn them from their sinful ways.  The people hid behind their religion but continued in their sin.  This is why he said that God was near on their lips but far from their hearts.  Some of them were prosperous, enjoying money and possessions and land.  Jeremiah cried out to God, asking why He had blessed them with material wealth when they were wicked in all their ways.  God spoke warnings through the prophet Jeremiah, predicting a period of desolation in the land, of oppression and exile for the people.

There is an interesting object lesson that Jeremiah shared with the people of Judah.  

Thus says the Lord to me, "Go and buy a linen loincloth and put it around your waist, and do not dip it in water."  So I bought a loincloth according to the word of the Lord, and put it around my waist.  And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, "Take the loincloth that you have bought, which is around your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates and hide it there in a cleft of the rock."  So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me.  And after many days the Lord said to me, "Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take from there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there."  Then I went to the Euphrates and dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it.  And behold, the loincloth was spoiled; it was good for nothing.  Then the word of the Lord came to me: "Thus says the Lord: Even so will I spoil the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.  This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing.  For as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the Lord, that they might be for Me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen.  --Jeremiah 13:1-11

God was showing the people what would happen to them because of their sinfulness.  Jeremiah was told to purchase this linen garment, just as God had redeemed or purchased Israel.  Jeremiah wore the linen garment for a time; in the same way, Israel had been attached to God like a belt around His waist, enjoying an intimate and close relationship with Him.  But then God told Jeremiah to go north toward Babylon, and to bury or hide the linen garment by the river there; in the same way, Judah would be exiled to Babylon for 70 years.  Over time the mud and water deteriorated the linen, so that it was no longer useful as a belt or loincloth.  Nevertheless, Jeremiah was commanded by God to go and get the useless garment and to bring it back, just as God would bring His people back from exile.  Even though it was spoiled, God would use it for His glory and praise, and the people would be known by His Name.

There is some debate over what type of linen garment this was.  The ESV (quoted above) says it was a loincloth, which we associate with old movies depicting American Indians or Tarzan.  The KJV says it was a girdle, which in a modern sense brings to mind foundation wear--something worn underneath the outer clothing to shape up the body.  The NASB20 calls it a linen undergarment, as linen was commonly used for undergarments in the ancient world.  If we use this interpretation, then we see that men use religion like people use underwear--to cover their nakedness.  If the undergarment is ruined, then it no longer covers one's shameful parts.  By extension, the prophecy would mean that when the veneer of their faith was hidden in Babylon, buried in the banks of the River, it would no longer cover their sins, and their shame would be evident to all.  

There is another school of thought about the type and purpose of the linen garment.  The NKJV calls it a linen sash.  The NIV says it was a linen belt.  Both of these interpretations imply that it was not worn next to the skin, but over the outer garment.  David Guzek says, "The sash was associated with the priestly garments both for the High Priest (Exodus 28:4) and the regular priest (Leviticus 16:4).  Such a linen belt was a sign of dignity and nobility."  Thompson adds, "If Jeremiah wore the traditional prophetic garb he would have been clothed in a fairly tight tunic of coarse material with a hair cloak over it. A linen girdle around his waist, such as was worn by priests and the rich nobility, would have made him something of a spectacle."  Using this interpretation, it would mean that God had chosen His people to stand out, to be a symbol of holiness in a coarse world.  Having that holiness tainted, soiled and degraded, would mean God's people were no longer set apart.  The sin in which they immersed themselves made them just like every other piece of clothing--coarse and unattractive.  Worse, a worn-out linen garment, full of holes and stains, was less useful than a horsehair cloak or a coarse tunic--at least those garments would keep a body warm.

In verse 9 of our text, God likens the linen garment to the pride of Judah and Jerusalem.  Their pride will be ruined when they are carried into exile in Babylon, and are buried in the banks of the Euphrates.  God wants the people to cling to Him like a waistband.  He gave them a purpose: to bring glory to His Name.  By going after other gods, they were no longer His people; they were not fulfilling His purpose for them.

What lessons can we apply to our lives from this passage?  Like the people of Judah, we have been called by God to a higher purpose.  Jeremiah 29:11-13 says, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you.  You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart."  We must be wary of sin, however, and not follow after false prophets or worship other gods.  If we wander away from Him, God will allow us to be swallowed up in the culture that He has called us out of.  If we are stained with sin, misshaped or deteriorated by the world in which we immerse ourselves, we may lose our uniqueness and usefulness.

Thankfully, the Blood of the Lamb who was sacrificed for us can make us clean.  I John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."  We can echo Jeremiah's heartfelt confession in Jeremiah 14:20-21: "We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord, and the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against You.  Do no spurn us, for Your Name's sake; do not dishonor Your glorious throne; remember and do not break Your covenant with us."  Revelation 3:5 says, "The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his hame out of the book of Life.  I will confess his name before my Father and before His angels."  He can redeem us and give us a new purpose.  We can be called His people, called by His Name, to His praise and glory, amen.