Jeremiah 18.b. It's Hammer Time!

Jeremiah 18: 12.  But they say, “It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will.”

  Now, no one would really say this to God; but people certainly act like they secretly believe this. Their behavior reveals how hard-headed and stubborn they are. They refuse to recognize their sin and admit their guilt, let alone apologize and ask for forgiveness. In fact, in our day and age, it’s just the opposite. The tendency is to refuse to repent and instead double down on the sin and go on the offensive as if the sin were justifiable behavior. Oh, and be sure first to attack the person questioning your decisions to make it seem like it’s their fault. 

 Just look around you. We prefer violence and revenge to confession and repentance. Even people who go to church refuse to repent. Look at how long the Methodist Episcopal Church South kept racism at the center of who they were (1845-1968), or how long Southern Baptists refused to admit their racism (1845-1995).  

 It was 1968 before all Methodists agreed not to require separate churches for Black people; and it was 1995 before a formal apology was issued by Southern Baptists for past racism. Each denied their sin for over 100 years.

 God’s promises are conditional. God says, ‘This is what I am going to do; and this is what you are going to do. However, if you decide not to do what I tell you, not to demonstrate godly behavior that treats others with compassion and is also good for you, then we will shift into another mode. First, there will be a time of punishment that is meant to encourage you to repent. After that, if there is no repentance, destruction will follow’. 

 Interestingly enough, it is God who is open to change and it is humans who refuse to change.

Jeremiah 18: 13-17. Therefore thus says the LORD:   

Ask among the nations:   

Who has heard the like of this?

The virgin Israel has done   

a most horrible thing.

Does the snow of Lebanon

leave the crags of Sirion?

Do the mountain waters run dry,   

the cold flowing streams?

But my people have forgotten me;   

they burn offerings to a delusion;

they have stumbled in their ways,   

in the ancient roads,

and have gone into bypaths,   

not the highway,

making their land a horror,   

a thing to be hissed at forever.

All who pass by it are horrified   

and shake their heads.

Like the wind from the east,   

I will scatter them before the enemy.

I will show them my back, not my face,   

in the day of their calamity.

 YHWH is such an active and interactive god that he asks the nations to witness the illogical and unnatural behavior that Judah has shown. Who would turn away from the transparency and faithfulness of God? Who would doubt that God shapes his people for their own good? Yet, people refuse.

 The examples given in this text may be difficult for us 2700 years later to understand. The point is that God cites some events that reliably happen in nature. One would be shocked if they failed. 

 God says it would be unnatural for snow to disappear from Mt. Hermon (see Deuteronomy 3: 9) in the summer because, at that height, it is sheltered in crags and caves. Likewise, the mountain streams continue to flow, so waters that are foreign (that is, from Lebanon in the north) still flow down to Israel in underground aquifers. Fresh springs appear at lower elevations even if the fields are dry. It would be unnatural if they didn’t. 

 However, unnatural and illogical are the hallmarks of evil behavior. For example, evil people believe that if someone doesn’t like the message, the logical thing to do is kill the messenger.

 Jeremiah 18: 18.  Then they said, “Come, let us make plots against Jeremiah, for instruction shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us bring charges against him, and let us not heed any of his words.”

 After failing to bully God into approving their plots and plans (God is not like Congress), the people decide to silence the prophet. That is similar to today as well. The truth of our past, both the shining moments and the sinning moments, that truth is being whitewashed (an appropriate word for several reasons). History text books are being rewritten, museums are being sanitized, and scientific research is being restricted to sugar-coated issues.

 Thank God for the hymn “America the Beautiful.” Contrary to a recent use of the word “beautiful,” this hymn has the line, “God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.” Sing that more than one Sunday a year in church.

 The truth of our present also is lost when the rich and powerful control the media by weaponizing the law against them (No FCC approval for stations that do not sanitize the news). It doesn’t change the truth as long as people resist and remember. The three R’s: Repent, Resist, and Remember.

 In this event, Jeremiah’s enemies plan to kill the messenger thinking that the message will no longer be heard. That is why the scribe Baruch is recording the messages by writing scrolls for future reference. It worked, the exiles in Babylon after their predicted defeat were able to read the scrolls and consider what they had done wrong. We too can read the prophecies and consider what we are doing wrong. Besides, even if Jeremiah’s sermons were lost, the books of Moses still exist, and they inform everything that Jeremiah says.  

 Jeremiah can hardly believe what is happening. Certain people plan on trying to cancel the true preacher of God’s word. Jeremiah prays, and Jeremiah changes. Jeremiah now agrees with God that the line has been crossed. An instant replay shows that the people of Judah are offsides. No one can revoke their red card.  

Jeremiah 18: 19-23.   

Give heed to me, O LORD,   

and listen to what my adversaries say!

Is evil a recompense for good?   

Yet they have dug a pit for my life.

Remember how I stood before you   

to speak good for them,   

to turn away your wrath from them.

Therefore give their children over to famine;   

hurl them out to the power of the sword;

let their wives become childless and widowed.   

May their men meet death by pestilence,   

their youths be slain by the sword in battle.

May a cry be heard from their houses   

when you bring the marauder suddenly upon them!

For they have dug a pit to catch me   

and laid snares for my feet.

Yet you, O LORD, know   

all their plotting to kill me.

Do not forgive their iniquity;   

do not blot out their sin from your sight.

Let them be tripped up before you;   

deal with them while you are angry.

 Wow! This past Sunday morning, the pastor prayed this prayer! Actually, he did not. Why not? Nobody wants to hear that ‘It’s hammer time!’