Jeremiah 12
by Pastor David Groendyk
The complaint that Jeremiah raises here is surely a familiar one: “Why does the way of the wicked prosper?” Jeremiah has just learned of a conspiracy against him in the previous chapter. Certain men from Jeremiah’s hometown Anathoth want to kill him. They threaten to kill him if he continues prophesying of the coming judgment. How can God let that stand? Why doesn’t he intervene and do something about it? Why do wicked men seem to thrive? This is something God’s people must constantly deal with.
It’s ok to complain to God. It’s ok to bring your fears and frustrations to God. God wants you to bring your cares and burdens to him. But we have to complain in the right way. What I mean is that we need to actively exercise faith while we cry out to God with the injustices that we see. That doesn’t mean if you’re Christian that you have free reign to complain all you want because you say you have faith, but rather that you need to approach God humbly, trusting that he is sovereign and good even though it’s hard to see, and asking him for help to understand. There’s all the difference in the world between complaining because you think God has done something wrong and complaining because you want God to help you understand. The former accuses God and grumbles against his plan. The latter continues to trust God and asks for more faith to see in the midst of trial. When you complain about the wickedness and injustice you see around you, do you accuse God or do you humbly ask him to intervene and to give you understanding? Your heart posture makes all the difference. Bitterness, impatience, and rage are signs that your heart is not in the right place. Humility and dependence is where you need to be.
God gives his answer to Jeremiah in verses 5–13. He seems to offer Jeremiah both a rebuke and a caution: “The situation is far worse than you understand.” Personally for Jeremiah, the caution comes when God warns him that he cannot trust even those who are close to him (vv. 5–6). You think it’s hard to endure the wickedness of enemies? Just wait until your family turns on you. As the saying goes, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” Jeremiah is in store for much worse. The rebuke comes as God explains that he has had to forsake his own people, the beloved of his soul (v. 7). The evil that these people have committed against Jeremiah is nothing compared to the evil they’ve committed against God. While Jeremiah’s grief is great, God’s is even greater. It’s a notable caution for us as well: we must keep in mind that sin first and foremost is committed against God not us. Yes, we are often subject to terrible evils while we live in an unbelieving and ungodly world. But as King David himself confesses after having an affair with a married woman, conceiving an illegitimate child out of wedlock with her, and deviously murdering her husband: “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Psa. 51:4). We must learn to think about sin, both our sin and others’ sin, primarily in a Godward direction.
It’s not as though a death threat made against a prophet of God is a light thing. It’s a terrible evil, especially in that they wanted Jeremiah to stop speaking the truth of coming judgment. But even the horrific injustices we face pale in comparison to the injustices God faces. That’s because God’s glory and majesty and honor is so much greater, and the rebellion against him is so much more tragic. Even in the midst of the personal injustices and sufferings you face, how ought you to keep a Godward focus?