Jeremiah 7 Devotional
by Pastor Lawrence Bowlin
In the previous chapter we we’re told that God had set watchmen, like Jeremiah, over the house of Israel warning them to pay attention to the sound of the trumpet of God’s judgment, but the people said, “We will not pay attention.” So now the Lord goes one step farther by sending Jeremiah into the very gates of the temple to stand in the way of every man entering in who thinks he is going in to make sin and peace offerings with the Lord so that everything will be just fine.
Jeremiah, standing in their way, accosts them telling them that there is no point to their sacrifices, giving a message similar to Samuel’s to King Saul, saying “to obey is better than sacrifice.” Jeremiah told Israel that in the beginning when they first came out of Egypt they were told to obey his voice and the Lord would be their God and they would be his people, proving it by walking in His ways. So, once again, Jeremiah tells them to amend their ways and their deeds that they might continue to dwell in the good land the Lord had given to them by executing justice, by not oppressing the weak and by not going after other gods. But they would not listen. With stiffened necks, they refused to bend down their ears to hear God’s Word.
Yet, still, God tells Jeremiah to speak to them, even though they would not listen, to call out to them, even though they would not answer, and to tell them what happens to a nation that does not obey God’s voice or accept his discipline.
As they are walking through the gates with their hypocritical sacrifices, the Lord speaking through Jeremiah is rebuking them, saying “Will you sin in every way and then come stand before me in my temple and say we are delivered!—only to go on doing all these abominations?”
Can you imagine the Lord confronting you that directly over your sin, calling your bluff, and revealing to you your own evil intentions that you have been trying to suppress as you go through the motions of another empty and vain worship experience? No wonder the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus when the Son of God himself came into the heart of the temple and didn’t just call their bluff but began overturning their tables and driving out their hypocritical sacrifices with a whip. That is when Jesus actually quoted from these words of Jeremiah saying, “Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?”
And, also, like Jeremiah, Jesus warns the people not to trust in the temple itself. Jeremiah says to the people of his day, “Do not trust in these deceptive words, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, temple of the Lord, temple of the Lord.’” The prophet reminds them that God used to meet with them in a tent at Shiloh but because of their sin at that time it was destroyed. And now the Lord promises to do the same thing to Jerusalem if the people do not repent. In fact, not only are their sacrifices not acceptable in God’s sight, the Lord tells Jeremiah to stop praying for them for he would no longer listen to these prayers since they continue to worship the queen of heaven provoking him to anger.
And if you think this is only an OT consequence to unrepentant sin, you would be mistaken, for the Lord, through the apostle John, says something very similar in the fifth chapter of his first epistle in verse sixteen saying, “If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. (YET) There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.” Clearly their ongoing, obstinate, unrepentant sin was the type of sin that only leads to death, and thus the prophet was told to pray for them no longer.
Again, I can’t even imagine being told not to pray for someone, but there is a point in which an individual or even a nation has so hated the law of God and outraged the Holy Spirit and trampled upon the Son of God that there is nothing left for them but punishment. And already Jeremiah is hinting at that judgement to come stating that “God will silence the voice of their mirth and gladness, silencing even the voice of the bridegroom and the bride, for the land will become a waste. Judgment was just around the corner in Jeremiah’s day, and for the same reason, that same nation would undergo judgment in Jesus’ day, for the Lord had continually warned them time and time again sending them one prophet after another, but they killed his prophets, until finally He sent them his own son and they killed His son. The writer of Hebrews asks, “How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God?” Indeed, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Therefore, let us go to Jesus, laying hold of him by faith, and repenting of our sins, for he loves us enough to stand in our way, even in the gates of the house of our God to bring us to our senses.