June 10, 2024

Passage Read: Jeremiah 13-16
Meditation Verses: 14:13-16

Thought

The Lord tells Jeremiah not to pray for the people because there is no hope for them; they will be cast out of the Lord's land. But Jeremiah sees the problem: Their prophets are telling them that everything will be all right; they will enjoy peace and prosperity, even though they sin terribly against the Lord. How can Jeremiah compete with all the false prophets? There are so many more of them and they all say the opposite of what God tells Jeremiah to proclaim! There's no hope for the people to recognize who is truly from the Lord, because Jeremiah is outnumbered! So it's not fair to the people. If only it were that simple. The people know their sin and they chose the prophets who permit their unfaithfulness, who justify their unfaithfulness, so the false prophets multiply. They could not have multiplied if the people loved the Lord and sought His ways; they would have killed the false prophets themselves. So all the people are rejected by the Lord. But Jeremiah still needs to preach, at least as a testimony against them, and as a record and a warning for future generations.

Application

So even when I feel like no one else recognizes the truth and I become discouraged as if there is no hope for this generation, that may actually be true. Though the false teachers far outnumber the true and there seems no hope for anyone to hear and understand the truth, the reality is that the people have encouraged it in order to justify their unfaithfulness. They have gathered around themselves teachers who tell them what their itching ears want to hear. So they deserve their destruction. But they still need a testimony against them, and possible future generations of believers need to be warned, others who have not been fully indoctrinated against the truth need to know the error of this generation's ways. Like Jeremiah, I still need to preach what I see and hear from the Lord, even if I'm the only one who sees it and says it.