S118P6 – Loaded statements: God
Jer. 7:16-18
Therefore do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you. Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger.
It is worth noting that the time of Jeremiah’s call to prophecy came less than one generation after King Josiah’s great reforms in Israel. The nation had spent several decades being led toward God by one king and then away from him by others, and the pattern looked doomed to repeat itself. Not only that, but these successive kings were fathers and sons to one another. These men were not merely part of the same family of Israel, but they were blood relatives carrying on a fractured and disjointed legacy. Perhaps it was the death of Josiah a little more than a decade after he instituted his reforms that began the downward slide of the people to become what we see in this passage, a family of Pagan idolaters.
The picture we see here is rather extreme. Not long after this great reformation, which was the second to come from that lineage of kings, the people had made idol worship a matter of family practice. We see here that every person in the family had a role in preparing these deplorable acts of worship. It looks like a tradition that is being celebrated the way we celebrate putting up a Christmas tree or sharing a Thanksgiving meal. The way the Jews previously had taught their children how to worship with worthy sacrifices and observe the feasts of their God, they now were teaching those very children how to defy him gladly by worshipping false deities.
The people who had been created for the purpose of legitimizing and welcoming Messiah had turned instead to worship gods that could not speak and did not live. We can assume that lack of good spiritual leadership played a role in this transformation, but we also must understand that the people let themselves follow the world’s practices. They let themselves let go of God. The book of Jeremiah describes not a people unfortunately deceived but a people who enjoyed and pursued their sinful living. It should make us understand that no one is infallible, and we must guard our faith always. Father, keep us on the narrow road, give us faithful leaders to steer us, and make us wise enough to know when we or they are starting to stray.