We're well beyond this chapter, but I'm going to try to bring this blog up to speed. The importance of this book of Scripture to a proper understanding of the Church in our times has been refreshed to my heart...
Setup:
Jeremiah is one of the Priests of Anathoth. I beleive that's in Benjamin. His family is priesthood. Very significant.
They have spoken against him in Ch. 11:21, telling him to stop speaking in the Name, or THEY would kill him.
So here we are in Jeremiah's "Prayer Debrief" with God. He cries out to God, God responds, and the prophet is set back on track, prophesying the doom of Judah, it's restoration, and the judgment of the nations that will be used to do it...
So he's back on track by the end of the chapter, and on to Linen Underwear in the next chapter.
But in this Chapter there are some notables:
vs 1-4: Jeremiah dares to complain to God about the prospering of the wicked. This reminds me of psalm 73.
vs 5-6: God speaks to Jeremiah's personal situation and his heart for his own family of priests at Anathoth. He is telling J to give up on these scamps. Sound bitter? That's God talking there... amazing. How unamerican-esque.
vs 7: God has Abandoned, Deserted, and given over to enemies!
A LION AND A CORPSE:
vs 8: God's people are likened prophetically to a Roaring Lion--one that dares to roar at God himself.
How does roaring at god look? How did they do it? Look at the preceding chapters. Look at how they threatened Jeremiah--his own family roared at him.
Look at Elisha, when bears ate the young men who mocked him. the prophets represented God among the people back then, and to say what they said to Jeremiah (and believe me, the non-family members of his day were no kinder) was to "roar" against God...
vs 9: My bible (Holman Xian Standard) translates this word as "hyena" and gives me the whole "unclear" thing in the bottom margin. NIV has "speckled bird of prey" Is it possible that the thing that the birds are circling is a corpse? a cadaver? a dead animal in the desert? Wild animals are called to devour, so whether or not my translation idea is so, she's gonna be dead and devoured.
A DESOLATE VINEYARD:
vs 10-11: Likened to a vineyard, destroyed by it's own "shepherds". This is all about the high priced that unfaithful leaders will pay on the day of judgment for leading unfaithfully. Destroying the fruit bearing vines, trampling the land... they have turned the church into a wasteland..
This land mourns. So do so many in the church who languish without a taste of the living water. Their teachers are bent on feeding them crumbs, while a feast awaits them in Jesus. That feast at the cost of influence, power, position, wealth, stability... John 3 tells us that those who are of the Spirit will be like the wind--no more knowing where we're going.
INVADING ARMIES:
vs 12: a vision of an army, spilling over the craggy lands of the desert...
WHEAT AND THORNS:
vs 13: The Lord is angry over this harvest failure. He gave good seed (the Word) and we have produced an evil crop with it. Do you know when the Word is being misused by leaders? mis-sown? Do you sense it? Can you tell? I pray so, since it's going on all over the place... Many are enforcing a status quo, or building a following, or their own justification by the way they teach and lead. Does your vineyard's leader collect anointed, holy saints? Or busybodies? Or lazybones? Or impure sinful, unrepentant compromisers? Look carefully at what people are changing into in your community. Look at the direction of repentance and renewal that is present in your community. Test the Spirits. Examine the fruit of the prophets and teachers who are active among you...
There is a day coming...
CONDEMNATION OF THE NEIGHBORING NATIONS:
Now God condemns the nations who have been harassing Israel. They're all going to be destroyed. he promises the reestablishment of Israel, though. Do you know any Ammonites? Moabites? But the 'Yisra'elim are still here...
Yet there is hope to the nation that will obey the Lord, too... If they will learn the ways of Israel. This fits as a prophetic reference to the ingrafting of the Gentiles, doesn't it? Another reference to the New Covenant, as well as a historical promise to the nations of that day...
PLEASE COMMENT AND SPUR ONE ANOTHER ON...
Monday, September 11, 2006
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"When I came, why was there no one?
When I called, why was there no one to answer?
Was my arm too short to ransom you?
Do I lack the strength to rescue you?
By a mere rebuke I dry up the sea,
I turn rivers into a desert;
their fish rot for lack of water
and die of thirst." (Isaiah 50:2)
I saw this verse and it reminded me of the "roaring" concept. i think another interesting analogy on a more individual level would be a comparison between the worship of Saul and the worship of David. Where were their hearts? What were their intentions? Was God the means or the end? Who seemed to actually WORSHIP and BOW DOWN and who refused correction...and why? Who seemed defiant and willful and who entrusted himself to the Lord? (Psalm 18) It's not airtight, but I think it gives some more insight into the "roaring against God" concept and what it could look like...
a p.s. note...you asked what "roaring" looks like...to me, a lion roars when it wants to claim "its" territory. when it wants to scare off or push away other animals or other lions. it is an act of pride, of showing off its strength and trying to incite fear in the other inhabitants. it is an act of dominance. a not so friendly reminder of "who's who"... it can also be a younger lion trying to look tougher than an older lion...an act of defiance and "disrespect" (in a lion-y kind of way). i can see why the Lion of Judah would hate a roaring inheritance.
Considering all this, and how in my life I've "roared" (or at least given a lion cub wannabe roar) at God, isn't it amazing how gentle and slow to anger our Father is with us? In our Lion/Lamb family, we can definitely say "He's not a tame lion...but He is GOOD!"
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