Sincerity Doesn’t Cut It

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

Listen to this article

During the ministry of Jeremiah, he told the people who came to him for advice and wanted a word from the Lord what they needed to do to survive. We read about this in Jeremiah 42:1-3.

1 Now all the captains of the forces, Johanan the son of Kareah, Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people, from the least to the greatest, came near 2 and said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Please, let our petition be acceptable to you, and pray for us to the Lord your God, for all this remnant (since we are left but a few of many, as you can see), 3 that the Lord your God may show us the way in which we should walk and the thing we should do.”

They certainly seem sincere, don’t they? They seemed to want to know the direction which God would have them go.

Jeremiah promises to pray and seek God regarding the matter (v4). The people respond basically with, “Whatever the Lord says to you is what we will do” (vv5-6).

So, Jeremiah did what the people asked him to do and it took ten days for the Lord to respond to Jeremiah. This is a good thing to note for us as well. Jeremiah was a handpicked prophet of God, chosen directly by the LORD Himself from the womb. Even so, in this case, Jeremiah had to wait ten days before he received a response to his prayer. Interesting.

We often become impatient with God. We tend to see Him as another person and when we converse with another person face to face, we expect them to respond to us right then and there. That’s the way most conversations work, but not in this case.

There was no indication given to us that Jeremiah knew God would take ten days to respond. It’s not that God had to think about it, weigh His options and make a decision. By having to trust and wait on God, Jeremiah’s faith would be built up even further.

After ten days, Jeremiah received God’s response and went back to the people (verses 8-12).

8 Then he called Johanan the son of Kareah, all the captains of the forces which were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest, 9 and said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your petition before Him: 10 ‘If you will still remain in this land, then I will build you and not pull you down, and I will plant you and not pluck you up. For I relent concerning the disaster that I have brought upon you. 11 Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid; do not be afraid of him,’ says the Lord, ‘for I am with you, to save you and deliver you from his hand. 12 And I will show you mercy, that he may have mercy on you and cause you to return to your own land.’

Pretty straightforward isn’t it? God had revealed what He was willing to do based on the response of the people. Verses 13-22 go further with Jeremiah pointing out the downside of not obeying the Lord.

So what was happened? Jeremiah 43:1-7 informs us plainly that the people decided Jeremiah was “speaking falsely.” Really? Apparently, like many Christians today, they only wanted to hear what they wanted to hear. They were in essence, looking for blessing for their plans; to go back to Egypt.

Why did the people react to the LORD’s word like that? Jeremiah 44 tells us those people were idol worshippers. Both men and women burned incense to other gods, while pretending to be worshippers of the LORD (Jeremiah 44:15-19). Isn’t that something? Is that me? You?

These same people then had the audacity to actually tell Jeremiah that when they were in Egypt previously, they had plenty of food to eat, were well off and did not experience trouble (v17), due to burning incense to the Queen of Heaven. They also stated when they stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven, that’s when problems arose for them.

Jeremiah tries to explain the reason things went south was due to the fact that the LORD had put up with their spiritual idolatry long enough. Essentially, the situation where Nebuchadnezzar was going to come from Babylon to Israel to conquer the land and the people was due solely to the people’s allegiance to the Queen of Heaven and not the LORD.

So Jeremiah had no choice but to tell the people that only if they obeyed God in this matter, would they survive and to some extent, thrive. In this case, to obey meant to remain in the land, to pray for leaders and to live quietly while trusting the LORD. Judah was going to be punished by God for her spiritual adultery. Even then, during that time of punishment, God would continue to bless the Judahites if they were willing at that point to begin obeying Him.

If the people did not remain in the land and left to go live in Egypt, they would be killed with the sword or famine in Egypt. It seems the people could not wrap their brains around this concept of obedience. They feared what would happen if they did not burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and remained in Judah. They did not fear what would happen if they disobeyed God.

There is a lesson in here for us, folks. As Christians, we cannot control the politics of America (or any nation for that matter). It’s been tried by the past so-called Moral Majority and other groups. Christians are outnumbered in this world. Though there are plenty of self-named Christians who try to bring about change through the political process, there’s too much cheating going on by the Left to ensure that our efforts to correct things at the ballot box are completely overruled, like having 500,000 to 1.4 million illegitimate voters in each swing state.[1] The people who can do something about that are not.

Here’s something to consider from Jeremiah’s words to his scribe, Baruch in Jeremiah 45:2-5.

2 “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch: 3 ‘You said, “Woe is me now! For the Lord has added grief to my sorrow. I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest.” ’

4 “Thus you shall say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Behold, what I have built I will break down, and what I have planted I will pluck up, that is, this whole land. 5 And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I will bring adversity on all flesh,” says the Lord. “But I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go.” ’ ”

Notice Baruch’s concern. He says “Woe is me!” based on what he sees coming the LORD has warned about. He was feeling seriously anxious and found no rest for his soul. He was in constant inner turmoil because of what Jeremiah predicted would come upon Judah. In the above verses, God extends a word of encouragement through Jeremiah to Baruch and us as well.

As bad as things were going to get for the average Judahite/Israelite then, God promised Baruch something. Yes, God was going to break things down, pluck things up throughout the entire land and promises to bring adversity on “all flesh.” But God also says to Baruch: “But I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go.’

It might be tempting to look at that promise and think, “Whoopie. God is allowing Baruch to remain alive in spite of the trouble everyone will experience, so he’ll continue to live with all the difficulties that everyone else is going to experience!” Except this is not what God is saying.

God was telling Baruch not to chase after great things for himself, not to set his eye on positions of power or being upwardly mobile in a career. This was not the time for it. Instead, because of difficulties, Baruch should lean heavily on God’s shoulders, believing Him, and He would bless Baruch because of it, not necessarily with “great things” but with great spiritual knowledge, understanding and met needs within troublesome times.

Ultimately, Baruch would learn how to depend on God for his needs and when all was said and done, he would look back and marvel at God’s faithfulness. This in turn means he would become an encourager to other people who complain that God is not faithful.

I’m coming to the conclusion that God wants the same thing for all His children living today. We know we are facing difficult times and for many, this may be dire now. Daily I read from the prophecy “experts” one more thing that is creating undue hardships for many. It’s not so much “prophecy,” but simply news they’re reporting. It’s funny though how rarely do I read from many of these same people (not all!) that God has a plan for His people, that He is using these difficult times and circumstances to draw us closer to Him so that we can benefit from our relationship with Him and become an encourager to those who have not yet understood what God is doing. By the way, it’s not merely words that encourage. It’s actions.

Let me wrap this up with a couple of things each and every Christian needs to learn. First, we need to live in obedience to God. I’m not talking about following a list of dos and don’ts or being rule-oriented here. I’m talking about looking at the broad picture God has painted for us in His Word about how to live. Are you worshipping only God or do you worship God and? Are you helping widows and orphans and reaching out to those in your church or community who are less fortunate than you might be? Are you looking away from yourself and onto others as Jesus did? Second, it is only when we live a life of serving others (and by doing so, we are serving God), that we start to lose track of our own needs, give them to God, and begin focusing on the needs of other people. If all we do as Christians is focus on our own needs, I can guarantee that we are probably not focused on anyone else’s needs!

The more we focus on serving others, the more God is able to bless us in spite of adverse situations we may be going through. I know very well that this is difficult. I tend to think of my needs a lot, ad nauseum. I have to work to redirect my mind to the care and concern of others. It is a worthwhile pursuit however, and needs to become habitual.

The people during Jeremiah’s day compared the circumstances they saw to the words of God they heard and chose to believe the circumstances instead of God even though they created the coming circumstances via disobedience. In essence, they blinded themselves to God’s truth, thinking they knew better. They thought, “We know how to solve our own problems so we are not listening to you, Jeremiah! Your words mean certain death for us so we will save ourselves by running to Egypt!” The result was their deaths by sword or famine when their lives could have been saved.

Take your eyes off of the growing terrible circumstances gaining momentum today. Fix your eyes instead on God and His ability to save you physically in the midst of circumstances. Willingly obey God and live for Him and He will bless you with your life. As you look back, you will see what He has taught you and how much stronger your faith in Him has become.

[1] https://libertysentinel.substack.com/p/election-expert-trump-will-lose-all

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

Source: https://studygrowknowblog.com/2024/08/20/sincerity-doesnt-cut-it/