Continuing in Jeremiah

Today's reading is Jeremiah 3-5.

In this passage we find God looking at his people. He is, at the very least, unimpressed with them. He actually compares them to a prostitute. To a woman who leaves her man, claiming to be ravished, when it is plain that she has not. But that by her very actions, has made herself to be sullied.

2Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see!
Where have you not been ravished?
By the waysides you have sat awaiting lovers
like an Arab in the wilderness.
You have polluted the land
with your vile whoredom.

God in response to her whore-like behaviour has withheld his normal blessings upon the land. "Therefore the showers have been withheld, and the spring rain has not come". God is not pleased. His people, in his land, are bearing all the markings of a prostitute. His people are not even ashamed about it.

At this point in history, the nation of Israel has split in two. There is Judah and Israel. God looks at his two countries, which are really one people, and he is not impressed with them, BUT he notes this: ""Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah." So he gives Jeremiah two messages for his people. One for Israel and one for Judah.

To Israel he says:

"'Return, faithless Israel,
declares the LORD.
I will not look on you in anger,
for I am merciful,
declares the LORD;
I will not be angry forever.
13Only acknowledge your guilt,
that you rebelled against the LORD your God
and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree,
and that you have not obeyed my voice,
declares the LORD.
14Return, O faithless children,
declares the LORD;
for I am your master;
I will take you, one from a city and two from a family,
and I will bring you to Zion.

God calls for them to return to him. He promises that if they do, he will give them shepherds after his own heart who will care for them, teach them, and feed them with knowledge and understanding. And as you mulitply and stay with me, a day will come when all my peoples shall be joined as one again. God pleads for his faithless people to return to him.

1"If you return, O Israel,
declares the LORD,
to me you should return.
If you remove your detestable things from my presence,
and do not waver,
2and if you swear, 'As the LORD lives,'
in truth, in justice, and in righteousness,
then nations shall bless themselves in him,
and in him shall they glory."

Then God turns to Judah. Return to me or else my wrath will burn against you. I don't see God pleading with them. I see him taking a hard stance. Return to me or bad things will happen.

5Declare in Judah, and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say,

"Blow the trumpet through the land;
cry aloud and say,
'Assemble, and let us go
into the fortified cities!'
6Raise a standard toward Zion,
flee for safety, stay not,
for I bring disaster from the north,
and great destruction.
7A lion has gone up from his thicket,
a destroyer of nations has set out;
he has gone out from his place
to make your land a waste;
your cities will be ruins
without inhabitant.
8For this put on sackcloth,
lament, and wail,
for the fierce anger of the LORD
has not turned back from us."

Two wayward children. God takes a pleading approach with one, and a hard-nosed approach with the other. Parents need to do that sometimes with their children. Children respond differently to different treatment.

It doesn't change what is in God's heart (or in the heart of a parent). He is in anguish over the behaviour of both his children.

19My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain!
Oh the walls of my heart!
My heart is beating wildly;
I cannot keep silent,
for I hear the sound of the trumpet,
the alarm of war.

God wants his children back!

Makes me think of me and my boyo the other day. He was determined to get into something that was bad for him. I did all my normal parenting things to get him to listen, to not get into something that potentially could have been really bad for him, and he REFUSED to listen (toddler). So I gave him a whack upside his well protected by a diaper backside. He stopped. He listened while crying. And I told him what a good boy he was to listen. He stoppped crying and life was indeed good for him again.

Discipline is needed. And sometimes it has to be seemingly harsh to get the point across. But it's not harsh if it gets the offending party to realize that they are doing something they aught not.

God didn't immediately whack his people upside their bottom. He first called for them to return. And when they refused...then he whacked them, while continuing to say...return to me my people, return. Ah that I might continue to hear that call.