Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Temple Speech for Today - Part 1

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Jeremiah 7:1-7 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the Lord!’” Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Do not trust in these lying words, saying, ‘The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these.’”

I lately purchased a teaching series of Compact Disks on the subject of Hard Sayings in the Bible by the late Dr. RC Sproul. The second lesson struck me as an appropriate message for us today. In it, God had instructed the prophet Jeremiah to deliver a message to the people of God at the gates to the temple in Jerusalem. The term “Hear all you …” means that God is about to make a divine pronouncement that is of extreme importance. What did the prophet mean by: “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.” Wasn’t Jerusalem God’s city, the Temple there God’s house and the Israelite’s God’s chose people under God’s providence and protection?  The conditional hint that if they do not amend their ways, something dire and unspeakably dreadful could happen. 

Jeremiah goes on to say: “Do not trust in these lying words, saying, ‘The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these.’” Among the Jewish people, one of the literary devices used to communicate emphasis was repetition. On extremely rare occasions, a message is deemed so important that it is elevated to the third degree and said three times. The prophet is telling the people that they come here to their church and say “this is the temple of the Lord”, emphasizing and underscoring the radical degree of hypocrisy of the people. The people that think that by “empty” repetitions, that they have done something holy, meritorious or has magical powers to protect and sustain them forever against the judgment of God; people so caught up in their churchmanship and cultic practices, which he called “lying words”.  Why? Because they were not proclaiming the truth truthfully. Though true words, they were lies by the people who were bringing false worship into the presence of God. 

Just because a church is a church, doesn’t mean that it is a “church”, It can be a church outwardly, but if it doesn’t obey the Lord of the church, its no longer really a church. We cannot put our trust in the building or even in the institution. As important as those things may be, what God is most interested in is our relationship with Him, our faith in Him and our obedience to Him, and if we are disobedient to God, we cannot take refuge in our church membership or our church affiliation. That is the warning that Jeremiah gives, speaking for God to us then and now.    

Jeremiah 7:5- “For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt, then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. “Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.”

The word “Behold” should get our attention. That word “behold” means “look here!” It’s a call to attention. The proclamation: “Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit” comes to the people of God in the very front of the temple, saying the Creeds that you are professing and the Liturgy you are using have become dishonest expressions and words that are empty, vain, deceitful, hypocritical. And in that kind of language, those words are futile, useless, and words that cannot profit. These people were talking the talk, but not walking the walk.   

Let's continue Dr. Sproul's lesson and message to the church in the next post.
In Christ, Brian

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