Imagine if all the rest of the United States, Canada and
Mexico were aligned as enemies against the state of New Jersey. That would be something like what Jeremiah is
told in the first verse of this passage, all her neighbors are now her enemies
and Israel is roughly the same size as New Jersey. Would there be any hope? The city has been utterly devastated and has
called out to those who had been her lovers and they ignored her cries. Now they laugh with scorn on her shame. Jeremiah makes no pretense that God has done
something wrong here, it is indeed just judgment against her for her sins. The prophet does, however, believe in
covenant and that the Lord will recompense those who have done this and those
who refuse to comfort her. The covenant
relationship is everlasting and the Lord is faithful to the covenant He has
made. This is not final.
What authority would have been acceptable to the chief
priests, scribes and elders? They were
the authority. Jesus can appeal to a
higher authority but they won’t accept it as valid to say that the Father has
given me all authority in heaven and on earth as He says to the disciples in
Matthew 28. He could say those things
but He knows the outcome and the time is not just yet and this isn’t to be the
provocation. Jesus turns the tables on
them with his question about the baptism of John. They know they are between a rock and a hard
place on that one since the people received John as a true prophet and they can
make no case against that judgment.
Their choice is to say, “We don’t know.”
If they don’t know that John was from God then they can’t know or accept
the truth about Jesus, they have no discernment.
Paul’s faith is in the God who raised Christ from the dead
who delivered him in Asia from affliction and whom he now trusts to deliver him
yet again. He asks only the prayers of
the church in Corinth that they may rejoice in the answer to those
prayers. Apparently there are those in
Corinth who believe Paul has reneged on a promise to visit them and yet Paul
makes his defense that he wanted to come to them but was prevented by the
Spirit from going at that time. God’s
timing isn’t always the same as our own.
Sometimes He allows the situation to go beyond our imagining before
coming and His rescue isn’t always what we desire but all this is for His
glory. Our response, no matter the
situation is to rest in Him and trust in His lovingkindness. That is the most
difficult thing in the world sometimes.
We need to make right judgments and occasionally that means we have to
disagree with the world’s judgment on things.
The words of the LORD
are pure words,
like silver refined in a furnace on the
ground,
purified seven times.
You, O LORD, will keep
them;
you will guard us from this generation
forever.
On every side the
wicked prowl,
as vileness is exalted among the children of
man.
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