Jeremiah takes no
pleasure in being right. The sinfulness
and the devastation connected with it are both grievous unto him. He sees the people's vices, they are
adulterous, treacherous, deceivers, oppressors, "they weary themselves
committing iniquity." No one knows
the Lord or even desires to know Him.
For all these things, Jeremiah grieves as Jesus would grieve over
Jerusalem. He sees a people who are lost
in sin and they have no idea that God is displeased with them and bringing
calamity and judgment. If Jeremiah were
here in the west today would he say anything different? We do have prophets and preachers who speak
these truths to the church and the nation and we are not turning back to
Him. It all has to begin at the church
not in society. We have failed to be a
witness and we have stood in judgment rather than in this place Jeremiah
stands, weeping and grieving for the nation.
Jesus says He is the
light of the world and those who follow Him will not walk in darkness. They will not grope about in darkness and
they will not be characterized by sin.
The Pharisees accuse Him of being His own witness and that is not good
enough. Jesus says to them that not only
does He alone know where He comes from and where He is going but they don't
even know where they come from or where they are going, they are in darkness
with respect to wisdom and understanding, even of themselves. He makes judgments and His judgments are
true, but in the midst of that judgment He is offering life and pardon. Jesus judged the world but He also died for
the world. His love for sinners, His
compassion on those who live in an evil world and under an evil deception was
so great that He died for us. What is
our attitude towards the world, those who are created in the image of God? He willingly and obediently identified with
us and yet too often we separate ourselves from the world and deny the world
the light and hope we have.
Paul's focus is
quite narrow here. Faith is the key,
through faith we are justified, we have access and we rejoice both in our
salvation and in our sufferings.
Multiple times he speaks of justification and yet when we use the word
in conversation we mean that there has otherwise been injustice and then
something intervened to prove that we were just. In Christianity, we are sinners, we are
unjust and then something happened, the cross, and suddenly we were justified
by Jesus' blood coupled with our faith.
All that was proven about us is that we had no hope of being reconciled
to God, we were guilty and then, suddenly, we were justified even though we had
done nothing but believe. That
justification, the just substituting His righteousness for the unjust sinner,
allows us to rejoice in all things. At
least it should. It should also make us
humble and inviting to those who are as yet unjustified by Him.
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