Jeremiah’s reaction to the word of the Lord is to be
completely undone, “My heart is broken within me; all my bones shake; I am like
a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of the Lord and because of
his holy words.” The focus here is, “Both
prophet and priest are ungodly; even in my house I have found their evil…” Yesterday the focus was on the priests, the
shepherds of God’s people. Today, the
Lord singles out the “prophets” of the nation, those who would speak on His
behalf. We have both prophets and
priests in our day as well, those who would divide the written word, what has
God said, and those who would interpret the times in light of that word, what
is God saying today. Sometimes that is
the pastor but I have also known many who speak on behalf of God for today,
some truly and others from their own hearts.
Here, the people are misled by the prophets concerning good and evil,
perhaps the material blessings indicated to the prophets that all was well and
God was pleased in spite of their sinfulness.
The people weren’t getting right information on which to evaluate
themselves from those who would speak for the Lord. Calamity will fall on these first, their ways
will be darkened.
“This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?” Some in the crowd
of those who were “disciples” asked this question because indeed what Jesus had
just said was a “hard saying.” It was
hard in two ways, the base, physical description of feeding on His flesh but
that wasn’t the real problem the crowd posed was it? Their problem was that they knew Jesus’
parents so how could He claim to be bread from above? Jesus points back to that here in His response,
“…what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” Because of this claim some turned away and He
had to ask the twelve if they, too, were thinking of walking away. Peter’s answer was pitch perfect, “Lord, to
whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed,
and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” He couldn’t possibly have understood what
Jesus meant by eating His flesh and drinking His blood but he wasn’t going to
let that get in the way of what he had come to believe. You would think Jesus would be satisfied with
that and congratulate him but a true prophet cannot do that, He had to speak
the truth about their “belief” and about these men so that one could examine
himself in truth.
Paul proves himself a true prophet in these words – “I have
great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself
were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen
according to the flesh.” He loves those
who have rejected and persecuted him for his message of Jesus. He does not hate those who are his brothers
but see themselves as his enemies. He has
to tell them the truth no matter the personal cost out of love. The mystery of election is a comfort to Paul
in this matter. He realizes that the
salvation of Jew and Gentile alike is down not to human exertion on his part or
the part of those who would depend on their efforts Godward, but on God
Himself, who has mercy. Paul rests in
the sovereignty of God not to give God a pass but to say He not only can do as
He pleases, but that there is much we can’t know about why God does what He
does. His thoughts are not our thoughts,
nor His ways our ways.
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