False Worship Condemned

KEY VERSE: “Amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God.” —Jeremiah 26:13

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Jeremiah 7:1-4, 8-10

KING Josiah made no arrangement for a successor on the throne, and so the elders of the people chose his youngest son to be the king of Judah. The king of Egypt, on his victorious return from war with Assyria took the young king a prisoner to Egypt, and exalted to the throne his eldest brother, Jehoiakim. Under his rulership, evil of every kind seemed to prosper, and the good reforms instituted by his father gave way to idolatry.

At this time Jeremiah was one of the principal prophets in the land, but had been hindered for some time from prophesying publicly. However under the Lord’s guidance, he wrote out his prophecy respecting the coming judgments and chastisements upon the people of Judea. When it was finished it was read before certain prominent people of Jerusalem, and so deeply impressed them that they desired the matter be brought to the king’s attention.

King Jehoiakim demanded to see the document, and had his scribe read it before him. The king was unmoved by the message, and after hearing the contents of three of the columns of the manuscript he took his scribe’s penknife and cut them off and cast them into the fire before him, and so he continued to do with the remainder, until the entire manuscript was read and destroyed. Thus he emphasized his determination not to accept counsel from the Lord, but to disregard his Word.

The king then ordered the arrest of Jeremiah and his scribe, but by the Lord’s providences, they had hid themselves and were not to be found. They learned of the destruction of the manuscript, and prepared another statement of the prophecy, which we are informed had certain further additions, which constitutes the Book of Jeremiah as found in our Bibles today.

Under the evil rule of King Jehoiakim, Jeremiah, under the Lord’s guidance, foretold the coming destruction of the city and Temple. The effect of such a prophecy should have led the people to self-examination, prayer, and fasting, and a full return to loyalty to God. But according to Jeremiah’s account it was a time of great moral delinquency. He pictures a terrible condition of the people—a prevalence of dishonesty, of slander, murder, adultery, false swearing, and open licentiousness.

The priests led the people in an angry attack upon the prophet. He was arrested, charged with speaking evil of his city, in declaring its forthcoming destruction.

It is noteworthy that it was the priests and the false prophets who, on this occasion, called for the death of a true prophet. And throughout history this has not infrequently been the case. Nearly all the persecutions of Jesus and his apostles and his followers throughout the age have come from professed servants of God. No doubt these religious teachers twisted their reasoning to such an extent that they considered their course a just one—possibly they even thought it was interest on their part for the people; or perhaps they persuaded themselves they were moved in their persecution by love for God. At all events, their course shows what an easy matter self-deception is, and their mistake bids us beware and watch carefully our own motives.

Jeremiah impressed the jurors—the princes of his people. He reaffirmed every word he had uttered and declared himself ready to die if need be; but he urged reformation. The princes, more just than the priests and false prophets, acquitted Jeremiah, although his words condemned them also.

All cannot be reformers and prophets of righteousness to the same extent as Jeremiah. Every child of God, however, is a servant of righteousness and, proportionately, should be a foe to sin in its every form, and should consider it a privilege to “obey the voice of the Lord!”

While it is not our commission to publicly pass judgment on present society and all its ills, we can however be spokesmen of the Lord’s Word on the matter, which explains the cause of the troublous time in which we live; and that the Day of Vengeance effecting the passing away of this order of things is but a prelude to God’s loving and benevolent plan for the world’s reformation through obedience to “his voice.”

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