RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!

Read Jeremiah 16. 

When you wake up and your house is on fire, you don’t have time to shower and make breakfast—you run out as fast as you can.  Typical activities are set aside and we shift into crisis mode.  That is essentially what God alerts Jeremiah to in this chapter.  Jerusalem is about to be engulfed in the flames of God’s wrath.  The usual activities—good in their place—are no longer a priority.

Gruesome deaths will soon be witnessed in Jerusalem—whether by starvation, as the Babylonian army besieges the city or by sword, as the pagan power breaks through the defenses.  The carnage will be overwhelming—carcasses littering the ground—and not enough people to bury them.  The survivors will be carried into captivity, while the corpses will rot as human refuse, picked over by buzzards and beasts.  They had first forsaken God, and so God will now forsake them.

Because of this, Jeremiah is forbidden to marry, mourn, or engage in mirth.  He will have no marriage, for having a wife and seeing her suffer would only compound his sorrow exponentially.  He cannot mourn by attending a funeral.  There will be no funerals—too much death and not enough people to bury them.  There will be no mirth, as the prophet will attend no wedding celebrations. The young will die—the voices of the bridegroom and bride vanishing from the land, replaced by their dying gasps.

The spiritually senseless people question Jeremiah.  They can’t imagine God would do such a thing to them.  So, once more, the prophet reads heaven’s indictment against them.   Persistent sin that might prick the conscience at first, has a way of callusing our soul.

Three figures of God’s fury are presented.  God will cast them out as a warrior would hurl a spear.  Those who are cast out will be caught by the Babylonian invaders, like fish caught in a net.  Should some escape, the fishermen will become hunters to track them down.  There will be no place to hide, because God always sees and knows.  Ultimately, it is not the hand of the Babylonians that will seek them, but the hand of the Lord that will seize them in His sovereign decree of judgment.  It is the long arm of the law which they have violated.  Like a banker coming to collect a debt—the Lord will hold them accountable for their sin debt and charge them interest, as well.  What a painful day of reckoning!  

Jeremiah, however, knows where refuge can be found—as Luther wrote, “A mighty fortress is our God; a bulwark never failing.”  A ray of grace breaks through the storm clouds of judgment descending.  The Jews carried into captivity will someday be released to return.  As God brought their forefathers out of Egyptian slavery and into the Promised Land, so in an even greater way, He will bring the Jews out of captivity and back to Jerusalem.

An even more amazing display of grace will transpire—the very Gentiles whose paganism had been embraced by the Jews, leading to their chastisement, will be converted from idolatry through the Jews restored to the land.  Out of the remnant that returns, a Jew will arise, Christ Jesus, Savior not only of Israel, but Savior of the world!

Now, dear reader, understand the crisis we are in—the urgency of your setting aside all things for the main thing—getting your heart right with God.  It may be the world will soon go up in flames.  Will you escape?  We will either pay the price for our sins in the fires of eternity, or run to Christ as our Refuge, by faith receiving the forgiveness of our sin debt, in the price He paid on the cross.  You cannot run from Him, but you can run to Him!