Jeremiah 7 - The House of the LORD: More Than a Building
- Chad Werkhoven
- 35 minutes ago
- 5 min read
True religion involves way more than just occasionally showing up at church.
SINCE WE LAST LEFT OFF, the LORD confirmed His call in Jeremiah's life, so Jeremiah began proclaiming the LORD’s covenant lawsuit against His people.
Jeremiah 7:1–11, 27-29 (NASB95)
1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
2 “Stand in the gate of the LORD's house and proclaim there this word and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah, who enter by these gates to worship the LORD!’ ”
3 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, “Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place.
4 “Do not trust in deceptive words, saying,
‘This is the temple of the LORD,
the temple of the LORD,
the temple of the LORD.’
5 “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a man and his neighbor,
6 if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor walk after other gods to your own ruin,
7 then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.
8 “Behold, you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail.
9 “Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known,
10 then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—that you may do all these abominations?
11 “Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” declares the LORD.
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13 “And now, because you have done all these things,” declares the LORD... I will do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave you and your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15 “I will cast you out of My sight..."
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27 “You shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you; and you shall call to them, but they will not answer you.
28 “You shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD their God or accept correction; truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth.
29 ‘Cut off your hair and cast it away,
And take up a lamentation on the bare heights;
For the LORD has rejected and forsaken
The generation of His wrath.’
Canons of Dordt
Point III/IV, Article 15: Responses to God’s Grace
God does not owe this grace to anyone. For what could God owe to one who has nothing to give that can be paid back? Indeed, what could God owe to one who has nothing of his own to give but sin and falsehood?
Therefore the person who receives this grace owes and gives eternal thanks to God alone; the person who does not receive it either does not care at all about these spiritual things and is satisfied with himself in his condition, or else in self-assurance foolishly boasts about having something which he lacks.
Summary
We might expect the LORD to send His newly minted prophet Jeremiah out to the front lines of wickedness, calling all who hear him to amend their ways. And that's exactly what the LORD does, giving His covenant prosecutor a list of indictments to pursue: oppression of the alien, orphan and widow, the shedding of innocent blood, walking after other gods, theft, adultery and false swearing.
It's just that the front lines the LORD sends Jeremiah to look different than expected. Jeremiah's not sent to confront a wicked king or go shake his fists at pagan interlopers. Rather, the LORD dispatches Jeremiah to stand in the gate of the LORD's house! He's to proclaim there the LORD's condemnation to the very people entering the gates to worship Him!
The people Jeremiah preached to weren't all that different from us. They'd lost confidence in their political system to provide security. Yet they still had hope and faith, but it had shifted. As Philip Ryken puts it, they "had taken their faith in the living God and reduced it to faith in a building." They'd become textbook hypocrites: they simply showed up and claimed "We are delivered!" and then went right back to doing all these abominations.
The LORD mocks their shallow trust with His thrice repeated prohibition: Do not trust in deceptive words, saying "This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD." It was as if simply being in the physical proximity of something ostensibly holy was enough to cover over their iniquities - that simply by chanting so prescribed formulas, they once again became good with God.
Dig Deeper
Too many people associate the LORD as the God of second chances, who certainly expects His people to do right, but who gently chuckles a bit each time they fail before picking them up to give them another attempt, especially for those who occasionally darken the door of the LORD's house of worship.
While this is the God our culture has come to expect, it is not the God of the Bible, who conditions the right to dwell in His presence upon people's perfect obedience. To people who simply go through religious motions, but who have no true desire to be holy, the LORD rejects and forsakes. He will cast them out of His sight.
This is, and ought to be, a terrifying passage of the Bible - especially for people like us for whom "going to the house of the LORD, the house of the LORD, the house of the LORD" every Sunday is as regular as breathing. Don't ever think that you're good with God simply because you show up, be it once in awhile or even twice a week.
But passages like today's are not given to crush your eternal confidence. They're given to cause you to cling all the more to Christ, who fulfilled the perfect righteousness our holy Father requires. You can gauge your level of grip by how it is that you treat the alien, orphan and widow and truly practice justice between you and your neighbor.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who demands that we put our trust in Him rather than our own deceptive words;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Confess your hypocrisy and pray that the Spirit would enable you to wholly and sincerely trust in Christ as evidenced by how you treat your neighbor;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
