The book of Jeremiah is an autobiography during the reign of the last five kings of Judah. Jeremiah is known as “the weeping prophet” because of his sorrow over the unrepentant nation, and the impending destruction of Jerusalem and subsequent exile.
This is evidenced in the following key verse:
Now therefore, amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God; then the LORD will relent concerning the doom that He has pronounced against you. (26:13)
Jeremiah provides two key insights for believers today.
Faithfulness, not apparent fruitfulness, is the basis of the Lord’s evaluation.
Read closely Jim George’s description of Jeremiah:
Most people’s definitions of success would include the acquiring of wealth, popularity, fame, power, or accomplishments. By these standards, Jeremiah was a complete failure. For 40 years he served as God’s spokesman and passionately urged the people to return to God, and no one listened, especially the kings. He was penniless, friendless, and rejected by his family. In the world’s eyes, Jeremiah was not a success. But in God’s eyes, Jeremiah was one of the most successful people in all biblical history. Why? Because success, as seen by God, involves obedience and faithfulness. Jeremiah obeyed God and, regardless of severe opposition and great personal sacrifice, committed himself to fulfilling God’s calling on his life.
The next insight is found in the Lord’s condemnation is Jeremiah 2:13:
For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Falsely placed faith proves disastrous.
John MacArthur explains that Israel had abandoned the Lord, the source of their spiritual salvation and sustenance and turned to idolatrous objects of trust. The Lord compared these with underground water storage reservoirs for rainwater, which were broken and allowed water to seep out, rendering them useless.
Likewise, evangelicalism, particularly in America, has overwhelmingly and undiscerningly turned to worldly ideologies that Paul warned us about (Col. 2:8). As we witness evangelicalism’s hermeneutical attempts at catering to culture by marrying secular ideologies to biblical terminology, the warning of commentator Arno Gaebelein reign true:
It is so among the professing people of God in this dispensation; the two evils are present with us also. The result for Israel was enslavement. The young lions came (the Assyrian invasion) and made the land waste. Egypt, did the same. It came as the fruit of having forsaken the fountain of living water.
Pray for American evangelicalism. Ours is quickly becoming an ideological enslavement from which we must be freed .
