Faith & Politics: Running with Horses

The tension between the sacred and the profane, the saint and the pagan comes down to this:  Why does the way of the wicked prosper?

Sometimes God’s justice seems a long time coming! Sometimes evil seems to run amok—especially in a secular society where God seems to have been shunted aside. Other times—e.g. with Nebuchadnezzar—God says that the pagan is his chosen instrument. Frequently the righteous suffer, frequently the faithful have to live by faith in a better day to come—but why?

Jeremiah 12:1-5

Commentary

v1  John Calvin says of this verse: … this is the view which interpreters take of this passage; that is, that he was disturbed with the prosperous condition of the wicked, and expostulated with God … but he appears to me to have something higher in view. We have said elsewhere, that when the Prophets saw that they spent their labor in vain on the deaf and the intractable, they turned their addresses to God as in despair. I hence doubt not but that it was a sign of indignation when the Prophet addressed God, having as it were given up men, inasmuch as he saw that he spoke to the deaf without any benefit … hence he now addresses God himself, as though he had said, that he would have nothing more to do with them, as he had labored wholly in vain. This then seems to have been the object of the Prophet.

the faithless. A literal translation is “all the cloakers of cloaking.” The Septuagint says “all who prevaricate prevarications.” The faithless are the hypocrites who do what they want behind a veil of hypocrisy.

v3  sheep to be butchered. Calvin says: We may also learn from this passage—that when the ungodly accumulate wealth, they are in a manner fattened … when any one intends to prepare sheep or oxen for the slaughter, he fattens them. So then the feeding of them is nothing else than the fattening of them; and the fattening of them is a preparation for their slaughter. I have therefore said that a very useful doctrine is included in this form of speaking; for when we see that plenty of wealth and power abound with the ungodly and the despisers of God, we see that they are in a manner thus fined with good things, that they may grow fat—it is fattening or cramming. Let us then not bear it in that they are thus covered with their own fatness, for they are prepared for the day of slaughter.

v5  This is the beginning of God’s response, which continues for several chapters. The gist of the verse is, “If you are anxious when life is easy, but will you do when life gets really hard?”

Application

What will we do when life gets really hard? Consider the implications of the question:
There is a struggle going on, but it is not the one with which we consume our thoughts. In both martial arts and military tactics, a feint attack is a real, but diversionary, attack that draws the defender’s attention to one area when the real attack is coming from somewhere else. When one focuses on the feint, the real attack—camouflaged by the feint—is all the more destructive. The defender is caught off-guard and is unprepared.

life is going to get hard;

the hard life is part of God’s plan for us now and in the future;

thus our current situation—the stuff we’re whining about—is not supposed to be our real concern.

In Ephesians 6:12, Paul says, “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” The feint is our struggle against flesh and blood. For Jeremiah, the struggles against flesh and blood were numerous: God had commanded him not to marry and raise children (Jer. 16:1-4); God had commanded him not to go to feasts (Jer. 16:5-13); God had commanded him to warn the rulers about the impending conquering armies, which made Jeremiah an unpopular “prophet of doom;” likewise, by counseling the Jewish rulers to submit to the Babylonian captivity, Jeremiah had been branded a traitor. No wonder Jeremiah has been called the weeping prophet!

Jeremiah’s “light and momentary troubles” (2 Cor. 4:17) had the potential to divert him from the real struggle: the proclamation of the advance of God’s kingdom. Jeremiah’s real struggle was not whether he got to “sit with revelers” (Jer. 15:17) or whether those lousy kings of Judah prospered or failed. Rather, Jeremiah’s real struggle was a matter of the heart. Would he remain faithful to God? Would he persevere, or give up? Jeremiah asked:

Why is my pain unending
and my wound grievous and incurable?
Will you be to me like a deceptive brook,
like a spring that fails? (Jer. 15:18)

And God answered:

If you repent, I will restore you
that you may serve me;
if you utter worthy, not worthless, words,
you will be my spokesman.
Let this people turn to you,
but you must not turn to them.

I will make you a wall to this people,
a fortified wall of bronze;
they will fight against you
but will not overcome you,
for I am with you
to rescue and save you. (Jer. 15:19-20)

For us, the struggles are similar. Will we be distracted by the feints—work, family, and worldly pressures—or will we remain faithful to God? God’s answer to us is the same as his answer to Jeremiah: If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me ... for I am with you to rescue you and save you.

Points to Ponder

There is no time of year when the feints are more poignant, more apparent, than in our preparations for Christmas. What is the point of the Christmas season if not to prepare to receive Jesus in our hearts? However, by what feints do we always get distracted? How does Jer. 15:18-20 suggest what we should approach the season?