Jeremiah (1-31) 1:13 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Jeremiah (1-31) 1:13

Comments

‘And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething pot [a boiling pot]; and the face thereof is toward the north.’ Many people think that the boiling pot is Babylon which was about to come from the north, but it is very much more likely, as the older commentators and writers taught, that the seething pot is Judah. What do you see? A boiling pot. That is Judah, yet ‘the face thereof is toward the north’, because it is going to be attacked from all those countries to the north. The Assyrians of course have been swallowed up by the Babylonians, and they are going to come sweeping down and others are going to join with them, wave after wave in due course. Persia and Egypt will turn against Judah, but from the north a multiplicity of nations will come and they will all subdue Jerusalem consecutively. Judah would not believe, and the people of Jerusalem would not accept that God would allow them to be destroyed. They were idolaters; they ignored their God; they acted against him; they ignored his prophet, but in their foolish self-righteousness and pride they said to themselves, God will not let us go. He will not allow us to be destroyed. And yet, while that is what the princes said, and what the court said, the people knew great unrest and fear. They were shaking all the time at the possibility of invasion and being cruelly crushed, subdued and taken into captivity. They were stiff-necked and resistant on the one hand, and yet insecure and terrified on the other. No wonder it is called a boiling pot. The city was always alive with rumours and hostilities and troubles because of its disobedience. So Judah, and Jerusalem in particular, is the seething pot.

Application

That is happening in the world, that threefold rebellion, and do we not see it happening even in Bible believing churches. People have forsaken God's word and they are inventing methods of their own. They have burned incense unto other gods in that they are now practicing wickedness, even in churches, and having worldly entertainment instead of serious worship. ‘And they have worshipped the works of their own hands.’ They say, ‘We don't want to follow the Bible, which is just preaching and the Holy Spirit, and praise and worship and trusting him. We are clever people. We are quite capable of inventing forms of worship which please the flesh, and surely God can accept that. We want to do things ourselves with music that unbelievers can be comfortable with and do not require them to change too much, and to use our own devices and innovations. So many wrong practices have got into the church, and that is an awful situation to be in. How much we should warn and remonstrate and appeal! This is the task that God has called us to from before the foundation of the world.

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Jeremiah (1-31) 1:13 Commentary and Bible Study