Jeremiah (1-31) 2:26 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Jeremiah (1-31) 2:26

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This is about the thief who is exposed. Now the thief in this illustration is not a hardened criminal. He is somebody who is a seemingly upright citizen, but it is found that he isn't what he appears to be. He is a rotten thief, and he is exposed, and so he is deeply ashamed, because he has been putting himself across as an upright person. That is the force of the illustration, and that is what it will be like for Israel when her sin is uncovered. She will be deeply ashamed together with her kings, her princes, her priests and her prophets. They have all joined in with the deception. Jeremiah spares none of them. He is ready to condemn all of them.What for? For their wilful foolishness in being prepared to credit their dead and useless idols with life and power. ‘Saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth.’ The stock, the piece of wood cut from a tree or the trunk of the tree turned into an idol; or the stone, carved into the form of some god and worshipped. How stupid has man become when he starts with something that he knows to be dead, and claims to have adorned it with life! It is a deliberate act of self-deception, but why does he swallow his own lie? Only because he hates the living and true God and will do anything to avoid having to come to him.

Application

But you say, we would never do anything like that today. Really? What do you think is going on when people put such faith in ‘influencers’? What is happening when they go for counselling and think that the counsellor really has the ability to solve all their problems and understand them fully, and to re-structure their inner being so that all the strains and stresses of life are completely removed? Is this not crediting a mere human being with something that only God can do? What are men and women doing when they credit sports heroes with the ability to lift them above their sorrows, and give them something that makes life worth living? Do they really have such power? Are they not creating a fictional world which they can hide in, away from the real world? Or those who find all their satisfaction in material things and are consumed by covetousness, which Paul says is idolatry (Colossians 3:5); can those things really satisfy an eternal soul living in a mortal body? But there is a God in heaven and he has real power to address the real problems that we face, and to give us real solutions. He is not limited as those we turn to on earth for help.

‘Where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble.’ God will give us over to those things. You wanted worldly possessions; you wanted to be noticed; you wanted to be highly dressy and special and admired by people; you wanted satisfaction in the world. ‘Well don't pray to me’, the Lord will say, even to his children. ‘Get your satisfaction from those things. As far as you are concerned, the heaven will be closed until you come to repentance. That is how God spoke to Israel of old, and that is how he may have to speak to us if we force him to do so.

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Jeremiah (1-31) 2:26 Commentary and Bible Study