Josh King

Playing with Matches in the Ammunition Dump (Jeremiah 19:1–15)

“…because they have abandoned me and made this a foreign place. They have burned incense in it to other gods that they, their fathers, and the kings of Judah have never known…” (Jeremiah 19:4 CSB, emphasis mine).

“And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem…” (Jeremiah 19:7).

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God commands his prophet to play with matches in the munitions room. We’re not talking about stocks of centerfire cartridges. Fused grenades and kegs of powder are everywhere.

Jeremiah has just declared the clay/pot prophecy. It didn’t go over well. They don’t want to hear from God. When Jeremiah keeps on talking, they plot against him (Jeremiah 18:18). Now, God commands Jeremiah to go buy a hardened clay vessel. Hmm? Then, he is to take some leaders, the selfsame leaders who want to silence him mind you, to the Potsherd Gate. Hmm? Further, this Potsherd Gate, somewhere on the south side of the city, leads out to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, that place of horrid idolatry where they sacrificed their children (Jeremiah 7:30–34). Hmm? Can you feel the tension?

Jeremiah takes his adversaries on a field trip for an object lesson. Normally this gets the kids excited. But the leaders are not complete dunces. Though they cannot accept the truth, they catch the insult, but without humility, such that there is no repentance and only rebellion.

All this bodes ill for God’s prophet? Has the Principal no concern for his teachers? He does send them out as sheep among wolves, but, He is the potter, and Israel is the clay. Immediately, playing with matches by the powered keg is dangerous, but disobeying God, as Israel does, is the far more dangerous thing. The hottest man has done is nuclear fission and even that is small scale to God’s cosmic nuclear fusion.

Israel has estranged the land by her harlotry (v. 4). For this reason, Yahweh will make void her plans (v. 7). This is much more serious than a ruined vacation. Israel is to be treated as the pagan nations. She has foreignized. She will be foreignized. “The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples” (Psalm 33:10, emphasis mine).

What it means to be foreignized is spelled out in the second psalm.

“Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,
‘Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.’

He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
‘As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.’

I will tell of the decree:
The LORD said to me, ‘You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel’ ” (Psalm 2:1–9).

The students may scorn the teacher, but the Principal holds a rod of iron.

The Don: Say Your Lines as a Servant and Die

“The idea which here shuts out the second coming from our minds, the idea of the world slowly ripening to perfection, is a myth, not a generalization from experience. And it is a myth which distracts us from our real duties and our real interest. It is our attempt to guess the plot of a drama in which we are the characters. But how can the characters in a play guess the plot? We are not the playwright, we are not the producer, we are not even the audience. We are on the stage. To play well the scenes in which we are ‘on’ concerns us much more than to guess about the scenes that follow it.

In King Lear (III, vii) there is a man who is such a minor character that Shakespeare has not given him even a name: he is merely ‘First Servant’. All the characters around him—Regan, Cornwall, and Edmund—have fine long-term plans. They think they know how the story is going to end, and they are quite wrong. The servant has no such delusions. He has no notion how the play is going to go. But he understands the present scene. He sees an abomination (the blinding of old Gloucester) taking place. He will not stand it. His sword is out and pointed at his masters breast in a moment: then Regan stabs him dead from behind. That is his whole part: eight lines all told. But if it were real life and not a play, that is the part it would be best to have acted.” —C.S. Lewis, “The World’s Last Night”

We Cannot Spin, We Are Spun (Jeremiah 18:1–23)

“The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ‘Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do” (Jeremiah 18:1–4).

Michael Horton has written, “We can talk about grace, sing about grace, preach about grace, just so long as we do not get too close to it. Election is too close.” A tributary, or rather the source of this river is this: We can talk about God’s sovereignty, sing about His sovereignty, and preach about His sovereignty, just as long as we don’t get too close. God’s sovereignty in man’s salvation or damnation is too close.  

Here we have what is perhaps Scripture’s most potent metaphor for conveying God’s absolute sovereignty over man, that of the potter and the clay. I think the reason it unnerves us so is because while it assumes power, it emphasizes authority. When we talk of God’s sovereignty I believe we’re more comfortable with the opposite. We will glory in our God being all powerful; it’s what He has the authority to do with that power that terrifies us. God has sovereign power. That is assumed. The clay is in His hands. God has sovereign authority. This is emphasized. He may do with the clay as He wishes.

Another reason why this metaphor may cause us to squirm is because it’s one of the least metaphorical metaphors we encounter in the Scriptures. It’s like that piece of fiction that’s too true for enjoyment. We’re like the Pharisees listening to Jesus’ parables. In Genesis 2:7 we are told, “the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” The word we have for “potter” in our text is a derivative of the word “formed” in Genesis 2:7. Yes, Genesis 2:7 is anthropomorphic, but this doesn’t make it untrue. We are God fashioned dirt. As Horton put, we are the marvel of “ensouled dust.” After Adam fell, God told him, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). We are dust. We are God’s dust. He may form us. He may destroy us. He has not only the power to do so. He has the authority. He is sovereign.

Job, though he recognized this truth, appears to complain of it in his pain saying, “Your hands fashioned and made me, and now you have destroyed me altogether. Remember that you have made me like clay; and will you return me to the dust?” (Job 10:8–9). Even those who own the truth of the metaphor can express it with misgiving in their misery.
One mental game pots play trying to avoid this blunt force trauma is to believe God is only reacting to the clay. But this flips the roles. In this case, man is spinning God instead of God spinning man. This is completely contrary to the question God puts to Israel and the way this metaphor is used throughout Scripture.

“You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’? (Isaiah 29:16)”

God not only spins the clay; He forms the clay He spins.

“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’? Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor? (Isaiah 45:9–10)’ ”

Finally, the death knell of any such wishful thinking comes in Romans 9.

“So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’ But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? (Romans 9:18–24).

The point of this potter clay imagery isn’t simply that God is sovereign over what happens to the clay. He is sovereign over what the clay is. What the clay is, what it becomes, and what becomes of it—all this is His sovereign doing.

Notice the interrogatory nature of each of these passages. This is not an invitation to debate. These are a rhetorical questions that expose your heart. Should you answer, you tell us nothing about the Potter; rather, your arrogant protest or humble submission are the result of His Word spinning out what kind of clay you are.

The Don: Waking from the Myth of Scientific Cosmology

I was taught at school, when I had done a sum, to “prove my answer”. The proof or verification of my Christian answer to the cosmic sum is this. When I accept Theology I may find difficulties, at this point or that, in harmonizing it with some particular truths which are imbedded in the mythical cosmology derived from science. But I can get in, or allow for, science as a whole. Granted that Reason is prior to matter and that the light of the primal Reason illuminates finite minds, I can understand how men should come by observation and inference, to know a lot about the universe they live in. If, on the other hand, I swallow the scientific cosmology as a whole, then not only can I not fit in Christianity, but I cannot even fit in science. If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on bio-chemistry, and bio-chemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees. And this is to me the final test. This is how I distinguish dreaming and waking. When I am awake I can, in some degree, account for and study my dream. The dragon that pursued me last night can be fitted into my waking world. I know that there are such things as dreams: I know that I had eaten an indigestible dinner: I know that a man of my reading might be expected to dream of dragons. But while in the nightmare I could not have fitted in my waking experience. The waking world is judged more real because it can thus contain the dreaming world: the dreaming world is judged less real because it cannot contain the waking one. For the same reason I am certain that in passing from the scientific point of view to the theological, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religions. The scientific point of view cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else. —C.S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry”

The Superiority of Eating Ripe Peaches (Jeremiah 17:19–27)

“Thus said the LORD to me: ‘Go and stand in the People’s Gate, by which the kings of Judah enter and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem, and say: “Hear the word of the LORD, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates. Thus says the LORD: Take care for the sake of your lives, and do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers. Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck, that they might not hear and receive instruction” ‘ ” (Jeremiah 17:19–23).

I believe the paramount application of Jeremiah 17:19–27 is this, for the sake of your lives, hear the word of Yahweh. Listen. Do not stiffen your neck. “Yeah, but what does this mean for us today in connection to the Sabbath?” Towards finding an answer, there are three ways of reading the Scriptures that will lead to three different answers. Frequently, before we can address our disagreements as to what the Scripture says, we must first agree on how we are to listen.

First, there is the dispensationalist view, which, to put it simply, would say that the Sabbath and the old covenant do not pertain to the church at all. On a scale of discontinuity to continuity, the dispensational hermeneutic (their way of interpreting the Scriptures) would be in the red, heavy on discontinuity.

Second, there is the classical reformed or covenantal view. Historically, covenant theologians have strongly emphasized continuity between the old and new covenants. This is even true of our baptist forefathers who thought their presbyterian brothers overemphasized continuity in connection to circumcision. Despite this, they were in agreement concerning the continuity of the Sabbath, celebrated by the church now, because of Christ, on the Lord’s Day. For example, the Second London Confession differs very little from the Westminster Confession on this point. Chapter 22, section 7 of the 1689 Baptist Confession reads:

“As it is of the Law of nature, that in general a proportion of time by God’s appointment, be set a part for the Worship of God; so by his Word in a positive-moral, and perpetual Commandment, binding all men, in all Ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto him, which from the beginning of the World to the Resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week; and from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week which is called the Lord’s day; and is to be continued to the end of the World, as the Christian Sabbath; the observation of the last day of the week being abolished.”

This is known as the Sabbatarian position. Additionally, some argue for a seventh-day Sabbatarian position, to gather for worship on Saturday. These positions lean toward continuity side of the scale.

Third, there is what we might call the fulfillment position. Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17–18). Contrary to the dispensationalist, Jesus didn’t say the law was irrelevant for His disciples. Yet, contrary to the classic covenant view, Jesus didn’t say He simply came to ensure the law’s unaltered perpetuity. He came to fulfill the law. Craig Blomberg captures the significance this has for how we read the Old Testament well.

“Pervasive throughout the NT is the concept that Christians live in the era of the fulfillment of everything to which every part of the Hebrew Scriptures pointed. Every portion of the law remains an inspired, relevant authority for believers; but none of it may be applied properly until one understands how the new covenant has fulfilled that particular law or part of the law. A new age has been inaugurated that potentially changes everything. In some cases the application of a segment of Hebrew Scripture involves appreciating how it is fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus so that we obey certain OT laws simply by trusting in Christ for our salvation. In other cases, especially with broad moral principles, applications may remain virtually unchanged. In many instances there will be both continuity and discontinuity of application. We dare not assume in advance where on this spectrum Sabbath observance in the NT era will fall by some methodological presupposition that would a priori push obedience to this command to a particular place on our spectrum of possible applications. We must rather turn to the specific NT texts that impinge on the issue of Sabbath-keeping and see what pattern, if any, emerges from their teaching”‘

In recent years I’ve encountered some, who I think are reacting against the densely dispensational atmosphere they grew up under, who say evangelicals today set aside the law altogether. They are as equally offset by my bacon eating as my Sabbath breaking. They will accuse both of dispensational and covenant theologies of antinomianism, though, I think in general, they know far less of covenant theology. While I share their distaste for dispensational theology’s shoddy dismissal of the law, I think they do so as well.

Fulfillment is not about less, but more. I agree that the law is written on the heart, but shadows are also replaced by substance. Noon has all the Sun that was present at dawn, plus some. When I turn from the shadow of my spouse to embrace her, I haven’t lost but gained. To continue staring at the shadow would be the loss. When the bud blooms into fruit, I have all that the bud was and more. I don’t want to eat sour buds. I appreciate the bud because it will become fruit. It’s the fruit I’m after. So when I speak of the Sabbath being fulfilled, there is a way that I believe I keep it better than those who insist that a day be kept. I am zealous to celebrate the Sabbath. I believe it is a critical matter of life and death. One must take care or they will die.

What fulfillment means is that there is both continuity and discontinuity. Jesus Christ and His accomplished work is now the lens through which we must read all the Old Testament. The kind of approach I’m advocating here is that which I believe the New Testament itself models. It’s akin, though not identical, to the approach our Baptist forefathers used when considering the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant—circumcision. I only wish wish that when it came to the sign of the Mosaic Covenant, the Sabbath, that they would have been consistent. The issues are more complex than this, but that is another discussion.

The Sabbath is a sign (Exodus 31:12–12). As a sign it looked back to creation (Exodus 20:8–11) and to Israel’s redemption (Deuteronomy 5:12–15). Still, as a sign, the Sabbath is also a shadow. It not only looks back; it looks forward. Paul warned the Colossians, who were in danger of being influenced by a kind of Jewish mysticism, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” (Colossians 2:16–17, emphasis mine). The Sabbath anticipates. It is the bud. Where is the flower? The substance belongs to Christ.

If you want to learn how to read your Old Testament, read Hebrews. Hebrews takes you again and again from shadow to substance. For instance, why don’t we have priests? Because we have the Great High Priest. Why don’t we offer sacrifices? Because the point of all those do-nothing sacrifices was to point to the do-all sacrifice of Christ. Hebrews makes this plain. Concerning the rest which Israel was to enjoy in the land, and the warning to listen, lest they fail to take part in it, Hebrews tells us:

“For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:8–11).

Where is this rest found? It is found in Christ. Sabbath is found, not in a particular day, but in the risen Son. The day was a sign and a shadow. Christ is the substance. He worked so that we might rest. Still, I must add the caveat, there is a day, when the Son will shine in glory and the saints will fully enter the rest they already partly enjoy in Christ.

In the New Testament every command from the decalogue is repeated save this one. This makes sense because it is the only one of the ten that is also a sign of the old covenant. In the new covenant two signs are expressly given to the Church in light of Christ fulfilling the promises of the old—Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Church, here’s your signs.

So then, what does it mean for us to hear, to listen, and to take care in the light of Christ and His accomplished work? Chiefly it involves gathering in obedience to our Lord as a church, to rest in Christ, worshipping Him as He is ministered to us by God’s Word and the sacraments. The author of Hebrews, having unpacked the priesthood of Christ, admonishes us:

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:19–25).

Saints and sinners, hear this. Listen. Take care, for hearing God means rest. Our Lord Jesus Christ today by His word says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28–29). Truly the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. There is rest in Him, and Him alone.

The Don: The Cosmic Summer Just Around the Corner

“The miracles that have already happened are, of course, as Scripture so often says, the first fruits of that cosmic summer which is presently coming on (Romans 8:23; 11:16; 16:5; 1 Corinthians 15:20; James 1:18; Revelation 14:4). Christ has risen, and so we shall rise. …To be sure, it feels wintry enough still: but often in the very early spring it feels like that. Two thousand years are only a day or two by this scale. A man really ought to say, ‘The Resurrection happened two thousand years ago’ in the same spirit in which he says, ‘I saw a crocus yesterday.’ Because we know what is coming behind the crocus. The spring comes slowly down this way; but the great thing is that the corner has been turned.” —C.S. Lewis, “The Grand Miracle”

The Prognosis of Humanity’s Heart Disease (Jeremiah 17:1–18)

“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars, while their children remember their altars and their Asherim, beside every green tree and on the high hills, on the mountains in the open country” (Jeremiah 17:1–3a).

Sin being engraved on the heart isn’t so much the diagnosis as the prognosis. Here we’re not told the disease itself as of its advanced stages. Jeremiah will soon speak of humanity’s heart condition in verse 9. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” At the beginning of the chapter though, we see what happens when the sin-sick heart pumps sin after sin after sin.

Man, born totally depraved advances toward being utterly depraved. The more the heart flows with wickedness, the darker the flow of wickedness becomes. Sin, having flowed out of the heart, is then engraved on the heart. Heart-hardening is the result of our hereditary heart disease.

But it is not the heart being likened to a tablet which speaks to this hardness. The father of Proverbs pleads, “My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart” (Proverbs 3:1–3, emphasis mine). The heart is a tablet. It is what is written on it that is indicative of hardness.

In an oral culture the important and that which was to be preserved were written. Writing something on paper indicates was significant; engraving it on stone far more. Judah’s sin is indelible, ineffaceable, ineradicable.

This is humanity’s prognosis. We are all terminally ill. And because our hearts are deceitful, we are in denial. Our only hope is that the Great Physician, in mercy, grant us new hearts in the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31–34; 32:36–41; Ezekiel 36:24–32).

The Don: The Story of One Grand Miracle

“One is very often asked as present whether we could not have a Christianity stripped, or, as people who ask it say, ‘freed’ from its miraculous elements, a Christianity with the miraculous elements suppressed. Now, it seems to me that precisely the one religion in the world, or at least the only one I know, with which you could not do that is Christianity. In a religion like Buddhism, if you took away the miracles attributed to Gautama Buddha in some very late sources, there would be no loss; in fact, the religion would get on very much better without them because in that case the miracles largely contradict the teaching. Or even in the case of a religion like Mohammedanism, nothing essential would be altered if you took away the miracles. You could have a great prophet preaching his dogmas without bringing in any miracles; they are only in the nature of a digression, or illuminated capitals. But you cannot possibly do that with Christianity, because the Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, which is uncreated, eternal, came into Nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing Nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left. There may be many admirable human things which Christianity shares with all other systems in the world, but there would be nothing specifically Christian.” —C.S. Lewis, The Grand Miracle

Home Alone (Jeremiah 16:1–21)

“For thus says the LORD: Do not enter the house of mourning, or go to lament or grieve for them, for I have taken away my peace from this people, my steadfast love and mercy, declares the LORD. Both great and small shall die in this land. They shall not be buried, and no one shall lament for them or cut himself or make himself bald for them. No one shall break bread for the mourner, to comfort him for the dead, nor shall anyone give him the cup of consolation to drink for his father or his mother. You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and drink. For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will silence in this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride (Jeremiah 16:5–9).

Jeremiah was not to enter two houses: the house of mourning and the house of feasting. Both fasting and feasting with his countrymen were forbidden. The most expected social conventions were off limits—the mourning of a funeral and the mirth of a wedding. Jeremiah was home alone. “Jeremiah,” writes Phil Ryken, “spent his Friday nights at home, alone. There were three things he did not do—go out on dates, send sympathy cards, or sit down to fancy dinners.”

Though these commands as given to Jeremiah are circumstantial and prophetic, there is a principle underneath that is not alien to us today. There is mirth and mourning in which we should not mingle.

Weddings are celebrations. There are “unions,” attempted unions, that we cannot celebrate. When the world tries to make the north ends of two magnets stick, we should not join their jolly madness. We can love the persons involved, but we may not celebrate their attempted union, because nothing is being joined. In such, there is no peace, no covenant, and no mercy (Jeremiah 16:5). There are also times when north and south do click in earthly covenant, and yet, heavenly covenant is maligned. When two folks play like they know Jesus, and want a Christian wedding, but only with a white dress on the surface and not clean hearts by the blood of Christ underneath, the name of Jesus is blasphemed therein. There are unions that we can recognize as legitimate, but not celebrate as Christian.

While there’s still enough sanity for some professing Christians to see we can’t make merry over “same-sex mirage,” mourning with the bereaved seems trickier. This is because we’re looking at the other person instead of ourselves. We don’t go to the north–north wedding because of their sin. We go to the funeral, because dead men are no longer sinning. What we need to ask is if by our presence we are sinning.

Frequently our Lord is as blasphemed in funerals as He is in weddings. We have transitioned from funerals in which we grieve, looking to the blessed hope of the resurrection, to celebrations where we take comfort in the beauty of a life lived. Let’s be honest, the editing skills of funeral slide shows rival that of Hollywood, though not in production, truly in bias. As R.C. Sproul says, what many really believe in is “justification by death.” When the dead are preached into heaven while their souls are surely in hell, we should desire no part in endorsing that message. Problem is, most often we have no idea what that message will be. One of the elders I am honored to serve alongside attends primarily only visitation now for this reason.

Regardless, let us express our condolences, and weep with those who weep, and let us also make clear that the blessed hope is the death and resurrection of Christ. Sometimes we must merely grieve over the dead, and not with the living. That is, we must be clear what our comfort is. Or, to put it yet another way, sometimes we must grieve over the dead and not be comforted with the living when their comfort is a false one. Again, if Christ is not known, there is no peace, no covenant, no mercy.

Understand, all this is a digression from the thrust of Jeremiah 16. The focus isn’t on Jeremiah and his actions, but the word of God thereby. Jeremiah is cut off from the most expected of social conventions to make this word emphatic. This is a severe word of judgment, radically portrayed through the prophet. A judgement is coming on Judah so severe, that not only will the mirth of marriage be silenced, there will not even be a proper lamentation and burial for the dead.

God’s commands to his prophet may seem hard, but is the judgment portrayed thereby that is truly unbearable. Sinner, if you don’t know Christ, you stand under such judgment. It is because Christians love you that they don’t want you to think otherwise. It is because we are earnest for you to know His love that we speak of His wrath. Saints, may we not confuse by our presence those who have no peace, no covenant love, and no mercy into thinking that they do. Let us love them more and better than that.

A Drink from Brooks: Seek the Mother to Get the Daughter

Man’s holiness is now his greatest happiness, and in heaven man’s greatest happiness will be his perfect holiness. Assurance is the daughter of holiness; and he who shall more highly prize, and more earnestly press after the enjoyment of the daughter than the mother, it is not a wonder if God shuts the door upon him, and crosses him in the thing he most desires. The surest and the shortest way to assurance is to wrestle and contend with God for holiness… When the stream and cream of a man’s spirit runs after holiness, it will not be long night with that man; the Sun of righteousness will shine forth upon that man, and turn his winter into summer, and crown him with the diadem of assurance. —Thomas Brooks, Heaven on Earth