Worshipping God in Spirit and in truth...

Jeremiah 17:12

“A glorious throne set on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary…”

 

 

For 7 years the nation of Israel had worked tirelessly on Solomon’s temple, employing 30,000 split up in 3 groups working 2 months, then having 1 month off. When it was completed, it was a wonder to be seen. God was most definitely pleased with this magnificent temple. There was a unity of worship and allegiance to God so significant it brought about the blessing of God’s hand on the nation. 

 

Unfortunately, something happened between the days of Solomon and the time of the Prophet Jeremiah. While the temple remained, while sacrifices continued, the worship that was taking place was half-hearted at best. A religious checking off the boxes, while at the same time worshipping the false gods of the land God had given them.  As a result, the days of the magnificent temple in Jerusalem were coming to an end. In a short time, King Nebuchadnezzar and his army would descend upon Jerusalem and completely destroy the city as well as the temple. The physical sanctuary was soon to be gone.  For people with a half-hearted allegiance to and worship of God this was devastating.  For them much of their worship revolved around the building rather than on the Most High God.

 

 

Perhaps that is what was in the mind of God when He inspired Jeremiah to pen, “a glorious throne on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary”. The worship of God never was, is not, and never will be dependent on any building.  God is omnipresent, abiding everywhere and, as Jesus made it clear to the woman at the well in John 4, “true worshippers worship the Father in Spirit and in truth”.

 

In Jeremiah 17:13 we read

“LORD, the hope of Israel, all who abandon You will be put to shame.  All who turn away from Me will be written in the dirt, for they have abandoned the LORD, the fountain of living water.”

  

Jeremiah is prophesying and speaking to the nation of Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, God’s chosen people, as a result when He writes, “…all who abandon You will be put to shame.”, He is writing to a people who at one time had a relationship with God.  The word “abandon” in the original Hebrew is a very strong word, used frequently in Jeremiah, starting in 1:16 where God says the nation of Judah, they “abandoned Me to burn incense to other gods and to worship the works of their own hands”.

 

 

The picture here is that the people of Judah have turned their backs, abandoned, forsaken, the God who had literally formed them with His own hands. Don’t forget, throughout the creation account God spoke virtually everything into existence except when it came to man, with His own hands, He reached down and formed him out of the dust of the ground, then breathed in him the breath of life.  Now here man is abandoning God and declaring as god, something they formed with their own hands, except they were unable to beath the breath of life into these idols. They were worshipping dead things, capable of doing nothing, instead of the living God who was and is all powerful and perfect in every way.

 

 

Jeremiah goes on to write, “all who turn away from me will be written in the dirt.” In reading this, my mind quickly was drawn to John 8:2-11 and the biblical account of the woman caught in adultery. In this passage, the scribes and Pharisees bring to Jesus a woman caught in the act of adultery.  I’m not sure where the man was, but that is a topic for another time. They were testing Jesus, to trap Him into saying or doing something they could use against Him.  Jesus initially says nothing, He simply bends over and begins to write something on the ground. Scripture does not tell us what He wrote, but I am guessing he writes some very specific sins.  Ignoring what He was writing, they persisted at questioning Him, then He stood up and said to them, “The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her.” Then, Jesus bent over and again began to write on the ground. As before, Scripture does not give any indication what Jesus wrote.  In my mind I wonder, did He begin to write names of men next to the specific sins He had written earlier?  What we do know is that as He wrote, one by one, each man left, until He was there alone with the woman.

 

This fits well with Jeremiah 17:13, because as these men were leaving while Jesus wrote on the ground, they were turning away from Jesus. In the end, the only one who didn’t turn away was the woman. She was the only one who was able to drink from “the fountain of living water” to experience the incredible freedom one obtains from the “Lord, the hope of Israel.”  He was her only hope, and He is our only hope.  Our freedom comes when we abandon our sin and turn to Him with repentant hearts, drinking from the living water.

 

Father in heaven, O that my heart would be wholly and completely devoted to You. May I never move into a position of merely checking all the religious boxes. May my worship never revolve around places, things, or people, but on You, the one true God. My hope is in You and You alone. May I, day by day and moment by moment, abandon the sin that can become so prevalent in my life, and turn to You with a repentant heart, that I might drink from the Living Water that is Jesus my Savior.

This I pray, in His Holy Name, Amen