Scripture Daily

Context No. 2278 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 16:14-21: in context

14“Therefore behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that it will no more be said, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;’ 15but, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had driven them.’ I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers. 16“Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says the LORD, “and they will fish them up. Afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. 17For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face. Their iniquity isn’t concealed from my eyes. 18First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.” 19LORD, my strength, my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and will say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit. 20Should a man make to himself gods which yet are no gods?” 21“Therefore behold, I will cause them to know, this once I will cause them to know my hand and my might. Then they will know that my name is the LORD.”

Amid words of judgment and promised restoration, Jeremiah is given a vision of the nations coming to God. The nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, the prophet says to the LORD, and will say, our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit. Can a man make gods for himself, which are yet no gods? Jeremiah foresees a day when peoples will recognize the emptiness of the false things they inherited, the idols and lies handed down to them, and turn to the one true God.

The recognition Jeremiah foresees is striking: our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit. The nations would come to see that what had been handed down to them, their idols, their false beliefs, their inherited ways of worship, were lies, empty, worthless, of no profit. And seeing this, they would turn from the inherited falsehood to the true God. It is a moment of honest reckoning, recognizing that much of what was received from previous generations was not truth but lies, and forsaking it for the truth. This holds a truth worth facing about what we inherit. Not everything handed down to us from previous generations, our families, our cultures, our upbringing, is true or good. We can inherit beliefs, values, ways of thinking, even objects of ultimate devotion, that are, as Jeremiah says, lies, worthless things in which there is no profit. And the honest reckoning the nations make is one we may need to make: recognizing that some of what we inherited is not truth but falsehood, and forsaking it for the true God and his truth. We were redeemed, Peter says, from the futile ways inherited from our fathers; the inherited ways were futile, and we are redeemed from them. This calls for discernment about our inheritance, and courage to forsake what is false. It can be hard to question or forsake what we have inherited, what our families and cultures handed down, what feels like simply the way things are. But if some of it is, as Jeremiah says, lies and worthless things, then faithfulness to the truth requires us to recognize this and turn from the inherited falsehood to the true God. The nations foreseen by Jeremiah came to see that their fathers had inherited lies, and turned to God; and we too may need to recognize the falsehood in what we inherited and forsake it for the truth. Turn from these vain things, the apostles urged, to the living God. This calls us to discern and forsake the inherited lies and turn to the true God. Jeremiah foresaw the nations recognizing that their fathers had inherited nothing but lies and turning to the LORD; and we are called to a like honest reckoning, discerning that not all we inherited is true, forsaking the inherited falsehoods, the empty things in which there is no profit, and turning to the true God and his truth, redeemed from the futile ways handed down to us.

Have I examined what I inherited from my family, culture, and upbringing to discern whether some of it is, as Jeremiah says, lies and worthless things in which there is no profit, or do I hold to inherited beliefs and ways simply because they were handed down, and can the nations Jeremiah foresaw, who recognized that their fathers had inherited nothing but lies and turned to the true God, move me to an honest reckoning that forsakes the inherited falsehoods and turns to the true God and his truth?

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