Context No. 2767 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Jeremiah 5:12-17: in context

12They have denied the LORD, and said, “It is not he. Evil won’t come on us. We won’t see sword or famine. 13The prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them. Thus it will be done to them.” 14Therefore the LORD, the God of Armies says, “Because you speak this word, behold, I will make my words in your mouth fire, and this people wood, and it will devour them. 15Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far away, house of Israel,” says the LORD. “It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you don’t know and don’t understand what they say. 16Their quiver is an open tomb. They are all mighty men. 17They will eat up your harvest and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat. They will eat up your flocks and your herds. They will eat up your vines and your fig trees. They will beat down your fortified cities in which you trust with the sword.

The people have talked themselves out of God's warnings. It is not he, they say; no disaster will reach us, we will see neither sword nor famine; the prophets are only wind, there is no word in them. So God answers through Jeremiah: because you say this, I will make my words in your mouth into fire, and this people into wood, and the fire will devour them. And he will bring a distant nation against them, ancient and foreign, whose language they cannot understand, to eat up their harvest and their flocks and their children.

The dangerous form of unbelief here is not open rebellion but a shrug. The people do not curse God; they simply decide his word is empty air and arrange their lives around ignoring it. And God's response is to turn the very word they dismissed into fire. Treating God's word as weightless does not make it weightless. It only leaves a person standing there as dry wood.

Where have I quietly decided that some word of God is just wind, and shaped my life around ignoring it?

Sources

Jeremiah 5:13: "The prophets will become wind, and the word is not in them."
Jeremiah 23:29: "Isn't my word like fire? says the LORD; and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?"
2 Peter 3:4: "Where is the promise of his coming? For... all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation."