Jeremiah 23:15-24: a reflection

15Therefore the LORD of Armies says concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink poisoned water; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.” 16The LORD of Armies says, “Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They teach you vanity. They speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD. 17They say continually to those who despise me, ‘The LORD has said, “You will have peace;”’ and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, ‘No evil will come on you.’ 18For who has stood in the council of the LORD, that he should perceive and hear his word? Who has listened to my word, and heard it? 19Behold, the LORD’s storm, his wrath, has gone out. Yes, a whirling storm! It will burst on the head of the wicked. 20The LORD’s anger will not return until he has executed and performed the intents of his heart. In the latter days, you will understand it perfectly. 21I didn’t send these prophets, yet they ran. I didn’t speak to them, yet they prophesied. 22But if they had stood in my council, then they would have caused my people to hear my words, and would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings. 23“Am I a God at hand,” says the LORD, “and not a God afar off? 24Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I can’t see him?” says the LORD. “Don’t I fill heaven and earth?” says the LORD.

Amid a rebuke of false prophets who speak their own imaginations rather than God's word, God asks a series of piercing questions about himself: Am I a God near at hand, and not a God far off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth? The false prophets had been acting as though God were distant, unaware, easily deceived. God insists otherwise: he fills heaven and earth; nothing and no one is hidden from him.

Notice the truth God presses: there is nowhere he is not, and nothing hidden from him. The false prophets, and the people who followed them, lived as though God were far off, not really watching, as though their secret deceptions and hidden sins escaped his notice. God cuts through it: I fill heaven and earth; no one can hide from me. His presence is inescapable; his sight reaches into every secret place. There is no corner of creation, and no corner of a human heart, that is not fully open to him.

That truth is both a warning and a comfort. It is a warning against the illusion that anything we do is truly hidden from God, that our secret sins or private compromises escape his notice; they do not. He fills heaven and earth. But it is also a comfort: there is no place, however dark or distant, where God is not present with his own; you cannot wander beyond his reach or find yourself somewhere he is not. Let his inescapable presence keep you honest, and let it also assure you: wherever you are, however far you feel, the God who fills heaven and earth is there.

Lord, you ask, do I not fill heaven and earth? Can anyone hide from me? Nothing is hidden from you, and there is nowhere you are not. Let that truth keep me honest, dispelling the illusion that my secret sins or private compromises escape your notice; they do not. And let it also comfort me: there is no place, however dark or distant, where you are not present with me. I cannot wander beyond your reach. Keep me honest, and assure me of your presence, wherever I am.