God was grieved. Deeply. His people had turned from him and served other gods. They were the adulterous wife.
The LORD tells Jeremiah to go down to the potter and watch his work. It will be a symbol of what he is going to do in Jerusalem and Judah.
As Jeremiah goes to house of the potter, the potter spins the clay on his wheel to make a pot. But then the potter sees a defect in the pot and then squashes it to start over again.
The LORD says that is what he is going to do with Jerusalem and Judah. He sees that their hearts are stubborn with sin so he is going to break them down to one day rebuild them again. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
“if the nation I have made an announcement about turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the disaster I had planned to do to it” (Jer 18:8).
Notice this promise isn’t just to the nation of Israel. But really to any nation.
Jeremiah again goes out to warn the people. He is grieved in agony about what he knows is coming. He is fighting people who don’t want to hear and prophets who keep saying ‘bad things won’t happen here as we are the people of God. We have the temple.’
Jeremiah announces to them God’s harm is about to come their way. God has done everything with multiple prophets to warn them but they would not listen. The people say this:
“‘It’s hopeless. We will continue to follow our plans and each of us will continue to act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart’” (Jer 18:12).
It’s true and right that if you don’t have hope for change, the fruit is passivity. You will do nothing to change. It seems like the people were indifferent to their sin saying that it had gone to far.
But I get it. When I look at the state of affairs around me, I wonder if it’s possible for repentance? Will the people turn? Of course I pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, but at times it seems hopeless. Hearts are too hard. Discussing things with people doesn’t seem to get anywhere. Am I too falling into the same trap of being tempted by hopelessness?
The LORD responded that they have done such great and terrible evil. He will soon show them his back and not his face.
The final part of this chapter is Jeremiah coming to a knowledge that they plan to kill him. They don’t like his message of truth. Kill him and they don’t have to hear it anymore.
Few of us know what it like to be hunted.
Jeremiah calls out for God’s judgment and justice upon them. It’s not pretty as he minces no words in his prayer. He calls upon God to deal with them in the time of His anger,
“for they have dug a pit to capture me and have hidden snares for my feet” (v. 22).
Jeremiah preached the truth in a time and season where truth was not acceptable but rather the justification of evil. In such times, if people can’t stop the truth with intimidation and bullying, they will try to stop it by silencing the truth teller or even putting them to death.
It was scary times.
It is scary times.
What matters is faithfulness.
