July 17, 2025 - Jeremiah 13-15

Chapter 13 begins a number of the “parables of Jeremiah.”  The ruined loincloth pictured the spoiling of the pride of Judah and Jerusalem.  They had followed their own hearts and went after other gods (13:9,10).  Then follows the parable about the jars filled with wine.  The people will stagger as drunks and will set themselves against each other.  They will go into exile.

The situation is so bad, that even though Jeremiah might be inclined to pray for them, the Lord instructs him:  “Do not pray for the welfare of this people.  Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering  and grain offering, I will not accept them” (14:11,12).  I cannot help but recall Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  And though Moses and Samuel might stand before the Lord and plead, he will not relent (15:1).

Faced with all this bad news, Jeremiah finds himself reeling:  “Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land!” (15:10).  “Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?” (15:18)  The minister of the Lord, though he preaches the hard truth, has the tender heart of a shepherd.  And he knows, and he declares that even the worst of sinners, if they will return to the Lord, he will forgive.

Life is the time to serve the Lord,

The time t’insure the great reward;

And while the lamp holds out to burn

The vilest sinner may return.   –Isaac Watts (1760)