For a full description of the (Y3) reading plan, see the “About” page.
- What attributes of God’s character does this passage reveal?
- How does the passage point to Jesus?
- How should the truth of this passage change me?
- How do the events of today’s reading help you better understand the grand narrative of Scripture?
Jer. 49
One verse in this chapter stood out to me this morning. “For this is what the LORD says: ‘If those who do not deserve to drink the cup must drink it, can you possibly remain unpunished?” (Jer. 49:12a). I can’t say I specifically know what that means, though I get the general idea. Thinking it through, I believe that God poured out His wrath on all the nations to show Himself God of all. Who, though, are the ones who don’t deserve His wrath? We know that we are all unrighteous. Thus, the only way someone doesn’t deserve to drink from the cup of God’s wrath is because they already know Him to be Sovereign God and they put their trust in Him. Yet how do you burn down the fortresses of the strong without affecting the weak? You can’t. But you can protect the weak through the fire.
The reason this verse stood out to me is because it made me think of those age old questions, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” and, “Why do the wicked thrive?”. I guess the answer this verse leads me to is that God shows Himself righteous to all. His righteousness exposes our unrighteousness. This is true even for those who trust in Him. In fact, it’s a big part of why we trust in Him. So we all drink the cup. We suffer, we struggle, we watch our human strongholds burn to the ground. However, if we cling to God as our ultimate stronghold, we know He will protect us through it all. And we can be just as sure that the strongholds of the wicked will also burn. Whether they choose to trust Him or not, they will know that God is God.
Jer. 50
Reading this chapter this morning sparked a somewhat unrelated thought. I heard a complaint against God a while back where someone questioned why God killed even the innocent animals in various conquests and judgments. For some reason, when I read, “Put all her young bulls to the sword” (Jer. 50:27a), this morning, I thought about atonement. I just mentioned how God removes all the strongholds of men. So I’m thinking the animals represent one of those strongholds. The Israelites used animals for atonement and to restore fellowship with God. Even the pagan cultures, though, sacrificed animals to appease their various no-gods. So by wiping out even the ‘innocent’ animals, God shows us that there truly is no salvation outside of Him.
The good news, though, comes when God destroys Babylon, that is, He conquers our human nature. When we flee from it and return to Him He will say of us what He said of His people when they fled from Babylon. “…one will search for Israel’s iniquity, but there will be none, and for Judah’s sins, but they will not be found, for I will forgive those I leave as a remnant.” (Jer. 50:20).