Jeremiah 5:26-31 - But what will you do in the end?

5:26-29

We can sometimes get the impression that the sin of Israel was “just idol worship”, but this is far from all that happened. It was far from just a matter of “going to a different temple”. People lay in wait to take advantage of others. When morality breaks down people get hurt. Some become rich and powerful through their evil and they devise more and more ways of carrying out evil deeds. Some become rich on the proceeds of crime. Judges become corrupt and do not defend the rights of the poor. “Should I not avenge myself on such a nation for this?” The answer is, of course, yes.

5:30,31

These two verse sum up the situation. The prophets prophesy lies, instead of prophesying the truth, of prophesying God’s words. The priests rule by their own authority. We can apply this to religious leaders. A religious leader is there under God’s authority, but when a nation abandons God they start to act under their own authority. They no longer seek to promote God’s ways, but promote man’s ways instead. We see this most clearly at present in the parts of the church that happily go along with the world’s ways on sexual morality. This is a “horrible and shocking thing”. But the worst thing of all is that “my people love it this way”. The common people were quite happy with the situation.

Such a nation is in deep, deep trouble.