Jeremiah 7:21-24 - But they did not listen

7:21-23

The people thought they would be OK because they offered the sacrifices. God tells them that this is absolute nonsense. He points back to the time when He brought them out of Egypt and to the Law. The people focused on the ritualistic aspects, God draws their attention to the most important parts, the laws they were to obey. The laws had values in themselves: worshipping only God, loving their neighbours, not lying, not exploiting people etc. The ritualistic aspects had no value in themselves, but only in what they represented. Likewise, we should not place a wrong emphasis on communion or baptism. These things are indeed good and valuable in the right way, but if we think they have value in a “magic” type of sense we are badly mistaken. The command God had given them was that it would go well with them if they walked in obedience, as it was they were living in abject disobedience.

7:24

God had called them out, and they were meant to go forwards, not backwards, to learn Godly ways, not heathen ways. They did not listen to the Lord. Instead they followed the “evil inclinations of their stubborn hearts”. Oh, we need to be so careful about this, so careful that we follow God’s word not the imaginations of our hearts.