Jeremiah 8:10,11 - They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious

8:10

Serious judgement will come upon the people, this applying primarily to the leaders of the nation. “I will give their wives to other men”. To us this seems like a strange thing for God to do, worse than that, an unworthy thing for God to do. So what are we to make of it? Well, first we need to remember that in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, God is seen as being the author of all things, not just the good things. In our way of thinking God has nothing to do with evil things, indeed a good God cannot have anything to do with them. So where does this take us? First, the Jewish way of thinking was not the end of the matter. God being responsible was not the whole story, the perpetrators were also responsible. So we might rephrase this as “I will let other men take your wives ..” However, we need to realise that this does not actually solve the problem that we think we have, for under our system God is letting evil happen. And since God is all powerful and all knowing, this would not make Him any less “guilty”. The Old Testament way of looking at things is actually the better way. It does not absolve others of responsibility. It means that God has a good purpose in what happens. Now, here it is judgement upon the sinful nation, and we are not keen on judgement, but that is our problem, not Gods!

The whole nation was guilty, from the least to the greatest. All were greedy for gain, and the religious leaders practised deceit.

8:11

“They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious”. We do not take sin seriously enough. We do not do so in our own lives, and we do not do so as leaders of churches. We pretend that sin is not as serious as it actually is. The biggest problem anyone has is their sin against God. There can be no peace without a resolution to that problem. And if we do not treat sin seriously enough our sin is even worse, for there is a solution. True peace is available through the cross.