Jeremiah 8:12-15 - We hoped for peace but no good has come

8:12,13

“Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct?” This is all too true of our society, most obviously in the area of sexual immorality. Sexual immorality is now considered something to boast about, even something to be taught to primary school children. We are in a real mess. The end  result of this will be disaster. So here God says He will take away their harvests. The judgement of God is personal, it is not something that just happens, God actively wills it. “What I have given them will be taken away from them”. All the good things we have come from God, this means He can also take them away.

8:14,15

Jeremiah is not a dispassionate prophet, just reciting a message from his master. He is deeply involved in the situation and in the message. He feels it! There are often debates between those who think our preaching and teaching today is too touchy-feely and those who think that more exegetical preaching is too remote, not reaching to the real lives of people. As with many things, we find that the Bible is far more balanced than we are. There is always forensic truth, as we see in stark terms in Jeremiah, but there is also a matter of making this personal, and “feeling the message”. Jeremiah is kind of dramatising the coming judgement, portraying the feelings it will engender, the horror it will bring.