Volume 4 Issue 2
A MISPLACED FAITH
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o not trust in deceptive words, saying, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’” (Jeremiah 7:4). Why would these words be considered deceptive words? To be deceptive is to cause one to believe in something that is not true or to mislead with evil intent. How could believing in the temple of the Lord be evil? In order to answer those questions it is necessary to understand the historical background in which they were spoken.
These words are part of what is known as the “temple sermon.” Jeremiah had been commanded by the Lord to stand in the gate of the temple and speak to those who entered there to worship the Lord. The evidence suggests this sermon was given in late 609 B.C. or early 608 B.C., shortly after Jehoiakim became king in Judah.[1] Prior to Jehoiakim becoming king, his father, Josiah, was king. Josiah was a remarkably good man who became king in 640 B.C. while a youngster of eight years of age. Within eight years he began a religious reformation that was unparalleled in Judah’s history. “For in the eighth year of his reign while he was still a youth, he began to seek the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, the carved images and the molten images” (2 Chronicles 34:3). Josiah zealously set about to destroy every idol, every altar, and every place paganism had been practiced. His reforms even extended beyond the boundaries of Judah toward the northern segment of the Divided Monarchy into what had once been Israel (Judah being the southern segment). Because of Israel’s blatant idolatry God allowed Assyria to conquer her and in 722 B.C. much of the population was deported to other parts of the world. However, by Josiah’s time Assyria’s superpower status had come to an end. “Just north of Jerusalem lay the territory of the old northern state, for a century an Assyrian province but now, to all intents and purposes, a political vacuum.”[2] Babylon would fill that vacuum in a few short years, but for now Judah was experiencing a rare time of political freedom and it would seem that Josiah’s ambition was to take advantage of Judah’s new found freedom and reunite the northern and southern kingdoms into one as they had been under David and Solomon, an ambition likely shared by some of his subjects. “There were many, no doubt, who reasoned that perhaps God had destroyed the Assyrian colossus and allowed this moment of freedom that there might be one last chance to repent.”[3]
Repentance was what Josiah’s reforms were intended to bring about, and there was much to repent of. King Manasseh, Josiah’s grandfather, submerged Judah into evil that was unparalleled in Jewish history. Manasseh reigned longer than any other king, fifty-five years. In those years he erected altars to false gods and goddesses, he worshiped the planets and stars, erecting altars to them in the Lord’s temple, he practiced witchcraft, divination, and sorcery, and even sacrificed his sons to demons by burning them alive in a valley just outside Jerusalem’s walls called, Ben-hinnom. (This valley of hinnom was the waste dump for Jerusalem and fire burned there perpetually. Hinnom is translated into Greek as Gehenna, which is the word translated into English in the New Testament as hell. Thus, the valley of Ben-hinnom has a very negative connotation attached to it.) Judah had fallen deeply into apostasy. It would take a man of Josiah’s character and perseverance to stop the decline and set her back on a road of recovery. This Josiah did and as long as he lived the Jews turned from the idols and pagan practices they had indulged in for so many years. Unfortunately, Josiah met an untimely death in a battle at Megiddo at the hands of Pharaoh Neco. Shortly thereafter Judah once again began to decline into apostasy, embracing the idolatry Manasseh had so pervasively spread throughout his kingdom. Josiah’s reforms were soon forgotten because Judah’s repentance was from the top down rather than from the ground up. Such repentance is shallow. Josiah could change laws, but he could not change hearts. “It is clear that the reform produced no profound change in the national character, but rather tended, as reforms usually do, to stop short with external measures. One gains the impression, indeed, that its chief result was a heightening of religious activity and, withal, a blind complacency regarding the nation’s future that was dangerous in the extreme.”[4] Why was it dangerous? Because religious activity that is the result of complying only to external laws blinds one to truth. “It has been the fatal mistake of men in all ages of the world to suppose that outward services will stand instead of inward holiness and righteousness of heart and life.”[5]
The Jews had deceived themselves into believing they would never suffer the same fate of national extinction as had Israel. They reasoned that as long as the temple of the Lord was in their midst in Jerusalem they were protected from destruction. “The very presence of the temple, where the Divine King sat enthroned, was felt to assure the nation’s protection.”[6] The temple had become a sort of talisman, a lucky charm that guaranteed God would annihilate every enemy that might attempt to conquer them. They were wrong. They grossly misunderstood God and what it meant to live in a covenant relationship with Him. “For the heart of God’s demand is not busy religion, but obedience. Only an obedient people can remain in covenant with God; only over an obedient people will he rule.”[7] The deception was successful because the Jews considered themselves as obedient people. They still regularly worshipped the Lord; they still offered sacrifices to Him; they still read the Law. Their disobedience was not centered on their rejection of the Lord, but their inclusion of worship to false gods and their acceptance of immorality and injustice with their fellowman.
“Behold, you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail. ‘Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, “We are delivered!”--that you may do all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,’ declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 7:8-11 emphasis mine). After the death of Josiah the Jews remained very religious, but it was a religion practiced for self-preservation, not for love of God. They wanted to live lives of prosperity regardless of its price to others and indulgence into all sorts of evil, while receiving the Lord’s blessings. It was this mindset that Jeremiah encountered as he uttered the words, “Do not trust in deceptive words, saying, ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord’” (Jeremiah 7:4). The Jews had solidly placed their faith in a building and the letter of the Law rather than the spirit of the Law.
To counter this misplaced faith the Lord reminded His people of an event in their own history. “But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. And now, because you have done all these things,” declares the Lord, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you but you did not answer, therefore, I will do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave you and your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brothers, all the offspring of Ephraim” (Jeremiah 7:12-15). Shiloh was the place where the Ark of the Covenant first resided after the Jews had conquered the pagan inhabitants of Canaan and the Israelite tribes had received their allotted portions of the land as promised by God. Shiloh was the place where God had chosen for His Name to dwell among the tribes of Israel. The Ark symbolized the very presence of God among the Israelites. It was most holy and its mere presence inspired fear and awe. Yet, this fear and awe degenerated into a superstitious belief that God would protect the Ark and His people from being conquered by pagan countries. They had developed a misplaced faith. Therefore, God allowed the Philistines to conquer the Jews and take the Ark captive, setting it up in the house of their god, Dagon. It was a national disaster personified by the birth of a child. A son was born to one of the corrupt priests who ministered at Shiloh and who was responsible for the Ark being captured by the Philistines. He died in the battle and his wife died in childbirth as the boy was born. As she died, she “called the boy Ichabod, saying, ‘The glory has departed from Israel’” (1 Samuel 4:21). Ichabod means, “The glory has departed”. Indeed, it had. The wickedness of the people, and particularly, the wickedness of the priesthood had obligated the Lord to remove Himself from their presence until their faith would once again be in Him and not a thing or a place. Jeremiah beseeched the Jews who were trusting in the presence of the temple to save them from their enemies to remember the lesson of Shiloh. “The sanctuary at Shiloh proved the falsity of the claim that the Lord was unalterably committed to an earthly temple and its preservation regardless of the moral state of the people.”[8] Unfortunately, they did not learn the lesson. Instead, they were furious with Jeremiah. “The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. When Jeremiah finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, ‘You must die! Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord saying, “This house will be like Shiloh and this city will be desolate, without inhabitant”?’ And all the people gathered about Jeremiah in the house of the Lord. When the officials of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king's house to the house of the Lord and sat in the entrance of the New Gate of the Lord’s house. Then the priests and the prophets spoke to the officials and to all the people, saying, ‘A death sentence for this man! For he has prophesied against this city as you have heard in your hearing’” (Jeremiah 26:7-11). Speaking the truth nearly cost Jeremiah his life. He was spared the death penalty, but he was banned from the temple, in essence he was excommunicated (Jeremiah 36:4-5). Nevertheless, within 25 years of his temple sermon, in 586 B.C., Judah, Jerusalem, and the temple would be destroyed at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar as Babylon, the new world superpower, arose to fill the political vacuum created after the demise of the Assyrian empire. The Jews misplaced faith would result in 70 years of exile away from the home they thought would never be taken from them.
It is easy to sit in judgment upon the Jews. Their history is replete with one miracle after another as evidence of God’s protecting hand upon them. The book of Judges reveals God’s mercy and grace toward Israel as He rescued them time and time again from hostile nations that sought to enslave or annihilate them, even as they brazenly turned their backs on Him, committing idolatry and embracing shameful religious rites. They were His chosen people and greatly loved; they were “the apple of His eye” (Zechariah 2:8). God had given them every advantage, but instead of worshipping Him in humility their hearts grew arrogant. They attempted to manipulate Him, to bend Him to their will. They offered their sacrifices of bulls and goats, thinking He would overlook their sin. They had deceived themselves into believing they were pleasing to God. They were living a lie and the book of Malachi is God’s response to them. They saw themselves as fulfilling their obligations to God; God saw them as selfish and ungrateful, as adulterers, as blasphemers, and as robbers. Yes, it is easy to sit in judgment upon Israel – until that same searching eye is focused upon America.
Surveys confirm that the majority of Americans will say they are Christian. That opinion is supported by the facts that America has over 300,000 churches, Bibles continue to outsell all other books combined with new versions (some good, some not so good) being introduced regularly, church attendance, though not as high as in past decades, continues to be strong, attempts to declare the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because it contains the words “one nation under God” have met vehement opposition across the religious and political spectrum, and U.S. currency boldly states, “In God We Trust”. If one who knew nothing of America other than reading statistics about the number of church buildings that exist, the number of Bibles sold, the number of Americans who go to church on Sunday, or reading the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or the writings of the Founding Fathers, he would be hard pressed not to think America was, indeed, solidly Christian. What he would discover, however, if he were to visit America, is that the Christianity practiced by some (most?) of those who say they are Christian makes a mockery of Jesus’ teachings.
Listen again to the charges God levels at the Israelites as they foolishly put their faith in the temple. “Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot benefit [so that you do not profit]. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and [then dare to] come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My Name, and say, [By the discharge of this religious formality] we are set free!--only to go on with this wickedness and these abominations? Has this house, which is called by My Name, become a den of robbers in your eyes [a place of retreat for you between acts of violence]? Behold, I Myself have seen it, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 7:8-11 AMP). The Amplified Bible is helpful in bringing out the seriousness of God’s charges as is seen from the bracketed words. Israel was guilty as charged and she suffered national defeat at the hands of the Babylonian empire for her refusal to turn to God from dead works. Similarly, America is also guilty of these charges. Theft is now practiced from minor shoplifting to corporate CEOs embezzling billions of dollars; the continuing decline in the understanding of the sanctity of human life as life created in God’s image has made murder commonplace, reaching every segment of society, the most damning being the slaughter of over 40 million babies since 1973 by abortion under the guise of a woman’s right to privacy; adultery has become pandemic as society continues to throw off all restraints of sexual purity; lying and cheating are expected and accepted as a way of achieving personal goals; wealth, prosperity, and ease of life are protected by electing officials that are corrupt, immoral, and spurn Christian values. Former President Clinton, elected twice with the help of those who call themselves born-again Christians, was frequently seen on TV going to church with a Bible in his hand; yet, twice voted against a ban on partial-birth abortion and advanced homosexual rights to unprecedented levels. Why? Why would people who claim to know and love Jesus, who claim to be Christians, vote for a blasphemer? Because the economy was good; they had jobs and money in their pockets; wealth and prosperity abounded. If you have ever said you would never receive the Mark of the Beast, then clearly understand these words: the Mark of the Beast is three 6’s (six being the number of man, sin, and Satan) because man is spirit, soul, and body. The first 6 marks the spirit and corrupts the worship of God and the understanding of God; the second 6 marks the soul and corrupts the will, the emotions, and the intellect until man becomes nothing more than an animal, an irrational beast; the third 6 marks the body as sin finds new ways to express itself and hide under the guise of religion.
America thinks she will never be destroyed. She has too many missionaries throughout the world spreading the Gospel, she gives too much money to the less fortunate, she says too many prayers, she has too many Christian bookstores, too many go to church, and she has too many church buildings for God to destroy her. She believes the symbols of Christianity so prominently displayed from sea to shining sea obligate the Lord to protect her, regardless of her moral state of being. She is wrong. She is crying out, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.”
Jeremiah cried out to the Israelites not to place their faith in an outward symbol of God’s presence and was excommunicated for it. 911 proved a misplaced faith is deadly, but will America learn her lesson or will she turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the lies being taught in some churches? Where are the “Jeremiahs” today that have the courage to speak the truth and expose the hypocrisy of the organizations and individuals that claim Jesus as Lord, but are a “synagogue of Satan” (Revelation 3:9) before it is too late?
