11 In that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, “A scorching wind from the bare heights in the wilderness in the direction of the daughter of My people—not to winnow and not to cleanse, 12 a wind too strong for [d]this—will come [e]at My command; now I will also pronounce judgments against them.
13 “Behold, he goes up like clouds,
And his chariots like the whirlwind;
His horses are swifter than eagles.
Woe to us, for we are ruined!”14 Wash your heart from evil, O Jerusalem,
That you may be saved.
How long will your wicked thoughts
Lodge within you?
15 For a voice declares from Dan,
And proclaims wickedness from Mount Ephraim.
16 “Report it to the nations, now!
Proclaim over Jerusalem,
‘Besiegers come from a far country,
And lift their voices against the cities of Judah.
17 ‘Like watchmen of a field they are against her round about,
Because she has rebelled against Me,’ declares the Lord.
18 “Your ways and your deeds
Have [f]brought these things to you.
This is your evil. How bitter!
How it has touched your heart!”
This passage is all about the pronouncement of judgment, how God’s discipline is no longer just to winnow and cleanse. That is, it was just course correction anymore. This was about to be right in their face, running into a brick wall sort of stuff. This was their evil (v. 18), and of their own making, and “bitter” was probably the mildest term one could apply to the coming storm.
Yet still in the middle of this, there is a call to repentance in v. 14, “Wash your heart from evil… that you may be saved.” Which raises an interesting question–how could anyone be saved in the years and centuries before Jesus came? Well, God gave them the law, all the instructions for living righteously, and sacrifices and rituals to cleanse themselves when they inevitably failed to live up to that standard.
On face value, it seems so superficial, yet we’ve seen something different in the preceding verses and chapters. We see it in the way that God called David a man after God’s own heart. David was far from perfect, but his heart was God’s. When God call him out for his sin, the immediate response was repentance–the same response God asked of Jerusalem now.
All of Judah was about to be judged and taken away into captivity, but their hearts were not beyond hope. In fact, I would dare say it was for their own sake that God judged them so harshly. They would not repent while life continued as usual, they needed something drastic to shake them up. Thus even now, in the face of impending doom, God called them to wash their hearts and put away evil.
Would they listen? Are we? Our sins are no less damaging to our hearts, severing permanently a connection with our Creator. Only Jesus can reconnect us with the Father, and all our “righteousness” are filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). All the ritual and the ceremony, all the religious living in the world cannot fix our broken hearts.
Yet if we repent, and come back to God, as He asked of Jerusalem so many centuries ago, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) They couldn’t do any more than to turn from their wickedness, but that was enough, and God would take care of the cleansing.
This isn’t just a call to unbelievers, but to all of us, to put aside our selfish desires, to stop chasing our own plan, to hit reset. Look once more to God, for He alone has our best interests in mind. He created each of us with a plan, as impossible as that might seem, but it’s true. God loves us with an unfailing love, so much that He would move armies and wage war on our behalf.
He single-handedly stormed the very gates of hell and death, and won back our freedom. Captivity for eternity was all but assured, and God flipped the script two thousand years ago, righting the wrongs and vanquishing the power of sin. He now asks the same of us, a complete 180 degree turn. Call upon His name, confess your rebellious heart to God, and watch Him do a miracle in your life.