7 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, 2 “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house and proclaim there this word and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah, who enter by these gates to worship the Lord!’” 3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. 4 Do not trust in deceptive words, saying, ‘[a]This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ 5 For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a man and his neighbor, 6 if you do not oppress the alien, the [b]orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor walk after other gods to your own ruin, 7 then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.
8 “Behold, you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail. 9 Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and [c]offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known, 10 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? 11 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.
After all this talk about the wickedness of Israel, and the judgment God was about to pour out, this seems a strange shift. God tells Jeremiah to go stand in the gate of the Lord’s house. Even more than that, God tells him to go speak to all the people who come in to worship. Hold on, what!? If these were wicked people, what are they doing going to the temple of God and worshipping?
Well, we find out pretty quickly that their worship was pretty shallow. Instead, these very same people who came to offer sacrifices, were not practicing justice, they were oppressing foreigners, orphans, widows, and shedding innocent blood… in the temple courts. Truthfully, they weren’t worshipping God at all.
We see this emphasized even more in the final verses, as they were offering sacrifices to appease God and then going right back out and committing more sins. Not the, “Oh man, I can’t believe I just did that. I’m so sorry God!” Rather, this was, “Sweet, got that sacrifice thing taken care of for another year, now let’s see if I can still afford a good prostitute over at the house of Baal…”
That was possibly the mildest affront, as pagan worship rituals included plenty of other reviling acts. But I want to focus in on this last verse, “Has this house, which is called by My (the Lord’s) name, become a den of robbers in your sight?” Sound familiar? How about when Jesus brought a whip to cleanse the temple courts (Matthew 21:12)?
These people weren’t just going through the motions, they were using the worship of God to extort and swindle their neighbors. None of this was new in Jesus day, and it isn’t filth of a bygone era either. Now, whether we engage in such heinous acts or our sins are much “milder”, the real issue comes back to the heart.
See Jeremiah wasn’t just talking to the religious folks who oppressed those worshipping, God told him to preach to the people who were coming to “worship”. They too were simply doing their duty, going through the motions, so they could get back to living their own way.
When we sin, what is our response? Do we toss up a flippant “Sorry God, I’ll try to do better…” and then go right back to the feeding trough of self? Or does it break our hearts, that we’ve violated the commitment we’ve made to our Creator. That we’ve once again forgotten the price Jesus paid for that very sin.
We need to take our sin seriously, not just put on a good show. And we certainly shouldn’t try to brush it away by comparing our “little sins” to someone else who has done far worse. None of that fixes the heart. Jesus told a story about a religious leader and a tax collector who both came to pray. The Pharisee proudly prayed, “God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”
Instead of false righteousness, we should take a lesson from the tax collector who “was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be [f]merciful to me, the sinner!'” Take a minute this morning, ask God for His mercy, and thank Him for that which is poured out freely on our undeserving hearts. And if you do something great for God, keep pride far from you, since it is not you and I who do such great things, but Christ who lives in us.