Jeremiah 5:1-14
Applied Freedom

Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note! Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth--so that I may pardon Jerusalem. Although they say, "As the LORD lives," yet they swear falsely. O LORD, do your eyes not look for truth? You have struck them, but they felt no anguish; you have consumed them, but they refused to take correction. They have made their faces harder than rock; they have refused to turn back. Then I said, "These are only the poor, they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the LORD, the law of their God. Let me go to the rich and speak to them; surely they know the way of the LORD, the law of their God." But they all alike had broken the yoke, they had burst the bonds. Therefore a lion from the forest shall kill them, a wolf from the desert shall destroy them. A leopard is watching against their cities; everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces--because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are great. How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me, and have sworn by those who are no gods. When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of prostitutes. They were well-fed lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor's wife. Shall I not punish them for these things? says the LORD; and shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this?

Go up through her vine-rows and destroy, but do not make a full end; strip away her branches, for they are not the Lord's. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly faithless to me, says the LORD. They have spoken falsely of the LORD, and have said, "He will do nothing. No evil will come upon us, and we shall not see sword or famine." The prophets are nothing but wind, for the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them! Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of hosts: Because they have spoken this word, I am now making my words in your mouth a fire, and this people wood, and the fire shall devour them.

New Revised Standard Version

We sometimes oversimplify God's relationship with the Hebrew people in the Old Testament by only considering how God interacted with the Hebrew nations. It is easy to make that assumption, for the prophesies and teachings are largely directed to the two nations: the Northern Kingdom or Israel, and the Southern Kingdom or Judah. The call for repentance went to the nation, or the punishment would go to the nation. The priests and rulers guiding the nations were condemned for leading them astray, and it was God's desire that both nations would turn back to God.

But when we read more carefully, we recognize it was people who had hardened their hearts against God, for a nation doesn't have a heart. It was people who spoke false oaths in God's name, for a nation cannot speak. It was people who chose lustful sins, for a nation cannot commit adultery. It was not the nation that chose to worship false gods, it was the individuals living in those nations.

Just in case the Hebrew people missed that point, God instructed Jeremiah to search through Jerusalem, and if he could find just one person who still held to God's Truth, God would spare the city. Notice the excuse Jeremiah made--maybe the poor people had no chance to be educated in God's ways. That excuse collapses when Jeremiah finds that the rich have forsaken God in just the same way. Jeremiah failed to find even one true follower of God.

We understand the concept a little better in light of the New Testament, that Jesus came to save every individual, that we are individually called to follow God, and that we will be held accountable individually before God for our faithfulness. But God's message didn't change with the birth of Jesus; God's call has always been for an individual, personal walk in truth with God.

I write this message as the Independence Day weekend is beginning in the United States. I am proud to be an American, and I treasure the core values of my country: freedom to express myself, freedom to worship as I feel led, freedom to influence my government, freedom to make a living, freedoms because the founders of this country believed we "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

But as much as I love my country, I know from scripture passages like this one that God is not interested in what my country "believes," but in what each of us individually believes. As proud as I am to pledge allegiance to "one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all," I know that my first allegiance is to God. My homeland and my government cannot save a single soul, but my Redeemer gave His life to offer salvation to every soul. My calling and your calling is to bear witness to God's Love in everything we do and say, and we should praise God for countries that make it easy for us to live that way.

Those of us in the United States celebrate freedom this weekend. Those of us who are Christians should resolve to use those freedoms to touch other individuals for God.