Daily Lesson for August 7, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Jeremiah chapter 13 verses 1 through 11:

Thus said the Lord to me, “Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth, and put it on your loins, but do not dip it in water.” 2 So I bought a loincloth according to the word of the Lord, and put it on my loins. 3 And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, 4 “Take the loincloth that you bought and are wearing, and go now to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.” 5 So I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me. 6 And after many days the Lord said to me, “Go now to the Euphrates, and take from there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.” 7 Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it. But now the loincloth was ruined; it was good for nothing.

8 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 9 Thus says the Lord: Just so I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10 This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own will and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. 11 For as the loincloth clings to one’s loins, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the Lord, in order that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory. But they would not listen.

This is another of Jeremiah's sermons that could not soon be forgotten.  I am sure it was dismissed as theatrics and Jeremiah was accused of arrogance.  "All he wants to do is call attention to himself," so many said.

But what Jeremiah wanted to do was call attention to the trouble Judah was in. 

The people were precious.  They were called.  They were the apple of God's eye.  But they were not exceptional in the sense that God could not do without them.  For they could sully -- had sullied -- themselves so much that whatever was precious about them could be lost and cast out.

This is a warning to our churches.  It is a warning to our denominations.  It is a warning to our institutions and our country.  None is so special that it can't be ruined.  None is so exceptional that it can't be lost.

The loincloth can be ruined.  And none is so sacred that it can't wind up profaned.

NOTE:  We are reading the Bible through this year.  We are in Jeremiah.  His is a hard, but truthful word.  Over the weekend we'll read chapters 14-25.