No Safety from Sinners

God's Creative Word
God Calls For Justice:  Justice Defined
Living as God's Just People

Jeremiah 7:8-15

The Message

 ^8-11"'Get smart! Your leaders are handing you a pack of lies, and you're swallowing them! Use your heads! Do you think you can rob and murder, have sex with the neighborhood wives, tell lies nonstop, worship the local gods, and buy every novel religious commodity on the market—and then march into this Temple, set apart for my worship, and say, "We're safe!" thinking that the place itself gives you a license to go on with all this outrageous sacrilege? A cave full of criminals! Do you think you can turn this Temple, set apart for my worship, into something like that? Well, think again. I've got eyes in my head. I can see what's going on.'" God's Decree!
 ¹²"'Take a trip down to the place that was once in Shiloh, where I met my people in the early days. Take a look at those ruins, what I did to it because of the evil ways of my people Israel.
 ^13-15"'So now, because of the way you have lived and failed to listen, even though time and again I took you aside and talked seriously with you, and because you refused to change when I called you to repent, I'm going to do to this Temple, set aside for my worship, this place you think is going to keep you safe no matter what, this place I gave as a gift to your ancestors and you, the same as I did to Shiloh. And as for you, I'm going to get rid of you, the same as I got rid of those old relatives of yours around Shiloh, your fellow Israelites in that former kingdom to the north.'

For Reflection

All of us who turn to unjust solutions to our national problems are guilty of neglecting the God-centered response to stressful times.   Therefore, all who have contributed actively or passively by not speaking out have contributed to our national guilt.  Since few appear as God-centered intercessors, all must share in the unjust consequences.  God-centered judgments are needed to refine appropriate justice.  In this season of political choice, ask yourself, "to what extent are the proposals for action (as hypothetical as they may be) contribute to God-centered just ends?"

 Pray

for our world leaders.  Pray that they turn to justice as a guiding principle. Pray for all those who suffer injustices, that they may be comforted and emboldened to work for justice.