February 18, 2015
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

A Completely Useless Belt

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Opening Prayer

Father, on this Ash Wednesday I begin the annual journey of Lent. I thank You for Your mercy, forgiveness, and the gift of eternal life.

Read Jeremiah 13:1-17

[1] This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and buy a linen belt and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water.” [2] So I bought a belt, as the LORD directed, and put it around my waist. [3] Then the word of the LORD came to me a second time: [4] “Take the belt you bought and are wearing around your waist, and go now to Perath and hide it there in a crevice in the rocks.” [5] So I went and hid it at Perath, as the LORD told me. [6] Many days later the LORD said to me, “Go now to Perath and get the belt I told you to hide there.” [7] So I went to Perath and dug up the belt and took it from the place where I had hidden it, but now it was ruined and completely useless. [8] Then the word of the LORD came to me: [9] “This is what the LORD says: ‘In the same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. [10] These wicked people, who refuse to listen to my words, who follow the stubbornness of their hearts and go after other gods to serve and worship them, will be like this belt-completely useless! [11] For as a belt is bound around the waist, so I bound all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah to me,’ declares the LORD, ‘to be my people for my renown and praise and honor. But they have not listened.’ [12] “Say to them: ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Every wineskin should be filled with wine.’ And if they say to you, ‘Don’t we know that every wineskin should be filled with wine?’ [13] then tell them, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am going to fill with drunkenness all who live in this land, including the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets and all those living in Jerusalem. [14] I will smash them one against the other, parents and children alike, declares the LORD. I will allow no pity or mercy or compassion to keep me from destroying them.'” [15] Hear and pay attention, do not be arrogant, for the LORD has spoken. [16] Give glory to the LORD your God before he brings the darkness, before your feet stumble on the darkening hills. You hope for light, but he will turn it to utter darkness and change it to deep gloom. [17] If you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly, overflowing with tears, because the LORD’s flock will be taken captive.

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reflect

“…you were dead in your transgressions and sins,…you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit that is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Eph. 2:1,2). Hard to think of accomplished, cultured, noble people under Satan’s control, but it is true!

God asked Jeremiah to act out a powerful but unusual sermon. He was to buy and wear a linen belt in public. Many would notice how nice the belt was. Then God asked Jeremiah not to wash the belt but to bury it under a rock. Later he was to dig up the belt, which was by now eaten by insects and in an appalling condition. Jeremiah was told to wear the horrible-looking belt in public. The message was clear: Judah was now a ruined and useless nation, though it was once beautiful and glorious. The reason: the nation chose not to be bound to God and the people did not listen (11).

Not realizing their desperate situation, they still expected prosperity (full wineskins, 12), but the wine they were to drink was the wine of God’s wrath. Judah was about to face the darkest hour and no one would be spared (13,14). In secret, Jeremiah wept bitterly for his nation (17). This was not a message he preached gleefully; he told the truth and wept for his disobedient nation (cf. Luke 19:41).

What a dreadful tragedy when people do not realize their true condition, when they are deceived into thinking they are fine when in fact they are wrecks. They think they are noble (well-educated, rich, powerful, clever) but are in fact noble ruins. They dream of prosperity but tragedy awaits them. How should Christians help such people? Should we not weep and tell them the truth? What if the church itself is caught in similar self-deception and false well-being (Luke 18:11,12)? Who will tell the truth that (as John Ruskin said) the greatness is not in us but through us? When we choose to leave God, we lose any greatness that our connection with him may have given us. We become useless.

Apply

How easily do you cry? When do you cry–over heart-rending movies, heart-touching news stories, disappointments? How about the state of the church or the world (17)?

Closing prayer

Father God, I have never cried like Jesus over Jerusalem, or Jeremiah over Judah. I need my heart to be sensitized to what causes You pain.

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