God's Anger and His Love

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Opening Prayer

Almighty God, life has a way of depowering me, depleting my patience, draining my hope. I look to Your strength to renew me.

Read JEREMIAH 31:27-40

^[27] “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will plant the kingdoms of Israel and Judah with the offspring of people and of animals. ^[28] Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares the LORD. ^[29] “In those days people will no longer say, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ ^[30] Instead, everyone will die for their own sin; whoever eats sour grapes-their own teeth will be set on edge. ^[31] “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. ^[32] It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. ^[33] “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ^[34] No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” ^[35] This is what the LORD says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar- the LORD Almighty is his name: ^[36] “Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,” declares the LORD, “will Israel ever cease being a nation before me.” ^[37] This is what the LORD says: “Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done,” declares the LORD. ^[38] “The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when this city will be rebuilt for me from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. ^[39] The measuring line will stretch from there straight to the hill of Gareb and then turn to Goah. ^[40] The whole valley where dead bodies and ashes are thrown, and all the terraces out to the Kidron Valley on the east as far as the corner of the Horse Gate, will be holy to the LORD. The city will never again be uprooted or demolished.”

Meditate

God’s promises are unchanging and his love is everlasting.

Think Further

Sitting in church as a child, listening every Sunday to the Ten Commandments read in full, I thought God was unfair. My parents taught me that God was a God of love, so why would he “visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation” (Book of Common Prayer, Exod. 20:5). The thought of the children’s teeth being set on edge (29), that is, children bearing the consequences of their parents’ disobedience, must have been hugely discouraging to people trying to live good and godly lives. Not only must they expiate their own sins but they would also have considered themselves on an endless treadmill where they still must suffer for the sins of earlier generations.

Jeremiah teaches us that God is not actually like that. Unlike Janus, the two-faced Roman god who perpetually looked in two directions at once, our God’s anger and love are not equal. Yes, God is angry when his people break the covenant and turn from him, but his lovingkindness is always greater than his wrath. Time and again he forgives us. Time and again he offers us the opportunity to choose him again. This he has done finally and irrevocably in Jesus, in whose blood the new covenant was written.

In verse 31, we encounter the only specific Old Testament reference to the new covenant–although the prophets often proclaim that God will do something new (Isa. 42:9; Ezek. 36:26). This covenant will not be on mere tablets of stone but will be engraved upon our hearts. God and his promises will continue as long as the cosmos exists (35,36). Jeremiah did not speak to the Star Wars generation and their imagined universes. To his contemporaries, God’s created universe and its rhythms spoke of absolute and unshakeable permanence. God is eternal and so are his promises.

Apply

Make a list of God’s promises mentioned in this passage. Which one means the most to you and why?

Closing prayer

Dear God, You are my God; Your love is everlasting. Thank You for forgiving my past and renewing my relationship with You.

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