Betrayed.
Jeremiah was used to being unpopular. His message of impending divine judgement was not well received in the towns of Judah or the streets of Jerusalem. He was not prepared to compromise in order to win over some friends or to make the message God had given him more palatable. It was not easy to tell his own people that they were about to be swallowed up by the Babylonians, the tiny land of Judah would suffer complete devastation and his own people would be taken into exile in a foreign land.
It still came as a shock to him to discover that there was a plot to kill him. God provided him with some uncomfortable news that it was some men from his own village who were conspiring to bump him off.
I did not know it was against me they devised schemes, saying, "Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more." [Jeremiah 11: 19 ESV]
Notice that Jeremiah is taken by surprise by the attitude of his neighbours. He did not expect that they would be plotting his downfall. (I did not know that it was against me that they devised schemes. When they spoke about destroying the tree with its fruit, Jeremiah is the tree. The imagery of the tree being cut down to prevent it from bearing fruit is very powerful. There is some debate about the meaning of the word translated "fruit" in the ESV. The original Hebrew word literally means "bread" and this does not seem to fit into the context of a tree. Some translators have suggested an alternative reading "in its sap" or "in its prime" which seems to fit in better with the metaphor. If this rendering is accepted, they were cutting off Jeremiah in his youth - before he had gained maturity. If, on the other hand, we accept the rendering of "fruit" - and some have suggested that the Hebrew word meaning "bread" is also used for any fruit - not just the product of wheat or grain. Some commentators have suggested that his enemies wanted to kill him to prevent him from having any family - but Jeremiah never married or had any children. I tend to agree with the translator's footnote in the NET Bible that the "fruit" in this verse refers to the prophecies which he made. They were wanting to silence him. It was his message which they disliked. This is what the conspirators were saying: "Do not prophesy in the name of the LORD, or you will die by our hand" [Jeremiah 11: 21]. So they wanted to destroy him by whatever means to stop him from making any more of these prophecies of gloom and judgement.
God had another piece of information for His servant Jeremiah which came as an even bigger shock.
"For even your brothers and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; they are in full cry after you; do not believe them, though they speak friendly words to you." Jeremiah 12: 6.
This is a very sad situation - Jeremiah could not trust his own family. They were pretending to be friendly to him but they were not on his side. They had betrayed him. There are many Christians throughout the world who find themselves in Jeremiah's shoes. Their own family is not on their side. When they decided to follow Jesus, this made them an enemy of their own family. There have been many situations where family members have betrayed the member of the family to the persecutors and many Christians have suffered martyrdom or persecution as a result. For these brave individuals, they chose to follow Jesus at the expense of family loyalty. I have a friend who might well be reading this blog and he was not referring to a situation like the one I have just described in a Muslim or Hindu country. He was speaking about Scotland and the way he had been treated badly by his own family. He said to me that the only family he had ever had was the church. As someone who enjoys a strong family support network, I can hardly begin to appreciate how challenging this must be. In our churches, there may be dear believers who have little or no support from their family. This might be linked with their decision to become a Christian or it may be symptomatic of our sinful, broken world of the 21st century. God was with Jeremiah throughout his troubled life and he arranged for people to support him at critical times. I might be able to provide more detailed examples in a future blog.
Let's stop for a minute. Does this sound familiar to readers of the Gospels? This is reminiscent of the experience of the Lord when He visited His home town of Nazareth. When he, in effect, declared that he was the Messiah they were indignant in their rejection of Him. How could someone with such a common upbringing be the promised Messiah? "All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way." Luke 4:28-30 (NIV) In John's Gospel we find an insight that is absent from the other gospels. John says that Jesus brothers were critical of him because he was not promoting himself the way they wanted.
"For even his own brothers did not believe in him." [John 7:5 NIV]
Here is another passage from Matthew's Gospel where Jesus distances himself from his own family members. This is not because Jesus did not respect his mother or care for her. Jesus was very aware of the specific commandment which stated "Honour your father and mother." While he was hanging on the cross, Jesus made arrangements for his mother's welfare. [See Day Share entitled Adopted Mother 20/07/2021].
While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” [Matthew 12:46-50 NIV]
Jeremiah found himself in the position where he had to choose to obey God rather than be influenced by his own family who would have forced him to be dishonouring to God. From my reading of the Gospels, our Lord Jesus did exactly this. He would not allow his family members to deflect him from being about his Father's business - and this was not working in the carpenter's workshop. For Jesus his obedience to the will of His Father's would result in being executed as a criminal on a Roman cross. Again, I quote the words from the old hymn - "It is the way the Master went; should not the servant tread it still."
Picture of pear tree from Wix Media
Comments