Exclusive • Jeremiah 12:1-13
By Don Schuman
This lesson in Jeremiah contrasts the righteousness, power, and glory of God with the priorities of a faithless nation. The people of Judah thought they had all they needed with their wealth and self-centered ways.
Besides, they must have thought that if God did not approve of their wickedness, why were they so prosperous? God had chosen them exclusively for His purposes, so He would not allow bad things to happen to them? Or so they thought.
Just? (Jeremiah 12:1-4). The exclusive covenant with Israel acknowledges the exclusive righteousness of the Lord. God is holy and right in all that He does. When God appeared to Moses on the mountain, He described Himself first as holy.
He is righteous in His grace to those who believe in Christ, and He is righteous in His wrath toward those who reject Christ.
We can see the righteousness of God firsthand through the sinless life of the Lord Jesus Christ. He did no sin (1 Peter 2:22), He had no sin (1 John 3:5), and He knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). God declares His righteousness through the Son and His justification for all who believe in Christ (Romans 3:25-26).
The Book of Job considers the question of why bad things happen to good people. In these verses of Jeremiah, the prophet questions why good things happen to bad people. The wicked prospered in Judah as if the Lord had planted them there to produce the fruits of their unrighteousness.
Is God righteous to allow the righteous to suffer? Is He righteous to allow the unrighteous to prosper? Yes is the answer to both questions. The righteous suffer but only for a time. The unrighteous prosper but for a time. Then comes the judgment.
This passage reminds us that prosperity is not necessarily an indication of God’s blessings. The ungodly prospered for a time. Nevertheless, Judah would lose her abundance, compounding her sorrow.
Capable? (Jeremiah 12:5-6). Just as the righteousness of God is unquestionably perfect, so are His power and abilities unquestionably perfect. Therefore, our strength and capabilities to do all things righteous are exclusively in Christ (Philippians 4:13).
The Lord reminded Jeremiah that his strength was also in the Lord. Using the analogies of a foot race with men versus horses and stumbling in cleared land versus a thicket, the Lord taught Jeremiah to trust Him because things were about to get far worse.
If Jeremiah’s faith was faltering now, it would certainly falter when disaster came. He needed to grow in faith.
Not only were the people in general hostile to the Lord’s Word through Jeremiah, but even Jeremiah’s brothers were treacherous toward him. Jesus taught that we are to follow Him when others, including family, turn against us. The Lord God taught Jeremiah the same lesson.
Abandoned (Jeremiah 12:7-13). Since Judah had abandoned the exclusive covenant with the Lord, the Lord would abandon the nation to ruin by Judah’s enemies. They had given up exclusive worship of Him and, in His righteousness, He would give them over to catastrophe.
An interesting note for older Sunday School members is that the “speckled bird”in verse nine of the King James Version was the inspiration for the Gospel song, Great Speckled Bird, written by Guy Smith and made famous by Roy Acuff.
Whereas the context in Jeremiah refers to unfaithful Israel, the songwriter takes an opposite approach and adapts the analogy to the faithful Church in a compromising society.
The prosperity of the people would turn to poverty. They would toil but their crops would fail. Jesus had a warning for any person who sought prosperity over a personal relationship with the Lord:
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? (Luke 9:24–25 KJV).
Judah in Jeremiah’s day didn’t comprehend the horrific tragedy of abandonment by the Lord until it was too late. What a lesson for people today to trust the exclusive righteousness of God over society’s ever-changing sense of fairness and freedom.
What a lesson for the Church to trust the exclusive capabilities of God in peaceful times as well as times of persecution. What a lesson for every soul to see that the everlasting riches exclusively in Christ far exceed everything that the world offers.
Schuman is pastor of Temple Church, Myrtle.
