Context for Jeremiah 5-6
The wrath of God was coming upon the people of Judah just as surely as night follows the day, yet no one was interested in listening to Jeremiah’s proclamation of God’s call to repentance.
Sometimes when we read verses like the ones from this part of Jeremiah, we are tempted to distance ourselves from their meaning. Surely, we think, these verses have nothing to do with me, with us, with our modern times.
Ironically, the Word Jeremiah proclaimed to Jerusalem is the very same Word that needs to be preached to our society today, or really any society in any time. Certainly, there are periods of resurgence, when people return in droves to faith and the Word, but most times, they do not, and our modern time is one of them.
These words apply to us because they describe us as a nation and as individuals. Our God has saved us by grace through faith, but even those of us who are saved too often succumb to the world’s temptations.
Especially in our culture in the United States, Christians have a very difficult time separating the ways of the world from the ways of God. We have a hard time knowing where the lines are, and we often cross them, sometimes without knowing it.
This was Jeremiah’s message of repentance to Judah and Jerusalem just as surely as it is his message to us. God calls on us to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. Using that standard, we quickly become aware of the very things Jeremiah proclaimed, and in awareness, we should turn ourselves back to God’s way from the world’s.
