Context for Jeremiah 9:23-10:25
Israel placed its trust in its gods not its God. They believed that their statues and decorated poles would protect them from the coming wrath because they had rejected the truth of their God. The results of this false belief were tragic and were just as God had warned them it would be.
Those silly Jews, we sometimes think, sitting in front of statues and decorated poles and worshiping them as if they were a god. What were they thinking? How could they have believed such obvious falsities could protect them?
Have you ever thought those thoughts while sitting in front of the TV or in a doctor’s office? Have you ever marveled at such things in a science class? These questions are not light ones, because they are the same questions Jeremiah was asking of Jerusalem and her idols.
Our modern times are just cleverer in disguising our idols than perhaps they were in Jerusalem. Anything that supplants God in our lives is an idol. Whenever we pursue the things of this world instead of God’s will, we fall down and worship before that idol.
It is easy to condemn TV, humanistic medicine, or evolutionary science for such things because sometimes the condemnation is so obvious. But what about our jobs? What about our dream vacations? What about our houses or cars? Anything that we place before God in importance or priority is an idol.
We live in a time where such idolatry is rampant. Our society worships before the altar of unrestrained liberty, convenience, and entertainment. These are harsh words, but they are words delivered as a warning: our society is no different from that of Jeremiah’s time, and God’s warning to us is just as sure as it was to them.
The defense against this idolatry is simple: keep in the Word everyday, keep ourselves among God’s people, and keep ourselves in the Sacraments. Even better, we can trust in our God to give us the strength to do these things, all we have to do is submit to His will through faith.
By this means, we defend our faith and ourselves from the idols of the world, thereby defending ourselves from the inevitable justice that is coming upon those who continue to deny God.
