“As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you. But we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no disaster. But since we left off making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.”
Jeremiah 44:16-18
In this passage the remnant Jews refused Jeremiah and his interpretation of the fall of Jerusalem. It made more sense that they were prosperous when worshiping idols and disastrous when they followed Yahweh. So they shut Jeremiah up. It became a shouting match of, “no, you’re wrong.” And it ended with Jeremiah declaring their doom…again.
There will always be a natural explanation for the things of God. From evolution and the Big Bang, to medical miracles, to the final events of this age, there will be a reason you can use to justify why it’s not time to listen to God. And, God allows and requires it. Can you hear the Lord in the events? Revelation 9 records an arguable alien invasion. Would we listen to the pop culture in that day? War always exists, does that mean it is a judgment on a place? I fear we have lost the ability to interpret God’s historical messages, and we have disqualified ourselves from the ministers to interpret them for us. Here I mean Jeremiah was the only voice in his day. All Judah had but one voice until Ezekiel was assigned in Babylon. That means we will have 100:1 voices of nature vs voice of the Lord. Find what everyone is saying and it is likely the wrong voice. Satan must drown out the voice of the Lord. But His sheep hear His voice and know Him.
As the age unfolds with its wars, invasions, monetary upheavals, social reorderings, natural disasters, plagues, wild animal attacks, martyrs and other forms of chaos and judgment, we must increase our ear to the quiet voices who don’t justify our life in the midst of this world. Those very few voices lead people to Christ and solidity, and explain the matters fully rather than naturally. And so the Lord will glorify his bride because her ear was sanctified to Him alone, and she followed the voice all the way to the wedding day.
May the Lord dig out our ears and deaden the voices that are not His to our senses.
