Then all the military leaders, including Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah, and all the people, from the least to the greatest, approached Jeremiah the prophet. They said, “Please pray to the LORD your God for us. As you can see, we are only a tiny remnant compared to what we were before. Pray that the LORD your God will show us what to do and where to go.” [Jeremiah 42.1-3]
I don't really know of a sterner warning in all the Bible about pretending to follow God. As sincere as these people's prayer request of Jeremiah was, they were not genuinely asking for direction, but instead for validation. Jeremiah called them out on it:
“Listen, you remnant of Judah. The LORD has told you: ‘Do not go to Egypt!’ Don’t forget this warning I have given you today. For you were not being honest when you sent me to pray to the LORD your God for you. You said, ‘Just tell us what the LORD our God says, and we will do it!’ And today I have told you exactly what he said, but you will not obey the LORD your God any better now than you have in the past. So you can be sure that you will die from war, famine, and disease in Egypt, where you insist on going.” [Jeremiah 42.19-22]
Why wouldn't God want this remnant to go to Egypt? What's the big deal? The answer to this question is found here:
“And now the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, asks you: Why are you destroying yourselves? For not one of you will survive—not a man, woman, or child among you who has come here from Judah, not even the babies in your arms. Why provoke my anger by burning incense to the idols you have made here in Egypt? You will only destroy yourselves and make yourselves an object of cursing and mockery for all the nations of the earth. Have you forgotten the sins of your ancestors, the sins of the kings and queens of Judah, and the sins you and your wives committed in Judah and Jerusalem? To this very hour you have shown no remorse or reverence. No one has chosen to follow my word and the decrees I gave to you and your ancestors before you. [Jeremiah 44.7-10]
The entire reason God turned Israel over to Babylon in the first place was their idolatry. The entire reason this remnant wanted to go to Egypt was to continue that very same idolatry. And, they wanted God's blessing on it!
These remining Israelites were unrepentantly ignoring the loss and destruction they had already experienced resultant to their idolatry and were asking God to bless them as they continued in it! They were mindlessly asking God to bless their idolatry.
Nothing could be more indicting upon the Church today that this account from Jeremiah!
The Church today is rife with the idols of debt, insurance, medicine and technology. Consequently, the Church is all but powerless in the eyes of the world today as she suffers every curse described in Deuteronomy 28.15-68 just like the world.
But here's the kicker... Altar calls at church will often be full of people wanting prayer for deliverance from their infirmities and suffering while holding firmly to the idols of debt, insurance, medicine and technology that made them susceptible to their troubles in the first place!
What's worse, Christian leaders are willing to offer those prayers for deliverance without even a thought given to the source of the trouble: idolatry. In fact, most Christian leaders I know advise against ditching debt, insurance, medicine and technology and instead pander to that idolatry, even recommending it as a matter of "wisdom." Then those same Christian leaders "praise God" when man's idols randomly provide some level of "healing" or "provision" while the next person in the prayer line gets absolutely nothing but a good emotional cry.
Harsh? Not really if God's attitude toward idolatry is taken into account, as is clearly documented in the Bible! The first two of the Ten Commandments give us all the insight we could ever need into God's opinion about alternate allegiances in our lives. But, what do we do? Pray that God will use our idols to provide what we need!
For the record, Jesus did not make this all okay. Jesus fleshed out God's demand for singular allegiance to Him:
I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. [John 14.6]
If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. [Matthew 16.24, Mark 8.34, Luke 9.23]
The apostle Paul clearly recognized that Jesus, not idols, redeemed us from curses:
But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” [Galatians 3.13]
If Jesus is the ONLY WAY, where do we get off demanding (or even thinking) that redemption from curses is provided through debt, insurance, medicine and technology? Oh, we have made a grave mistake in underestimating God's jealousy about our idols - and we have not only mocked God in this way, but Jesus His Son also!
Just as the remnant Israelites were afraid that if they didn't continue their idolatry in Egypt they would be destroyed by Babylon - even though the Word of the Lord was prophesied to them that they wouldn't, the Church today is deathly afraid that if they don't continue their idolatry with debt, insurance, medicine and technology they will be destroyed - even though the Word of the Lord was "fleshed out" by Jesus that they wouldn't!
But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. [Isaiah 53.5]
We need to think about what we are asking for when we ask for prayer. We need to be careful what we pray for.
Father, Your Word could not be more clear: our prayers can indeed be religious "show" just to give credence to our idolatry. May we have eyes to see and ears to hear the truth of Your Word as it casts Your Light upon our lives revealing the age-old sin of idolatry. And may we defeat our fear by rejecting our idols to assure ourselves that You alone are the LORD our God and that we will have no other! So be it.
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