Understand and Know the Lord

The only acceptable boasting is in that we understand and know the Lord

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Idolatry has consequences. God called on Jeremiah to pronounce devastation, destruction and deportation for the people who were supposed to have faithfully served him, but who had gone after other gods while still expecting deliverance from the Lord. (Jeremiah 7) This was the sin of syncretism, the mixing of religious practices and the validation of other beliefs which contradict biblical truth.

The parallels with our own nation are plain to see. We live in a post-Christian era, as even the church has embraced post-modern values in which truth is no longer absolute, individualism overrides family and community, morality is negotiable, sin is redefined, style is rated higher than content, hedonism supercedes service, consumerism replaces commitment, and woke culture denies us the authority to challenge.

Jeremiah calls it 'perpetual backsliding' (8:5 ESV). He fiercely denounces the 'whatever' culture, though perhaps reading between the lines we detect an answer of 'meh' from his people. 'Meh', popularised amongst modern teens on social media, expresses indifference, apathy and boredom, though the word originated in the yiddish language. It portrays the people of God sated and satisfied by what the world currently has on offer, while idly eyeing up the next novelty.

Jeremiah challenges us with an example from nature (8:7). The land of Israel has many species of migrating birds passing through, each of which knows their time and direction to fly. Here too we know that when the swallows arrive from Africa, back to the very same nesting spot, that spring has come, and when the field fares arrive from Scandinavia, that autumn is here. So even the birds know their times...'but my people know not the rules (decrees/judgements) of the Lord.' 

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The prophet laments: 'The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.' (8:20) Today through faith and by grace we have been saved, now included in the covenants of promise to Israel (Ephesians 2), and therefore we gentile believers also can and should know the rules, decrees and judgments of the Lord. 'For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.' (Titus 2:11)

So grace is no excuse for giving in to the influences of the world but rather instructs us how to reject and renounce them.

After yet more prophetic indictments through Jeremiah to a people who should have known the Lord's decrees, God gives a simple instruction:

Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practises steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.” (9:23-24)

Boasting is literally giving praise to ourselves, so we are to shift that praise to the only One who could ever deserve it. The only acceptable boasting is in that we understand and know the Lord. In the original Hebrew (sakal) means to be given insight and comprehension, therefore to understand something of the nature and character of God, who He is and how He works. But this is not enough, we are also to let it be known that we know (yada) the Lord, and the form in which this word appears implies personal acquaintance.  

Thank God for Jesus, who came that we might understand the ways of the Father through Him, and through whose life, death and resurrection we can have that personal relationship, living holy lives in the midst of a fallen world, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Author: John Plumb

May God bless and enrich your life

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