June 15

Jeremiah 9
At mid first semester in seventh grade I switched schools from Glencoe to Stillwater. School work had always come relatively easy for me so it wasn’t much of a problem. At the end of the first semester my grades were good enough for the honor roll except for one class, PE. I made a “C” in PE. How can anyone make a “C” in PE? I went to the coach and asked. He said that he graded on improvement. I just hadn’t shown enough improvement in my half-semester there to warrant anything better. I was aghast. There were a number of things he tested, 440, rope climbing, jump rope etc. The idea was to increase incrementally from one level of achievement to the next. Coming at mid-semester, I had wanted to prove that I was just as good as anyone else in the class. I was already in pretty good shape. I did the very best that I could in every event. If you are being graded on improvement, you want to do your very best on the last time you are tested and your very worst on the first time. But one event in particular had always stymied me. The gym wall had a wooden board attached to it. In the board were two pegs at the bottom and a number of corresponding holes going to the top. The idea was to go from the bottom to the top by using the pegs and going from hole to hole until one reached the top. I never could make it to the hole just above the bottom one.
Sometimes known as the weeping prophet, Jeremiah wishes for buckets of tears to shed for his people, who are being slaughtered. Why are they being slaughtered? Look at what verse 3 has to say:
And like their bow they have bent their tongues for lies.
They are not valiant for the truth on the earth.
For they proceed from evil to evil,
And they do not know Me,” says the LORD.
They are not valiant for the truth. They proceed from evil to evil. “Evil to evil” now there is an interesting phrase. What exactly does that mean? It is similar in construction to “faith to faith” (Rom 1:17) and “glory to glory” (2 Cor. 3:18). In Romans the phrase is all about revealing the righteousness of God in us. In 2 Cor. The phrase is all about revealing the image of God in us. In Jeremiah it is all about revealing the deceit in our hearts. It is going from peg to peg. They go from evil to evil, peg to peg. What does it reveal? It reveals that they did not know Him.
He takes it to an even lower level in verse six, “Through deceit they refuse to know Me.” This is a consistent thread in Jeremiah in relation to our own hearts. We are so capable of self-deception. We tell ourselves that we know the Lord, and yet the pride of our lives is in our accomplishments and not in the knowledge of Him. How does one know that the pride of one’s life is in one’s accomplishments? If I were stripped of all my accomplishments and the reputation of my accomplishments, would I still be content with the mere fact that I know Him? Ultimately, that is exactly what Jesus did. He emptied Himself of His right to be worshipped as God by taking the form of a bond servant and going to the cross and dying for my sin and shame. He did it simply because He knew and loved the Father, and He knew and loved me.
But let him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me,
That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight,” says the LORD.
I am hanging in the middle of a spiritual peg board. I have no strength to go up from glory to glory. I only have ability to go down from evil to evil. I can only do one of two things. I can enter into a relationship with Him, where in getting to know Him, I learn how to allow His lovingkindness, judgment and righteousness to flow through me. In doing that, He strengthens me to go up the board from faith to faith, from glory to glory. In which case, I can only glory in my knowledge of Him, for He is the One working in me enabling me to do all righteousness. Or I can deceive myself and listen to the lies that I have been telling myself about what I deserve. The result is only the ability to descend down the peg board from evil to evil. The sad thing is, I don’t even realize that I am going down.
Who is this King who enters my life exercising lovingkindness, judgment and righteousness? He is my only claim to fame. He is my King of glory. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john