Jeremiah 4
Formless and Void!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, March 19.
What happens when you don’t cultivate and care for your garden? Very quickly, it returns to its wild state with no hope for it to produce a crop. Imagine what a lifetime of not tending to your garden would do to it. In Jeremiah 4:23, the prophet intentionally connects the coming judgment of Judah with the creation story, “I looked on the earth, and behold, it was formless and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light.” The word pair of “formless and void” is a direct reference to Genesis 1:1-2, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.”
In the people’s rebellion against God, He would allow the land to return to its natural state apart from His intervention – a non-functional, uncultivated state, filled with evil and calamity. Because God judged them and found them guilty, He would remove the light of His presence from the land. This was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation of God’s people to Babylonian exile. The imagery of “formless and void” is so stark that one might think that God was going to annihilate His chosen people, but He qualifies His judgment in verse 27, “The whole land shall be a desolation, yet I will not execute a complete destruction.” The land would go to wild for seventy years, but God promised to allow the people to return after the time of judgment was fulfilled (Jeremiah 29:10-14).
Seize the moment and steward the garden of your life, cultivating the soil of your heart and mind, planting the good seed of His Word, caring for the growth, and reaping a harvest of praise to the glory of God (Isaiah 55:6-13).
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YOUTUBE:
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