Sad Day When Would-Not Turns To Cannot

 

In Jeremiah 2:2, the prophet is told, “'Go and cry in the hearing of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord: ‘I remember you, The kindness of your youth, The love of your betrothal, When you went after Me in the wilderness, In a land not sown.’’”  (NKJV)

Other translations use the word, “proclaim” in the hearing, or even, “shout” the message to Jerusalem, but here we see the order is to, “cry.”

“Cry” in the ears of those in Jerusalem.

We get the idea here that God is inviting his servant, Jeremiah, to engage in the intimacy of the people he was called to.  To bend down with grave concern over the condition of God’s people.

It appears to be a tender image of speaking firmly, yet compassionately, for the people who had forgotten their first love.

The image is of Jeremiah stooping low, ears to the hearers, and with divine exertion to make them listen.

Because they once knew Him… intimately.
They once experienced His presence in the wilderness.
They once longed for His guidance.
And they certainly obtained unwarranted favor by our Gracious God, who had not only relentlessly pursued those He called “His own”, but radically forgave them for the grievances that included idol worship, ingratitude, and altogether abandonment.

The Lord said it in Jeremiah 6:10, “To whom can I give warning? Who will listen when I speak? Their ears are closed, and they cannot hear. They scorn the word of the Lord. They don’t want to listen at all.”

They weren’t listening.
Their ears were intentionally closed.
Some commentaries use this word to describe Israels forsakenness, “desertion”, which means. “willful abandonment, the act of leaving military service ‘without the intention to return.’”  And look at a phrase the dictionary considers as a “word nearby” desertion… “desert fever.”

Their total departure… their willful abandonment… their calculated recklessness, caused a “desert fever” of sorts, now causing the loss of all physical sense including vision and hearing.

The God of the universe was not only ignored, we see Him treated almost as though He were completely unknown.  And they would sorely pay a price for the disownment.  

The overarching call on Jeremiah’s life as a prophet to the stubborn and rebellious people was sobering, at best.  And might have caused him to put a halt to his going out.  “Tell them, all of this,”  said the Lord to Jeremiah, “but do not expect them to listen.  Shout out your warnings, but do not expect them to respond.”  (7:27)

I cannot imagine.
But yet we might be able to see that times are no different for some even now.  
Today.

And it is worth thinking deeply about.
Because the saddest judgement to ever consider is that because of our “would not” attitude in hearing God, we one day discover we “cannot” hear Him.

Amos 8:11-12, “‘The time is surely coming,’ says the Sovereign Lord, ‘when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord.  People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.’”