We are still thinking
of the agreement to free the Hebrew slaves.
The good news was that they did keep the Law of Moses in doing this (Ex.
21:1-11 records this part of the law).
So you might say they were obedient to the LORD. But in the time of Jeremiah the main issue
was that God commanded them to give themselves up to the Babylonians. What happened was that the people, for a
while, obeyed one of the statutes of Moses.
But the bad news was that they had selective
obedience; they were not about to obey in the bigger issue.
Again we have other
illustrations of this in Scripture. A
major one was the case of King Saul in 1 Sam. 15 when God, through Samuel, told
him to go and annihilate the Amalekites.
The command was clear: destroy them and all their possessions. When Samuel next met Saul he confronted him
on his selective obedience. Saul had
returned with the Amalekite king alive and with the best of the animals,
supposedly for sacrifices. Samuel
reminded Saul of God’s instructions and Saul continued to insist he had been
obedient (1 Sam. 15:20-21). Samuel’s
words got to the heart of the issue, that God looks not for sacrifices but for
obedience (15:22-23). David knew of this
issue when he was confessing his own sin (Psa. 51:16-17) as did Isaiah (Isa.
1:11-17).
It’s like the child
who, in trouble for taking a cookie from the cookie jar, pleads, But mom, I didn’t leave any crumbs; isn’t
that good? We want to be recognized
for obedience in one area and not be made to face disobedience in another. Remember that Jesus called us to first be
reconciled to our brother before we bring our offering. The offering is unacceptable because the
heart is not right. The words of Amos
5:21-24 are perfectly fitting for this approach to obedience. God demands that we take away our sacrificial
works that are performed while we tolerate sin in our hearts; He will not
accept them! Those sacrifices become for
us a hindrance to obedience.
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