Reading
SAA Notes
A linen belt was expensive, beautiful, and not for ordinary wear. This is the sort of thing you wore on your wedding day or some other equally important occasion. Verse 11 tells us what God made us to be. Think about what God’s expectations are of you!
SJA Notes
* God Above, thank You for Your word today. Please write it on our hearts.
“How long will it be before you are made clean?”
This imagery here of an unfaithful wife is important.
God established a covenant with His people. His people decided to go after other gods, unfaithful in the same way a spouse going outside of the marriage covenant is.
Because this is a marriage covenant, the Bride (us, the church, God’s people) and the Lamb (God, God in the Person of the Son, Jesus, our King).
God is angry at idolatry, spiritual adultery!
“How long will it be before you are made clean?”
In Hebrews 9 we read,
“… How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offers himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”
We are made clean through the blood of our Saviour, the blood that Jesus shed on the cross all those long years ago at Calvary.
As with Israel in Jeremiah’s time, so with us – The answer is JESUS!
The better mediator, the method and mechanism for being purified and cleansed of our sin.
It’s Jesus!
* Father God,
Please help us find encouragement here in Jeremiah, even amidst the hard words You have for us.
Please show us Jesus today.
Amen.