JEREMIAH 7: THE LORD JUDGES

This is part 4 of 9 in a series about Jeremiah.

“Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place (7:4).”

“For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever” (7:5-7).

Justice may not be completely synonymous with the gospel, per se; but the ramifications of the Gospel lived out brings all the things mentioned in the above verses. And when a society can live in God’s Kingdom, it is certainly good news!

Justice is not an add-on to the Gospel…

The gospel was never meant to be separated from the Kingdom, which is why Jesus so often calls it the “gospel of the kingdom” (Matt 4:23, 9:35, 24:14, Mark 1:15). Justice and the Gospel go hand in hand, and what God has brought together let no man separate. You see, the thing about a Kingdom is that there is a King. When we live in His Kingdom, we have no business letting injustice thrive. In fact, we should bring justice through our businesses in various ways (I’m not even referring to primarily social or justice-oriented businesses here) and sow Gospel seeds inside of them.

As people see the Kingdom of God within our businesses, as we execute justice with one another and set captives free (not just literal slavery but financial as well), we will dwell in that land as representatives of King Jesus more fully.

It is Part of the Gospel Itself

There is a nonchalant sort of attitude we can have about life, where we don’t acknowledgement the seriousness of circumstances. This tends to happen to either a declining society or one where people have been scarred by the harshness of life or where they have lost hope—and people take a lighthearted view of everything to suck whatever enjoyment out of the “hebel” (Solomon’s favorite word in Ecclesiastes, often horribly translated vanity or emptiness) that they can—a sort of “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we will die” attitude. In Jeremiah 7:34, God says he will silence that “voice of mirth and the voice of gladness” as the land becomes a waste.

It’s an affront to the heart and the mission of God to have an escapist mindset about the state of the world, where we hide out in comfortable circumstances and let the world burn around us.

We must be people with dirty hands—not because of our own actions, but because of being close to dirty people. Let’s get dirty loving the least-reached peoples to the ends of the earth.

To learn more about B4T, read Business for Transformation by Patrick Lai.