Is a great difference between the covenants exemplified by circumcision of the heart? Is lying all too common today? Let’s look at Jeremiah 9.
Did Jeremiah want to weep for his people? Were they treacherous lying adulterers?
Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Oh that I had in the desert a travelers' lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a company of treacherous men. They bend their tongue like a bow; falsehood and not truth has grown strong in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, declares the Lord. (Jer 9:1-3 ESV)
Could anybody trust anyone else to tell the truth? Is deception far too prevalent in our land?
Everyone has to be on guard against his friend. Don’t trust any brother, for every brother will certainly deceive, and every friend spread slander. Each one betrays his friend; no one tells the truth. They have taught their tongues to speak lies; they wear themselves out doing wrong. You live in a world of deception. In their deception they refuse to know Me. This is the Lord’s declaration. (Jer 9:4-6 HCSB)
Should God test and punish a nation that lies and sets traps for each other?
Therefore, this is what the Lord of the Heavenly Armies says: “Look, I’m about to refine and test them. Because they’re my people, what else can I do? Their tongue is a deadly arrow that speaks deceit. With his mouth a person says, ‘Peace,’ to his friend, but inwardly he sets a trap for him. Should I not punish them for these things?” asks the Lord, “and should I not avenge myself on a nation like this?” (Jer 9:7-9 ISV)
What kind of punishment will God send to a nation filled with lies and deception?
For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled; they are gone. And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant. (Jer 9:10-11 KJV)
Had the nation also ignored God’s voice and engaged in idol worship?
Who is the wise man that may understand this? And who is he to whom the mouth of Yahweh has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished, turned into ruin like a desert, so that no one passes through? Yahweh said, “Because they have forsaken My law, which I set before them, and have not listened to My voice nor walked according to it, but have walked after the stubbornness of their heart and after the Baals, as their fathers taught them,” therefore thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “behold, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink. I will scatter them among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send the sword after them until I have consumed them.” (Jer 9:12-16 LSB)
Was the nation put to great shame? Would corpses of people fall like dung?
This is what the Lord of armies says: “Consider and call for the mourning women, that they may come; And send for the skillful women, that they may come! Have them hurry and take up a wailing for us, So that our eyes may shed tears, And our eyelids flow with water. For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion: ‘How devastated we are! We are put to great shame, For we have abandoned the land Because they have torn down our homes.’”
Now hear the word of the Lord, you women, And let your ears receive the word of His mouth; Teach your daughters wailing, And have every woman teach her neighbor a song of mourning. For death has come up through our windows; It has entered our palaces To eliminate the children from the streets, The young men from the public squares. Speak, “This is what the Lord says: ‘The corpses of people will fall like dung on the open field, And like the sheaf after the reaper, But no one will gather them.’” (Jer 9:17-22 NASB)
What does the Lord say about national boasting, kindness, justice and righteousness?
This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord. (Jer 9:23-24 NIV)
What does God say about circumcision of the flesh without circumcision of the heart? Is this also emphasized in the new covenant?
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh—Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the wilderness in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.” (Jer 9:25-26 NIV)
What does Paul say about being a Jew inwardly and circumcision of the heart?
but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God. (Rom 2:29 NKJV)
Is a great difference between the covenants exemplified by circumcision of the heart? Is lying all too common today? You decide!
