July 30, 2022: Day 161 – Jeremiah 7-12

Remember when Jesus enters into Jerusalem after the triumphal ride on a donkey and the first thing that he does is go into the temple and clear it and he says there:  “It is written, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.” Matthew 21:13.  Well, that comes from Jeremiah 7:11, the whole den of robbers thing.  He is warning the people of Judah that they are not to try to take refuge in the temple as if God would somehow save them from the destruction that is to come. They have already chosen other idols and it is too late to ask for God to come and save them.  They have already made the temple something other than what it was intended.

You have probably heard about the balm in Gilead as well?  Well, we find that in Jeremiah 8:22 that asks the rhetorical question whether there is going to be healing or not.  The Balm in Gilead was supposed to be able to heal all things.  But the land is too sick to be healed.  There is then a plot against Jeremiah in 11, but the good news is that God said that not a one of them will survive.  So Jeremiah had that going for him.  Thought you might want to hear the hymn: There is a balm in Gilead.