God's attempts to get Attention

Read Jeremiah 13.

Many times God instructed one of the prophets to do something unusual.  These served as visual aids to gain attention and gather a curious crowd who would listen to the message.  In this chapter, Jeremiah has two such assignments.

1. The Linen Belt (vv.1-11)
The LORD told Jeremiah to wear a linen belt.  This would have been what the priests wore in that day.  After sometime, God told him to bury the belt.  Then later, He told Jeremiah to dig up the belt and take a good look.  The belt, of course, was dirty, falling apart, and no longer of any use.  It was an illustration for God's message to Judah.  He chose them and had them close to Himself for a time.  But the people had buried themselves in the surrounding pagan culture.  They refused to listen to the word of God and live for Him.  Spiritually, they were dirty, falling apart, and no longer could they be used by God.

2. The Wine Jars (vv.12-14)
The message began with the statement to fill every jar with wine.  Immediately, the people derisively questioned the instruction.  It was a picture of Judah's spiritual condition.  Their intoxication with false teaching and pagan practices caused them to reel here and there through life with a loss of direction and sense.  As a result, God's judgment would smash their wrong beliefs and the nation like broken jars.

The judgment will come with Judah being taken captive (v.17) and forced into exile (v.19) by a an invader from the north (v.20).

Four times Jeremiah exposed the root problem as that of pride (vv.9, 15, 17).  He called for them to humble themselves and give God His rightful glory before it would be too late.  Specifically, he targeted the nation's leaders to come down off their thrones and "take a lowly seat" (v.18).

God loves it when we humble ourselves in worship and cast our dependence upon Him.  It is the very thing that triggers His grace to us.  "Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." (1 Peter 5:5)