Jeremiah 18:1-17
The rise and fall of great nations have some very common elements. I want to focus on two of these common elements – greed and power. Looking at these two elements in our lives we see the same old outcome for us in the greed factor and power factor. It is hard for us to see the wreckage that these two elements cause. In the absence of faith and trust in God, our maker and creator, we are greedy and we lust after power. The two land mines of greed and power grow out of our disobedience to God’s plan for our lives. When people do not know the God that became one of us, we see how people become greedy and lust after power over other people.
Jeremiah reminds Israel what was going to happen to their lives as a people and nation. God gave Jeremiah a message about the potter (God) and clay (people of Israel). When we break our covenant with God, the results are always the same. Sin will crush life and produce death of a person or nation. In God’s message to Jeremiah He said, “O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand. If I announce that a certain nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed but then that nation renounces its evil ways, I will not destroy it as I had planned. And if I announce that I will plant and build up a certain nation, or kingdom, but then that nation turns to evil and refuses to obey me, I will not bless it as I said I would.’ Therefore, Jeremiah, go and warn all Judah and Jerusalem. Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am planning disaster for you instead of good. So turn from your evil ways, each of you and do what is right.”
In Chapter 20, verse 21, you can see how Israel responded to this message, “But the people replied, ‘Don’t waste your breath. We will continue to live as we want to, stubbornly following our own evil desires.’”
The human desire is filled with greed and filled with a lust for power. The outcome for Israel was the death of people and nation. They would go into exile for a long time and be slaves in Babylon.
Because of the harsh punishment of Germany by the British and French after World War One, a person by the name of Adolf Hitler in the 1920s devised a way to strike back at England and France. He made use of his land mines of greed and lust for power. In 1924 Adolf Hitler wrote that propaganda’s “task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with the academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.”
Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Hitler established a Reich ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels. The ministry’s aim was to ensure that the Nazi message was successfully communicated through art, music, theater, films, books, radio, educational materials and press. All of Hitler’s propaganda was based on his greed and lust for power. It was an attack on the Jewish and Christian faith that is based on the Holy Scriptures.
There were several audiences for Nazi propaganda. Germans were reminded of struggles against foreign enemies and Jewish subversion. Propaganda also encouraged passivity and acceptance of the impending measures against Jews as these appeared to depict the Nazi government as stepping in and restoring order. Because of greed and lust for power, the German people accepted Hitler’s and Goebbels’ propaganda and it cost millions of lives and the destruction of Germany.
Evil and sin always leads to greed and the lust for power. We are seeing this played out in America. It started when the Christian church had leaders that accepted that you could believe anything and do anything without God’s judgement on our sin. In the silence of the Christian voice we begin to turn to the god of socialism. We forget the history of Israel. We forget what happened to the German people that accepted the socialism of Adolf Hitler. The attitude of the liberal movement in the church said to us that God’s Word in the Scriptures is outdated in this age of enlightenment. Enlightenment means you can accept whatever a human judicial system says about life. Many churches went along with this. It has meant millions of unborn children never had a chance at life.
In our age of enlightenment, we see the successful liberal-socialist message communicated through television, art, music, theater, films, books, radio, education materials, and press. Most television news is just enlightenment propaganda. When you silence the voice of Jeremiah on God’s word and message, when, by fear, Hitler silenced the voice of God’s church in Germany, and when we allow the government to silence God’s voice of the church through their control of what the church does and what it can and cannot say, you see the land mines of greed and power grow in our human family. Those following the so-called enlightenment plan accept what the liberal socialist movement says is racism and gender identity as truth. This then allows political leaders at all levels of government to step in and restore order, just like the Nazi government did in Germany.
As a Christian I do not want government running our business world, medical system or controlling our church. Our government is only supposed to defend and keep us a free people; but we, like Israel, are saying to God, “Don’t waste your breath. We will continue to live as we want stubbornly following our own evil desires.” The land mines of greed and the lust for power will destroy us, our churches and our nation unless we turn our hearts and lives back to the God of life. We meet God of life in Jesus. He died and rose from death so we can have life. Faith in Jesus is the power that can stop the wreckage caused by our greed and lust for power. God never changes. He is a God of love and judgment. His judgment fell on Israel, fell on Germany and God’s judgment is falling on us and our nation.
Repent and come home to God’s family. You can’t belong to God’s family without being obedient to His plan found in the Holy Word. Pray and ask for God’s forgiveness and we can still be a people and nation serving Him. God is still the potter and we are still the clay. Let him remake us into His eternal family.
