Should I Stay or Should I Go?
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Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Jeremiah 24
Main Idea: Respond to the Lord and be blessed.
- The Vision of Jeremiah (24:1-3)
- Remember the Promise: The Benefit of the Good Fruit (24:4-7).
- Fear the Curse: The Curse of the Bad Fruit (24:8-10).
Two scientists were gathered in the lab with one purpose: to figure out an odd rat. Originally they were there to test a specific question. They wanted to know how much pain a rat would endure in order to receive what it wanted. The only thing they knew for certain is that the rats hated, absolutely hated, being shocked. So here was the experiment:
The scientists connected a sensor to the rat’s brain that could deliver a painful shock. They put food in the corner of the cage, and then as the rat approached the food, they gave it a shock. The rat froze and ran to the other side of the cage. Then it came back to the same place it got shocked. This is the odd thing. The rat did not run from the pain; it ran to the pain.
They then mixed up the experiment by putting shock sensors in the cage in certain places. Within time the rat identified the places that would bring the most shock and ran to them. Again this was odd. Perhaps they had a broken rat? What kind of sadistic animal would run to pain and not away from it? But the rat was not the problem. The problem was the scientists.
The scientists had not connected the sensor to the brain in the right place and, as with many great discoveries, stumbled on to something by accident. Instead of connecting the sensor to the brain at the place that delivered a shock of pain, they actually delivered it to the pleasure center. The rat was getting a jolt of pleasure each time it approached the food. The rat was not hurting himself; he was actually experiencing pleasure.
They then gave the rat a shock in close proximity to its food. The rat would ignore food in order to experience the pleasure shock. They then devised a lever so that the rat could shock itself. The rat would press the lever every five seconds. Some rats would do this until exhaustion. So then they took it up a notch to see how much the rat was willing to do to get this pleasure pulse.
They placed two levers at opposite ends of the cage. Both would stimulate the pleasure, but neither could be pushed until the other one was pushed; they had to be released one after the other. Between the two levers was an electrical field that was painful to the rat’s feet. The rat ran back and forth pressing the levers all the while scorching its feet. This made no sense. Why was the rat so bent on pleasure at the expense of pain? Why would the rat ignore even food? One rat in the experiment pushed the lever until it fell over exhausted. This is where the experiment took a fatefully interesting turn (McGonigal, Maximum Willpower, 106–11).
After a similar test on humans, they finally realized that the sensor was not hooked to a place in the brain that gave them pleasure but rather to a place that promised pleasure. This led them to wonder, “What if the area of the brain they were stimulating wasn’t rewarding the rats with the experience of pleasure but simply promising them the experience of future pleasure? Is it possible the rats were self-stimulating because their brains were telling them that if they just pressed the lever one more time, something wonderful would happen?” (ibid., 110). The rat was not actually experiencing bliss but desire. Pressing the lever did not satisfy the rat; rather, it let the rat feel like there was a promise of satisfaction coming. In other words, the mild shock gave a promise of more, but that’s all. No actual pleasure but the promise of future pleasure.
This might be a good definition of insanity: seeking something not because it is enjoyable but simply because it is a promise of more. It is certainly a good analogy for sin. No Christian, no thinking Christian that is, ever reeled back from sin—with harsh words spoken hanging in the air, the sexual sin just committed—completely satisfied. Why then do we return to sin? Why are we not discouraged from revisiting our sin? Because while sin does not provide actual pleasure, it does tantalize us with the promise of more pleasure.
It’s true that sin makes you stupid, but it’s also true that sin comes from a stupor. To willfully sin means that we are so anesthetized with self-love we believe the pleasure of sin will actually do something, that it will gratify.[5] Sin does not satisfy; rather, every act of sin is simply the promise of satisfaction. Sin is the willful choice to be promised something that will never happen. Sin really is insane—insanity that helps us understand Jeremiah’s words in Jeremiah 24.
Context
God has delivered on his promise of judgment. The people have been deported to Babylon and are under the judgment of God. Yet not all of the people are deported. Some stayed in Jerusalem under King Zedekiah. One would think those who stayed in Jerusalem were blessed and those who were exiled were outside of God’s purposes, yet it’s quite the opposite. In an odd twist of events, those who are in Jerusalem are in rebellion against God. The exiles are the ones who will be coming back to the land in the future with God’s blessing. Those left in the land now are thinking that their presence there is providing them with the blessing they want. They are remaining, but they are in the wrong place.
Sin always overpromises and underdelivers.
Those who are avoiding exile think fighting God’s purposes is the best way. God gives Jeremiah a clarifying vision that answers the question, What do we do when we find ourselves under the discipline of the Lord?
The Vision of Jeremiah
Jeremiah 24:1-3
The king of Babylon deported some but not all of those from Jerusalem. At some unidentified time after this, Jeremiah saw a vision of two baskets of figs that were in front of the temple of the Lord. The Lord asks Jeremiah to identify the two baskets, which represent two extremes. The good figs were very good and the bad figs very bad. Again, one would think the bad figs were in exile and the good figs were safe at home in Jerusalem. But in God’s plan this plays out differently. So what do we do when we are under the Lord’s discipline?
Remember the Promise: The Benefit of the Good Fruit
Jeremiah 24:4-7
The benefits of obedience are profound.
God will keep his eye on the obedient exiles and eventually return them to the land. Let’s stop and think about this for a moment. God had warned this nation not to follow false idols. He sent them prophet after prophet. He gave them the warnings, and they did not listen to them. They did not heed. They did not obey. They turned on their heels and did exactly what they wanted to do. Yet, as they are settling into the life of a refugee—a sentence brought upon themselves by their own disobedience—they are promised that God will not ultimately hurt them but bring them back to the land. This is shocking! God’s intention in this exit is to bring them back. Not unlike when they left Egypt, they are going to something better.
The problem is that they have to mentally change the narrative. They had always been the people God delivered from Egypt. They will always be that. Yet now when they are discussed, they will also be the people God led through the exile and back. This is why he prophesied in 23:7-8,
“Look, the days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’ but, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the land of the north and from all the other countries where I had banished them.’ They will dwell once more in their own land.”
Notice the odd language in 24:5: “I regard as good the exiles.” The ones that are exiled are blessed! They are the ones who are considered in line with God’s purposes. Why are they kicked out of their home but blessed? Why are they privileged refugees? Because even though they sinned, which led them into exile, God is going to bring them back. God is going to restore them. God is going to heal them and even enhance their influence.
Further, in verse 6 is language that sounds like other language in Jeremiah. God promised, “I will build them up and not demolish them; I will plant them and not uproot them,” which reminds of Jeremiah’s call to build and to plant (1:10).
God then promised in verse 7, “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God because they will return to me with all their heart.” This is a precursor to the beautiful language we will see in 31:34. The people will not need external influence to prompt them to know God; they will all want to know God on their own initiative.
So when we are being tried and we are tempted to run, remember that there is a greater promise ahead. But the promise is for those who remain under the discipline of the Lord.
Jeremiah then provides more motivation to obey God. There is both a blessing and a curse here.
Fear the Curse: The Curse of the Bad Fruit
Jeremiah 24:8-10
The bad figs were inedible. I’ve never held a basket of rotten figs. I can’t imagine it would be pleasant. No doubt the aroma would cause the eyes to water and activate a gag reflex. The contrast between the good and the bad was really stark. It was a perfect metaphor for what God would do to them: make them a disaster, an object of scorn. They would be ridiculed, and they would perish by the sword, famine, and plague, until they were wiped off the surface of the earth. And they would be taken from—watch this—the land God had given them. This is a holy and horrible reminder that the covenant was not without condition. They had been in the land God gave them, but they were evicted. They were owners, but they could not be residents. Again, this is a reminder that while God forgives, sin always, always, always, always has consequences. No exceptions.
To clarify, they are in the promised land, where God placed them, the land of the covenant, and they are being punished for that. So what is going on here? Really, why are those who are exiled so blessed and the ones who stayed so cursed? The reason is that those who remained were fighting the purposes of God. Yet they were fighting the purpose of God by staying in the place where they thought they were immune from God’s wrath. Patriotism to their homeland had clouded their understanding of God’s purposes. They were remaining at home but not remaining under the discipline of the Lord.
The book of Proverbs says a great deal about the discipline of the Lord.
The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and discipline. (Prov 1:7)
Do not despise the Lord’s instruction, my son,
and do not loathe his discipline;
for the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights. (3:11-12)
Listen, sons, to a father’s discipline,
and pay attention so that you may gain understanding,
for I am giving you good instruction.
Don’t abandon my teaching. (Prov 4:1-2)
The notion of discipline is covering two overlapping ideas. The writer of Proverbs is dealing with the idea of parental discipline. The discipline we often think of is self-discipline. The latter is willpower—the ability to control ourselves against the lure of temptation. Two ideas, but they are related in a unique way here.
The discipline of the Lord is always a good thing. It may feel like it hurts, but it always helps, thus the clear instruction not to despise the discipline. Discipline is a form of instruction. If someone gave us the gift of knowledge, why would we ever resent that? In discipline we are being given something we cannot get anywhere else. What’s more, no one but a parent loves us enough to bequeath to us this incredible gift of the learning that comes from discipline. In parenting sometimes discipline is punitive, but it is always discipleship. When I type the word discipling, my software autocorrects it to disciplining, and that’s helpful. We discipline in order to disciple.
The person who understands this can, anticipating the Lord’s discipline, embrace it by his or her own self-discipline. This leads us to the fascinating yet counterintuitive wisdom of Proverbs 1:23 where Solomon writes,
Turn to my reproof,
Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you;
I will make my words known to you. (NASB)
Do you see the integration here? Turn toward the reproof; move into the discipline. I’m envisioning a child backing into a spanking or putting himself in time-out. This is a teen who gladly hands over the cell phone when the discipline is the loss of privileges. How unnatural.
The verse is also translated, “Turn at my reproof” (ESV), which provides more clarity.
The idea is that when God disciplines us we do not run from it; we turn into it. And then once we have embraced the discipline of the Lord, we turn at it; we pivot at that point and go a different direction.
The reason a father would write a son a book filled with short, easily remembered sayings and pithy quotes, and the reason that book mentions the idea of discipline over twenty times in so many different contexts, indicates that this is more than a fleeting idea. Solomon, the wisest of all men, is passing on to his son one of the secrets of life: when God speaks, turn.
Or, to place the verse in the context of Jeremiah 24, when the Lord says go, don’t stay. They should have been packing their U-Hauls, but instead they were cutting their grass. They bedded down in the place they should abandon. And God sees. And God disciplines. They sprinted away from God by staying put. They ran by remaining.
Their life becomes a twisted metaphor. On the one hand they are remaining in Jerusalem. This seems like a good thing, yet it is not what God wants at this time. So their remaining is actually running. How odd.
In the last chapter we saw that Jesus was the prophesied Righteous Branch, and we alluded to John 15 where Jesus tells his disciples that if they want to bear much fruit they must remain, abide, in him. Sounds a lot like Proverbs 1:23, doesn’t it? If we were to smash the two together, we would have this: Run to the discipline of the Lord and stay there.
Why? Well, to mash the benefits of Proverbs 1 and John 15 together, remaining in the Lord results in hearing from the Lord, and in that way we are fruitful.
So we come back to the twisted irony of Jeremiah 24. Here we have people who are running from God by staying while God says go. This is the perverse idea that they could both rebel and remain. Run by standing still, both static and defiant. But it does not work that way. God is calling them out. Not to go is to reject their calling. It is to run from the discipline of the Lord and not into the discipline of the Lord.
Conclusion
When the Lord in his sovereignty seems to put on you more than you can bear, when you are facing the challenges of living in his sovereignty or suffering the consequences of your own bad choices, the ever-present temptation is to get wasted. Not necessarily with an intoxicating beverage but with life. When life gets hard, we intoxicate ourselves with a busy schedule, with activity, with life. We can fill the void with food or drink or any number of distractions. But while that may seem to ease the pain momentarily, there is no substitute for listening to the Lord in obedience.
Often the Lord will bring us hard circumstances to get us to move—figuratively or literally. In that moment, remember that waiting is sinning. Move on and follow what God has. We can never see clearly where his discipline is leading us, so we trust him in the move of faith.
Reflect and Discuss
- What is the significance of the figs’ being placed in front of the temple (v. 1)?
- Compare 24:4-7 with 29:11-12. Is there a connection?
- Compare 24:4-7 with 31:31-40. What is the connection with this promise and the new covenant?
- How is the promise of 24:4-7 applicable to us?
- What were the good figs, and what did they represent (vv. 4-7)?
- Why were good figs a fitting metaphor?
- What were the bad figs, and what did they represent (vv. 8-10)?
- Why were bad figs a fitting metaphor?
- Consider the implications of Proverbs 1:23. What does this say about our relationship with Christ?
- Compare Proverbs 1:23 with the metaphor of the vine and the branches in John 15. How do the two relate to each other?