Jeremiah 13
13 This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy a linen belt and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water.” 2 So I bought a belt, as the Lord directed, and put it around my waist.
3 Then the word of the Lord came to me a second time: 4 “Take the belt you bought and are wearing around your waist, and go now to Perath[a] and hide it there in a crevice in the rocks.” 5 So I went and hid it at Perath, as the Lord told me.
6 Many days later the Lord said to me, “Go now to Perath and get the belt I told you to hide there.” 7 So I went to Perath and dug up the belt and took it from the place where I had hidden it, but now it was ruined and completely useless.
8 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 9 “This is what the Lord says: ‘In the same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10 These wicked people, who refuse to listen to my words, who follow the stubbornness of their hearts and go after other gods to serve and worship them, will be like this belt—completely useless! 11 For as a belt is bound around the waist, so I bound all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah to me,’ declares the Lord, ‘to be my people for my renown and praise and honor. But they have not listened.’
“A call to listen intently on the Lord“
The Lord will speak to you in any situation if we can listen. Just as Jeremiah had a dynamic relationship with the Lord, God desires the same with us. What would be the outcome to Jeremiah if he ended just with the waistband?
Ask yourself this, God tells you to go out and buy a car. It is not a question of finances or payment because you have enough faith to do what the Lord asked of you. It is not just any car but the finest car you can think of. Spotless all that the specs offer, everything that the dealer would throw at you, you take. God tells you, don’t wash this car because it has the finest polish on it and it just shines. So you go and get the car and you are driving around town. A week passes and then God tells you to go downtown to the worst part of town. Get out of the car, open the doors and walk away. At what point would you start to question what the Lord told you to do. If Jeremiah stopped at the wearing of the waistband he would have been just a guilty as Judah and Jerusalem, not only that but he would have declared the waistband more important than God. God gives us the Call to Listen to Him. What are the things in our lives that keep God’s word from coming in and what are we doing to overcome these things before they consume us?
We are the waistband of the Lord.
God desires that we adhere to Him just as a waistband adheres to the waist of a man. We are for the Lord. We are His praise, His Glory and His renown. Everything that we do should be a call to the weight and power of who God is. The waistband during this time was a symbol of wealth and prestige, it showed class and status. Jesus says “You are the light of the world, a city on a hill.” Jesus is the status and the class that is to be shown. It is important to remember that the most important part of evangelism is our relationship with the Lord. If we speak of repentance and salvation and don’t have the relationship with God, we are going to show whoever it is we speak to that it is ok to not listen to the Lord and thus become worthless to the call.
Stubbornness Kills the called.
What Jeremiah received in revelation was a wake up call to God’s chosen, You are to be a waistband for me but you did not listen and thus became worthless. And now I am going to release you to the very things that blinded you. You will walk thinking that you are in light but in darkness.
2 Timothy 4:3-4
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth—men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.
Paul’s Charge to Timothy
You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
So what is the call for us men today? It doesn’t change. We are to stand our ground and listen to the Lord no matter what the situation is. It may be a difficult request from God and it might not be, but the reward and the relationship that follows is the Kingdom of God.
