Jeremiah 18:12: “And they said, There is no hope, but we will walk after our own devices and we will everyone do the imaginations of his own evil heart.”
“If I do it, I get a vippin,—– I do it.” Red Skelton -Mean Little Kid
That is quite a thing for the people of Israel to say in Jeremiah 18:12. Had the people fallen that far so as to admit to an evil heart and following those evil inclinations?
The English word evil might be misleading in this verse. The word used in the Hebrew for evil in an evil heart is ra’a which comes from a Semitic root word which means to be broken. The people said they will follow the imaginations of their broken heart. Do you ever feel like you have a broken heart because God seemingly did not come through for you. He did not provide for that financial need or that healing and like a mean little kid you sniff and wipe your tears away and say: “Ok for you God, I’ll show you. I’m gonna really go out and sin, then you will be sorry.”
Just what was it that brought Judah to this state of feeling that there was no hope, that it was useless? Now I am beginning to understand why God led me to this passage. We read something like this and sigh, “Well, at least I have never reached the point of saying I am evil and I don’t care.” But you know what, most of us, if not all of us, has at one time or another reached the point of saying: “There is no hope,” and feeling broken that God did not deliver us as we expected Him. Is Judah’s desire to follow their own devices and imaginations the result of hopelessness? What is this state of saying No hope?
Now some translations will render this in such a way as to suggest the people are telling Jeremiah, “Forget it, you have no hope of reaching us, we don’t want to hear about God, we want to live in our sins and we are just going to go ahead and sin anyways.” Grammatically, you might render it to suggest that the people are telling Jeremiah that his attempts to turn them to God is hopeless. But it is also grammatically correct to render it as the people saying that they are the ones who feel hopeless. The word used for hopeless is y’ash which means to be despondent or in despair.
When you first read this verse you may feel it has nothing to do with you. You would never just boldly reject God in this way. But stop and consider those moments when you feel in despair that God seemingly did not come through and you might just have to admit, at least to yourself, that you have this urge to just go out and seek you own devices and follow the imaginations of your evil ra’a broken heart? Have you been unemployed and it seems like God is not coming through with a job and you are tempted to fudge a little on your experience or skills in a resume or employment application?
I remember I had a student who had spent three years in prison. He was desperately looking for a job as he had a wife and child to support as well as trying to pay a school bill. But every employment application had that question: “Have you ever been arrested?” He became so discouraged he even came to me and said: “I am beginning to believe that I should lie on an application as it is hopeless for me to even get through the door if I mention my arrest record.”
There are many places we can safely stretch the truth, like our taxes, employment applications, insurance claims etc. All the time saying; “Well, God sure has not provided the resources, what is wrong with a little white lie, everyone does it, if I am caught I will just shrug my shoulders, they won’t arrest me for a little error, I will just a get a fine or pay a penalty if caught. That doesn’t sound as brazen as Jeremiah 18:12, but it does amount to the same thing.
That word for hopeless or despair – y’ash is spelled Yod, Aleph, Shin. This word has a built in commentary. Hopelessness comes when we allow the shadow of the Yod (ungrounded in the Word of God) to influence us. We then let the shadow of the Aleph consume us. That shadow of Aleph is ambivalence, letting feelings of uncertainty join us with the last letter for hopelessness which is the Shin which represents a consuming fire. Thus, the built in commentary for the word y’ash hopelessness is telling us that the danger of hopelessness is that when we are ungrounded in the Word of God and face a seeming hopeless situation, we are prone to allow that fear and uncertainty to consume us to the point where we will cling to our own devices and the imaginations of our hearts to deliver us rather than God.
In a sense the people of Judah are not that much different than us today. We trusted God and He seemed to have let me down. The people of Israel basically said to Jeremiah: “Listen, we tried to trust God, it didn’t work, we have these problems and God didn’t lift a finger to help, so why should we bother with Him, we will follow our own devices (chashav – thinking’s, ideas, understandings) and imaginations of our broken hearts. In other words, “God you didn’t come through, my heart is broken over you abandoning me, so I am going to do it may own way. I‘ll show you.”
Ok, maybe you never said anything like that, but I know I have. In in my moments of anger I declared, “Well, you broke my heart, I will just break yours.” And then I went about feeling justified to seek my own way. So we end up with two broken hearts and nothing else, one loving God with a broken heart and a mean little kid getting a “vippin” because he wanted things to go his own way and make his life comfortable.
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