Jeremiah 44:18-19: “But since we stopped burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven and pouring our libations to her, we have lacked everything and have met our end by the sword and by famine. And when we were burning sacrifices to the queen of heaven, and were pouring out drink offerings unto her, did we not make cakes to worship her and pour out drink offerings unto her without our men?
Jeremiah has now proved himself to be a true prophet. The economy of Judah was in ruin, people lost everything and were starving. Did people finally turn to God? You bet they did. They gave up their pagan worship and started worshipping only God Jehovah. Unfortunately, their fortunes were not restored. Things only got worse. They finally cried out to Jeremiah. “Look, our fathers and grandfathers worship the queen of heaven and they never went without. They always had plenty of food and saw no misfortune. But we stopped doing such foolish things and now look at us, we lack everything, we have met our end by the sword and by famine.”
That sounds like a legitimate complaint. After all what good is religion if it doesn’t improve you way of life? They worshipped the queen of heaven and things were great, they started worshipping God and things really went South. Did you ever notice that whenever you start to really search the heart of God, you go on a season of fasting and prayer, you go through a period of repentance that things just seem to get worse rather than better? Maybe that is not your story but it sure is mine. I find myself getting a little apprehensive when God calls me to a season of fasting and prayer. Past experience dictates that rough weather is ahead. We tend to follow this course of logic: God is a God who blesses us. If we sin, he will not bless us. If we are not blessed, we are in sin. That logic makes a lot of sense in the natural, but it is not entirely Scriptural. Scripture seems to be quite clear that God does not always strip away His blessings when you cross some line. Sometimes He does, sometimes He doesn’t. Along the same line, God does not always bless those who walk the narrow way. Sometimes He will, sometimes He won’t.
For generations the people of Judah worshipped the queen of heaven. This goddess was believed to be the provider of their prosperity. Along comes a Godly king named Josiah who forces the people to get in line spiritually and what happened a few years after his death, the nation collapses. Some good their worship of God did. So the people decided to go back to their worship of the queen of heaven, at least that worked a lot better than this orthodox religion.
I have heard people say: “Yeah, I tried to become a Christian, I accepted Jesus, but it just didn’t work.” What didn’t work? Your sins were not forgiven, you were not redeemed? Most likely the person was not looking for redemption, but a winning lottery ticket. This was the case with the people of Judah. They did not worship God to seek His heart, they worship Him only because they felt they would get better pay.
“Did we not make cakes to ‘worship’ her?” That word worship is very interesting. Practically every translation has it’s own take on that word. The word in Hebrew is ezev. This word basically means sadness, suffering, pain, or grief. It also means to serve out of fear or for gain. In fact if you read the word backwards you have veze which means unjust gain. There are two types of worship. There is “ezev” and there is shachah. If you remember from an earlier study shachah is to worship God in the sense of joining with him as one, of knowing His heart. Ezev is to worship with the expectation of some form of payment.
I received an email from a friend today who said that his father gave up everything material to serve God in Haiti. When he died all he owned was a pocket knife and Casio watch. His son followed in his father’s footsteps and after thirty years of serving God in Communist China, serving the underground church. He earned a PhD and built many schools in China and is a pastor and teacher to thousands of Chinese pastors. Yet, he does not own a home and have few possessions. He is virtually unknown in the United States and in churches. I have another friend who said: “It would be an honor to sit at his feet and learn.” Learn what? Financial planning, how to get rich, how to pay off your debts? You won’t learn that from this guy. You will learn shacah, not ‘ezev.
Next time you seek to worship God, ask yourself, are you like the people of Israel. Are you seeking God only because he can pay really well? Do you worship Him because you need something? Is your worship ezev? Or do you worship Him so you can discover the depths of His heart, to know Him? To just love Him? Is your worship truly shachah?
I remember as a child singing a song and that song has been playing in my head all day:
Hear ye the Master’s call
Give Him your best,
For be it great or small
That is the test
Do then the best you can
Not for reward, not for the praise of man
But for the Lord.
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