The Lord Weighs the Hearts

“Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts.” [1]

Assuming themselves right without checking their facts with the Lord, was the crisis during the last days of Jeremiah’s Jerusalem. The prophet had been calling them to return to loving God and to loving God’s ways, but to no avail. They did not count loving God as a factor for determining if they were on an upward or downward trajectory.

Jeremiah said: “...This is the 23rd year in which the word of the Lord has come to me; and I have spoken to you, rising early, and speaking, but you have not listened. And the Lord has sent to you all His servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear. They said, ‘Repent now everyone of his evil way and his evil doings, and dwell in the land that the Lord has given to you and your fathers forever and ever. Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands; and I will not harm you.’ Yet you have not listened to Me,” says the Lord, “that you might provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt.” [2]

The prosperity indicator that they ignored was God. They disregarded His importance. God spoke to their nation for 23 years through His prophet Jeremiah. In fact, He spoke to them via many of His servants, but they refused to regard His words as important.

“Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Because you have not heard My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,’ says the Lord, ‘and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations. Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.” [3]

Babylon was going to overcome them. Babylon was an actual nation in those days, but its name is also used as a metaphor in the Bible for people who exalt themselves against God and who try to be gods unto themselves. Characteristics of Babylon include the loss of mirth and gladness, the loss of weddings, the loss of production (millstone moving) and the loss of light (a metaphor for wisdom and understanding).

The Lord told the people of Jerusalem that they were about to enter a 70-year season of life in a foreign land that would induce in them a return to loving Him, loving His ways, and loving one another. God did His best with trying to coach them away from choosing the hard way back to Him, and back to one another, but in the absence of their cooperation, He allowed cruel Babylon to break through in their spiritual lives in ways that His caring prophets could not.

[1] Proverbs 21:2
[2] Jeremiah 25:2-7
[3] Jeremiah 25:8-11