A Linen Belt
1 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 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 a man’s waist, so I bound the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to me,’ declares the LORD, ‘to be my people for my renown and praise and honor. But they have not listened.’
My Understanding: Linen was a symbol of spiritual purity before God, as well as it was worn by priests. The linen belt was thus a symbol of priesthood and servanthood and of Israel’s priestly calling as kingdom priests, as well as it represented the people of Israel whom God had chosen to be his kingdom people. Revelation 1:5b-6 says: “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.” So, Israel of the Old Testament, and true Israel, the church, of the New Testament were/are assigned to be kingdom priests to serve their God and to be ministers of God. So, this song (below) is speaking to all of us who profess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and who profess to be his servants and ministers of the New Covenant.
God had Jeremiah perform a symbolic act to illustrate a message God wanted to give to his people. He asked Jeremiah to wear the belt around his waist, then he was to take it to Perath and hide it in the crevice in the rocks. After some time he was to dig up the belt only to find that it was now ruined and completely useless. Again, the belt represented God’s people. Binding the belt around Jeremiah’s waist was symbolic of the close, intimate relationship God had intended for his people to have with him for his praise and honor. Yet, his people followed the stubborn and rebellious inclinations of their own hearts and minds. They refused to listen to God and to his words. They followed after false gods and they worshiped them instead. So, they became just like this belt – ruined and useless. So, God was going to have to send judgment upon her in order to get her to repent of her sins.
God has the same plan for intimacy with his people, the church, as he did for Israel of the Old Testament. When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, we are to be crucified with Christ. Our old ways of living are to be eradicated from our lives. We are to forsake our sins and sinful lifestyles and we are to turn in the opposite direction by following Jesus Christ in full faith, surrender and obedience. It is in that newfound relationship with Jesus Christ via his death for our sins on the cross and his resurrection and thus conquering sin, so that we can go free, that we experience that close, intimate relationship with Almighty God and we become his people and he becomes our God. Our hearts desire is then for him and for serving and obeying him. He becomes the focus of our lives from whom all else flows. And, it is there that we are like that belt around Jeremiah’s waist, i.e. in that intimate fellowship with our God whom we love and serve and obey.
Yet, many who have come into relationship with Jesus Christ have since drifted away and have followed the ways of man and of the world more than they are following after God. Activities, entertainment, careers, school, friends, family, etc. take up most all of their energy, time, affection and attention. God has taken a back seat or has been forgotten altogether. They may do good things for God, but they are no longer in intimate fellowship with the Lord. Their times of personal worship, prayer, and time in the word are sterile, routine, sparse or non-existent. God is not even on their radar, in some cases. They rarely inquire of him unless they want something. They worship created things more than or instead of worshiping their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Our reasonable service of worship is that we present our bodies as living sacrifices to God, holy and acceptable, no longer conformed to the pattern of the world, but rather being transformed by the renewing of our minds (See Rom. 12:1-2). This is the worship that God accepts.
Others may have made only a surface-level confession of Christ as Savior. They may have prayed a sinner’s prayer and were then told that they had their ticket into heaven, yet they never truly repented of sin, they never turned from sin and toward God, and/or they did not feel it was required of them to repent or to obey because someone told them they only had to “believe,” though the word “belief” was described more in emotional terms or as an intellectual assent or moral decision to be a better person, rather than as death to self. Yet, coming to Jesus in faith means coming to the cross of Christ and dying to our old ways of living and then choosing to walk in faith and obedience to him on a day-to-day basis, confessing sin, daily repenting, daily being cleansed and renewed in mind and heart, and being in that close, intimate relationship with him to where we sit at his feet, we hear from him, we listen to what he says, and then we obey what he tells us to do.
God is calling out to all those who have ever made a profession of him as Lord and Savior, and he is asking that those who have drifted away and have become corrupted by the world and its influences, and/or those who had the assumption of a relationship that never truly existed between them and Jesus Christ, to either come to the Lord Jesus in true faith and obedience for the first time, forsaking their idols and their sins, or else to return to the Lord Jesus Christ in full faith, surrender and obedience, forsaking sin and idols, and recommitting their lives to following the Lord Jesus in all things and in all ways. One day God is going to judge. The Bible tells us so. And, judgment begins with the family of God. So, if you are not in a right relationship with our Lord today, and the Lord has revealed to you that you are like the linen belt that is completely ruined and useless or even partially ruined and useless, I pray you will return to your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and make him your all today.
Ministers of Our God / An Original Work / June 11, 2011
Ministers of our God, harken to hear Him speak.
Have you given Him your hearts and souls today?
Hasten to give all to Him. Let Him cleanse your hearts from sin.
Cast yourselves on His altar. In your lives do not falter.
Ministers of our God, harken to hear Him speak.
Have you given Him your hearts and souls today?
Ministers of our God, flee from all your idols.
Remove them from your lives. Be transformed today.
Listen to the words I say. Give your all to Christ today.
Let him rule within your hearts, cleansing from sin, grace impart.
Ministers of our God, flee from all your idols.
Remove them from your lives. Be transformed today.
Ministers of our God, won’t you come to His cross?
Die to sin and yourselves. Penitently pray.
Humbly accept Him today. Let Him wash your sins away.
Receive Him into your hearts. His grace and mercy impart.
Ministers of our God, won’t you come to His cross?
Die to sin and yourselves. Penitently pray.
Song Lyrics @ Public Domain
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