Foolish, stupid children with no understanding (Jeremiah 4:22). That doesn’t just describe the violent mobs in many American cities, does it? No, over the last 50 years, all of us Americans have imagined that we can slaughter 60 million of our children and still have enough workers to ensure that our economy grows at a healthy rate. We’ve imagined that we can dispense with the responsibilities involved in both nuclear and extended families, and then wonder at the poverty and despair, the delinquency and the drug use, and even the ignorance and riots that result.

Why is our society collapsing around us? Well, what did God tell His people in Jeremiah’s time? “Your ways and your deeds have brought these things to you” (Jeremiah 4:18). Amid all the pronouncements of God’s anger and punishment that fill Jeremiah’s prophecy, we need to keep this in mind: it was the people’s sin, their rebellion against God and their oppression of each other, that brought all these terrible things upon them.

But there are two other things we need to remember as well. First, God is not at all happy about this situation. Because of His great love for His people, He is heartbroken at their suicidal rebellion against Him: “My soul, my soul! I am in anguish! Oh, my heart!” That’s what God cries out in Jeremiah 4:19, and it was that depth of love and grief that drove Christ to the cross. We can trust a God Who not only weeps for us, but Who chose to die for us.

Moreover, through His tears, God continues to be willing to pardon us and cleanse us and receive us. “Wash your heart from evil, O Jerusalem, that you may be saved” (Jeremiah 4:14): this is how God still pleads with sinners today. And because of the work of Christ on the cross, He makes us a promise: if we will repent, if we will return to Him, if we will put away all those other things in which we have trusted, if we will no longer waver from our faithfulness to Him, if we will acknowledge that the Lord is the only source of truth and justice and righteousness, then along with people from all the nations of the earth, we will be blessed in Him. For we will find our glory only in Him (Jeremiah 4:2).

So, I suppose we can go on believing the promises of government and markets, of sex and drugs, of money and fame, or of any of the other things in which we American have been putting our trust for so long. But when all those things turn on us, as they inevitably do (Jeremiah 4:30-31), why not return to the God Who is always ready to welcome us back home?

Jeremiah 4:14-22 (NASB)

14 Wash your heart from evil, O Jerusalem, That you may be saved. How long will your wicked thoughts Lodge within you?
15 For a voice declares from Dan, And proclaims wickedness from Mount Ephraim.
16 “Report it to the nations, now! Proclaim over Jerusalem, ‘Besiegers come from a far country, And lift their voices against the cities of Judah.
17 ‘Like watchmen of a field they are against her round about, Because she has rebelled against Me,’ declares the LORD.
18 “Your ways and your deeds Have brought these things to you. This is your evil. How bitter! How it has touched your heart!”
19 My soul, my soul! I am in anguish! Oh, my heart! My heart is pounding in me; I cannot be silent, Because you have heard, O my soul, The sound of the trumpet, The alarm of war.
20 Disaster on disaster is proclaimed, For the whole land is devastated; Suddenly my tents are devastated, My curtains in an instant.
21 How long must I see the standard, And hear the sound of the trumpet?
22 “For My people are foolish, They know Me not; They are stupid children, And they have no understanding. They are shrewd to do evil, But to do good they do not know.”