Day 262: Lesson from a loincloth – Jeremiah 13 vs 1 - 14

1-7 This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy a linen loincloth and put it round your waist, and do not dip it in water.”  So I bought a loincloth according to the word of the  Lord, and put it round my waist. And the word of the Lord came to me a second time,  “Take the loincloth that you have bought, which is round your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.”  So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me.  And after many days the Lord said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take from there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.”  Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it. And behold, the loincloth was spoiled; it was good for nothing. 8-10 Then the word of the Lord came to me: “Thus says the Lord: Even so will I spoil the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.  This evil people, who refuse to hear my words,  who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. 11 For as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the Lord, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen.

12-14 “You shall speak to them this word: ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “Every jar shall be filled with wine.”’ And they will say to you, ‘Do we not indeed know that every jar will be filled with wine?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will fill with drunkenness all the inhabitants of this land: the kings who sit on David's throne,  the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.  And I will dash them one against another, fathers and sons together, declares the Lord. I will not pity or spare or have compassion, that I should not destroy them.’” Jeremiah 13:1-14 English Standard Version

I've heard it said by educators that 'object' lessons are very important. Many people remember more of what they see than what they hear. Almost 3000 years ago the Lord gave Jeremiah an object lesson for the people of Jerusalem. (Vs 1-7) A dictionary described a loincloth as a single piece of cloth wrapped round the hips, sometimes worn in hot countries as an only garment. So what was the lesson here? (vs 8-10)

Just as the loincloth became spoiled and of no more use, so God was going to spoil the pride which the Israelites wore like a garment on their lives. What’s the other lesson that the loincloth demonstrated? (vs 11)

God has, as it were, bound Israel to Himself (as people would wind a loincloth around their waist) so that they would be a people who took pride in Him, and would bring Him honour and glory by the way they lived in the world with His blessing upon them. But they turned from God to idols and stubbornly chased after their own desires. God used the loincloth as a 'visual aid' to show them why He was going to bring judgement upon them - which we see in 12-14. Even there, God used the picture of jars filled with wine to teach them that He would cause them to stagger like totally drunken people.

This picture of a dirty rotting garment is still a lesson for today. It's a picture of what sin does to our lives. Listen to how the prophet Isaiah put it: “Lord, we are constant sinners. How can people like us be saved? We're all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags . . . yet no one calls on your name or pleads with you for mercy.” (Isaiah 64:5-7) He said there that sin spoils even what we think are our good deeds! How lovely then are the apostle Paul's words when he says: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy - cleansing her by the washing with water through the word - to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:25-27) And the apostle John wrote: “The blood of Jesus, God's Son, purifies us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7). Praise God that we can be saved from lives that are soiled by sin.