Will You Be the One?

Today’s Passage – Jeremiah 4 – 6 (Click on the references to listen to the audio – click here to view the text from the Blue Letter Bible website)

(Second Milers also read – Acts 1 – 3; Psalms 71 – 75; Proverbs 15)

Listen to this morning’s Scripture song – Psalm 121

Read the “0815 Evening and Morning” devotion for today, by the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Read previous posts from this passage – “Catching Men”, “Fallow Ground,“ and “Old Paths.

“Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it.” (Jer 5:1)

Here is a brief summary of Jeremiah 4-6

Chapter 4 Urgent call to repentance mixed with vivid warnings of invasion. The people are told to circumcise their hearts, put away abominations, and return to the Lord. Otherwise a destroyer from the north (described as a lion, a scorching wind, and an army) will lay the land desolate. Jeremiah expresses deep personal anguish over the coming catastrophe. The chapter ends with the land in mourning and the people still refusing to turn.

Chapter 5 The thorough corruption of the people. God challenges Jeremiah to find even one just and truth-seeking man in Jerusalem so that He might pardon the city—none is found. The people have broken the yoke, refused correction, and sworn falsely. Both rich and poor, prophets and priests, are corrupt. They commit adultery (literal and spiritual), oppress the needy, and love the false messages of peace. Because they have eyes but do not see and ears but do not hear, judgment is certain.

Chapter 6 Final warnings and the diagnosis of reprobate silver. The people are told to flee for safety; the enemy is already advancing. From the least to the greatest they are given to covetousness; prophets and priests deal falsely and cry “Peace, peace” when there is no peace. God has set watchmen and called them to the old paths, but they refuse. They are like reprobate silver that cannot be refined—therefore the Lord rejects them.

Specific sins that revealed their spiritual condition

These chapters repeatedly expose the heart of the problem:

• Forsaking the Lord for idols — abandoning “the fountain of living waters” for broken cisterns; going after Baal and other gods (2:13, 20–25, 27–28).
• Spiritual (and often literal) adultery / harlotry — treating their covenant with God as lightly as a wife who seeks many lovers and pollutes the land (2:20; 3:1–9; 5:7–8).
• Stubborn refusal to repent or return — stiff necks, hard hearts, eyes that will not see, ears that will not hear (2:30; 3:10; 4:4; 5:3, 21–23; 6:16–17).
• Self-deception and false security — claiming “I am not polluted… I have not gone after Baalim,” or trusting in the temple and empty ritual while living in sin; crying “Peace, peace” when judgment is near (2:23, 35; 6:14; 7 will develop the temple theme further).
• Corrupt leadership — priests who do not ask “Where is the Lord?”, shepherds who transgress, prophets who prophesy by Baal or falsely promise peace, and people who love to have it so (2:8; 5:30–31; 6:13–14).
• Social injustice and moral breakdown — oppression of the poor, fatherless, and needy; greed for gain from the least to the greatest; widespread lying, swearing falsely, and adultery (5:26–28; 6:13).
• Rejection of God’s word and the “old paths” — refusing to walk in the good way God had shown them (6:16–19).

In short, the early chapters of Jeremiah paint a nation that still had the outward forms of religion but had abandoned the living God, refused genuine repentance, and preferred comfortable lies over the hard truth. The coming judgment from the north is presented as the just and certain consequence of that spiritual condition—yet the repeated call to “return” shows that God’s heart was still open if they would truly turn.

Now, let me give you my devotional thought for the day.

In these chapters God continues His urgent call for Judah to repent. Invasion from the north is coming. The land will be laid waste. Yet even in the midst of the warning, the Lord makes an astonishing offer: if Jeremiah can find just one man in Jerusalem who practices justice and truly seeks the truth, God will pardon the entire city.

The search failed. No such man was found. The people had forsaken the Lord for idols, treated their covenant with God as lightly as an unfaithful spouse, refused to repent, and preferred the comfortable lie of “Peace, peace” over the hard truth. From the least to the greatest they were given to covetousness. Prophets and priests dealt falsely, and the people loved to have it so. Outward religion remained, but the living God had been abandoned.

The same search continues in our day. God is still looking for men and women who will execute judgment and seek the truth—people marked by integrity, who refuse the comfortable lie, and who are wholly committed to Him.

In the 1870s, British evangelist Henry Varley spoke words that lodged deep in the heart of a young D. L. Moody: “The world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to Him.” Moody never forgot them. He later told Varley that as he crossed the Atlantic the boards of the ship’s deck seemed engraved with those words, and when he reached Chicago the very paving stones appeared marked with the same sentence. Moody’s quiet resolve was simple and life-altering: “By God’s help, I aim to be that man.”

The question Jeremiah’s challenge and Moody’s resolve press upon us is the same:

Will you be the one?

Will you be the man or woman in your home, your church, your workplace, or your community who truly seeks the truth and lives it? Will you be the one fully consecrated to the Lord—available for Him to use in whatever way He chooses?

God is still searching the streets and broad places. He is still looking for that one.

Will you be the one?