Jeremiah 11

There is a church in town that operates under the slogan, God is still speaking. I like that. A lot. I think it’s so easy for church organizations (denominations) to become set in their ways, stagnant, and no longer open to the progressive understanding of truth. It’s easier for us to believe that we “know all the truth” than it is to believe that God is still speaking.

But Jesus Himself told the disciples, “There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now.” (Jn 16:12) If we have a living, breathing relationship with God, we should always be understanding more. We should always be learning new things. We should always be listening, because God never stops talking.

In this chapter of Jeremiah, we see how some people react to hearing God’s voice: “Because the Lord revealed their plot to me, I knew it, for at that time he showed me what they were doing. I had been like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter; I did not realize that they had plotted against me, saying, ‘Let us destroy the tree and its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.’” (vs 18-19)

People who have decided against God don’t want to hear His voice anymore. But God never stops talking. So, they resort to killing the messenger. (That’s precisely what Caiaphas and the other priests and rulers did to Jesus, and it’s what Saul did to Stephen and other new Christians.)

But, killing the messengers doesn’t stop God from talking. He does much of His speaking through the Holy Spirit. And as David so eloquently put it, “Where can I go to flee from Your Spirit?” (Ps 139:7) There is no way to get away from God’s voice. I suppose, in the end, the only way for the wicked to be “free” of it is to die. They would rather die than hear the voice of God.

God never stops talking. With His word, He creates. With His word, He sustains. (In fact, Jesus Himself is called “The Word.”) It is “living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.” (Heb 4:12) A billion years from now, that church slogan won’t be outdated or obsolete. God will still be speaking.