An astounded prophet uttered these words. He turned away from the people and with upturned eyes appealed his cause to Jehovah. Jeremiah was astounded at the terrible hardness and unbelief of the nation to whom he ministered. God had stricken the people, but they did not grieve. God had consumed them, but they refused to receive correction. Not only were they hardened and unteachable by even the severest chastisements of God, but they also paraded about with a religious cloak for their maliciousness. They said, “The Lord liveth.” Shall we say that they made a certain confession to the truth? The name of Jehovah was ever on their lips, so that their conversations, actions, and decisions had a show of deep piety. They said, “The Lord liveth,” and by that they acknowledged him as God alone, as the judge who sees and rewards good and evil, as the savior of Israel, and as the Lord of all. One, it seems, could hardly find a more faithful and religious people in all the earth than the inhabitants of Jerusalem. But they swore falsely! There was not a religious or faithful person to be found in truth among the poor people or among the mighty nobles. All were spiritual adulterers.

And the proof? They refused the word of Jehovah. He came to them through his prophets, and he spoke to them concerning himself and his glory, concerning them and their sins and the way of repentance and salvation. He warned, exhorted, rebuked, and called to them. He rose up early and sat up late to teach them. And their reaction? There is no word of God in what the prophets speak, and everything they speak against us will become an empty wind and vanity and fall to the ground and become harmless. So they said, “There is no truth in what the prophets say. They threaten us with sword and famine, but they shall not happen to us. Do the prophets not hear how we confess the truth and that we are the people of God?” Indeed, they said that all that the prophets threatened against them would instead happen to the prophets. And in so reacting to the word of God sent unto them, they lied against Jehovah, and they said, “He does not live, and he is not God!”

Strange contradiction! At one and the same time to use the name of Jehovah and to confess to know the truth and to be an utter atheist who says, “God is not!” When one says with the lips, “The Lord liveth,” and so makes a certain confession of the truth and then reacts to the word of God preached by saying, “There is no word of God in it,” then in reality the person is an atheist who says, “God does not live!” Such is the state of every hypocrite and apostate from the truth who rejects the word of God that comes to him. For the faithful infallibly receive the word by the power of the Spirit that is in them because the Spirit in them recognizes and receives the word of the Spirit that comes in the preaching. But being without the Spirit, the apostate rejects the word and says, “There is no word of God—no truth—in it.”

Terrible spiritual state! For God’s eyes are on the truth. It is always before his face. He loves truth, for it is his Son! Truth is always precious to God. And being his word, truth never returns to him void. Thus he makes the people who hear it wood, and he makes his word a fire, and it devours. The word accomplishes the purpose to which God sends it. For indeed he sent it for the salvation of some, that they might receive instruction and correction. And he sent the word for the damnation of others, that hearing they might hear and not understand.