{"id":7000,"date":"2015-10-11T00:05:36","date_gmt":"2015-10-11T07:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=7000"},"modified":"2015-10-10T22:00:42","modified_gmt":"2015-10-11T05:00:42","slug":"trusting-the-wrong-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/10\/11\/trusting-the-wrong-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Trusting the Wrong Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>They have lied about the LORD, <br \/>\nAnd said, \u201cIt is not He. <br \/>\nNeither will evil come upon us, <br \/>\nNor shall we see sword or famine. <br \/>\nAnd the prophets become wind, <br \/>\nFor the word is not in them. <br \/>\nThus shall it be done to them.\u201d <br \/>\nTherefore thus says the LORD God of hosts: <br \/>\n\u201cBecause you speak this word, <br \/>\nBehold, I will make My words in your mouth fire, <br \/>\nAnd this people wood, <br \/>\nAnd it shall devour them. <br \/>\nBehold, I will bring a nation against you from afar, <br \/>\nO house of Israel,\u201d says the LORD. <br \/>\n\u201cIt is a mighty nation, <br \/>\nIt is an ancient nation, <br \/>\nA nation whose language you do not know, <br \/>\nNor can you understand what they say. <br \/>\nTheir quiver is like an open tomb; <br \/>\nThey are all mighty men. <br \/>\nAnd they shall eat up your harvest and your bread, <br \/>\nWhich your sons and daughters should eat. <br \/>\nThey shall eat up your flocks and your herds; <br \/>\nThey shall eat up your vines and your fig trees; <br \/>\nThey shall destroy your fortified cities, <br \/>\nIn which you trust, with the sword.  (Jeremiah 5:12-17)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Even smart people can be conned.  The people of Israel were ordinary people, no less intelligent than anyone else.  Nevertheless, the words of the prophets were not the sorts of words they wanted to hear and so instead of heeding God, they listened to words that matched what they wanted God to be saying.  Speaking the truth to power is usually a waste of time.  But God told Jeremiah that he was with him , even though the Israelites dismissed the prophet\u2019s words as nothing but wind.<\/p>\n<p>God\u2019s words could not help but have their effect simply because they were true.   Regardless of whether the people believed them, they happened.  When the Babylonians set fire to Jerusalem, the truth of God\u2019s prophesy was obvious. Of course, believing at that moment of destruction was  believing too late.  <\/p>\n<p>The truth hurts, because reality can be sharp and prickly.  But reality is really all we have.  Building our hopes on the pretty lies we prefer is ultimately disastrous.<\/p>\n<div class='kindleWidget kindleLight' ><img src=\"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/plugins\/send-to-kindle\/media\/white-15.png\" \/><span>Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They have lied about the LORD, And said, \u201cIt is not He. Neither will evil come upon us, Nor shall we see sword or famine. And the prophets become wind, For the word is not in them. Thus shall it &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/10\/11\/trusting-the-wrong-thing\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7000"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7000"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7002,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7000\/revisions\/7002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}