“Do not trust deceitful words, chanting, ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD’… Do you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known? Then do you come and stand before me in this house that bears my name and say, ‘We are rescued, so we can continue doing all these detestable acts?’ Has this house, which bears my name, become a den of robbers in your view? Yes, I too have seen it. This is the Lord’s declaration.” 7:4,9-11
The temple is not the church building; one was Old Testament and the other is New Testament. The New Testament temple, where the Holy Spirit dwells, is your body, which is to be a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to Him. We sometimes confuse the temple and the church building and we should be careful (from an interpretive perspective) to distinguish between them. Some churches today (in fact many) are meeting in homes and not in church buildings or places of worship. This is not to say that place isn’t important; place is vital and we experience God in time and place. God cares about place and where we worship, we just need to be careful that we don’t equate the temple in Jeremiah with the church building today.
Yet, having said that, there were a lot of similarities to the religious mistakes that people were making in Jeremiah’s day, and mistakes that people are making today with the church building. The Israelites in Jeremiah’s day had this perspective of the temple as if it was a magical place or a good luck charm. For them, it was a place that held sacred power and could deliver them from danger. Regardless of how wicked they were in their heart, they were sure that God would protect His temple and thus protect all of those who came to the temple and invoked its power (chanting “the temple of the LORD” over and over again). God makes it clear that He cared more about their hearts and their obedience than He did about the temple. They couldn’t live wickedly and worship false gods during the week, and then expect magical protection and blessing on the Sabbath just because they were in the temple.
That sounds a lot like the current view of church today. People divide between the sacred and the secular and believe that how they live their lives Monday through Saturday has nothing to do with what happens on Sunday. Or worse, they actually believe that going to church on Sunday can somehow make up for all that they did the week before. God is not just God on Sunday, and He cares as much about your life and the secret things in your heart on Monday as He does about your worship on Sunday. He is LORD 24/7 and He hears every word you say, sees everything you do, is sitting beside you during every T.V. show you watch and is looking over your shoulder at every website you view. Going to church on Sunday is not a “get out of jail free card” that you can play to excuse every misstep throughout the week. Instead, it is the culmination of a week of devotion where every thought, word, and deed were acts of worship to Him. Yet, we are often way too superstitious; we treat certain phrases (like the blood of Jesus, or the name of Jesus) as if they are magic formulas and we treat certain acts (like going to church, praying or giving) as if they are magic charms that will give us some power or blessing regardless of how we live our lives. He is not a God who can be manipulated. He is the LORD and we are His slaves.
