A Heart for God

Most of us have heard someone share one of the following fruit phrases.

One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel. Or you can quote this slide.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

There’s always one rotten apple in the batch.

She’s the apple of my eye.

Well, today, we’re going to listen in as God talks with Jeremiah by providing him with an object lesson. However, it’s not with apples, but rather with figs.

Brothers and sisters, while we walk this earth, we don’t want to be identified with that which is rotten or no good. The danger we face is, if we don’t take care of what we have, there is the tendency to become rotten. At the same time, if we do take care of what we have and who we are, we can identify with that basket of good figs, which we’ll be reading about in Jeremiah 24.

Today, I want to encourage you to Cultivate a heart for God.

Time for a Heart-to-Heart. - 24.1-3

Jeremiah 24:1–3 (NASB95)

After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the officials of Judah with the craftsmen and smiths from Jerusalem and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me: behold, two baskets of figs set before the temple of the Lord! One basket had very good figs, like first-ripe figs, and the other basket had very bad figs which could not be eaten due to rottenness. Then the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “Figs, the good figs, very good; and the bad figs, very bad, which cannot be eaten due to rottenness.”

If we think back, we remember that Jehoiachin, or Jeconiah, was taken into captivity and exile by Nebuchadnezzar, along with many others from Judah. If the truth be told, he probably was far better off in captivity than those who had remained in Jerusalem.

After Jehoiachin and the others had been taken away, Jeremiah was given a supernatural vision. The word for “showed” in verse 1 verifies that it was not a literal showing, but a supernatural revealing. For those who might be confused about this “vision,” it is necessary to remember that poor figs would not be allowed to be offered to the Lord, according to Deuteronomy 26.

Jeremiah is shown two baskets of figs. First, Jeremiah sees choice figs in one of the baskets. According to the book, Manners and Customs of Bible Lands, fig trees in the Middle East normally produce figs three times per year. Those which are ripe the earliest are the juiciest and quite often considered a delicacy.

The second basket had figs which were so bad, they could not even be eaten.

This is exactly what Jeremiah had revealed to him and how he answered the Lord as to what he saw. Many people today have had vivid dreams and find themselves wondering what exactly their dream could mean. Well, Jeremiah is going to find out from God what this supernatural vision means.

So, we’ll skip down a few verses and look at the bad news first, then we’ll come back and look at the good news.

Bad Figs Equal Bad Hearts. - 24.8-10

Jeremiah 24:8–10 (NASB95)

‘But like the bad figs which cannot be eaten due to rottenness—indeed, thus says the Lord—so I will abandon Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land and the ones who dwell in the land of Egypt. ‘I will make them a terror and an evil for all the kingdoms of the earth, as a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse in all places where I will scatter them. ‘I will send the sword, the famine and the pestilence upon them until they are destroyed from the land which I gave to them and their forefathers.’ ”

The bad figs were basically beyond salvaging. There was not any hope for them. This was the same for Zedekiah, the last of the kings of Judah, as well as all those who followed him. It didn’t matter any longer whether they were going to stay in Jerusalem or flee to Egypt. They had been told to go to Babylon, but they rejected God’s counsel regarding that, as well. God was going to make sure they were going to pay the consequences.

We must remember that during this whole time, Jeremiah had been continually calling upon the people to repent. We have seen that time and time again, God offered them chance after chance to simply repent and turn back to the Lord.

However, just as in most situations where immediate consequences are not experienced and felt, the people developed an attitude of arrogance and became hardened in their spirits. They felt as though they were beyond the reach of being held accountable before the Lord for their actions. They may have wondered what had they actually done that was so bad. As well, they were probably thinking they were okay since there were no immediate judgments on them. The sad reality was that the people ended up becoming more wicked than before.

Verse 9 appears to quite clearly show that the Jewish people were going to be scattered all over the world, “a taunt and a curse in all places where I will scatter them,” not just banished temporarily to Babylon. Little did they understand the powerful impact their disobedience would have upon their families even centuries later. We can observe this even in our time with the blatant animosity and hatred displayed by many in the world community toward the Jewish people.

There was not any hope held for those who had blatantly defied God in this time of Zedekiah’s rule.

As we consider the situation, we can quite readily see that the leaders, who had been appointed by God to lead His children, did not have a heart for God. Their heart was for political power. Their heart was for the pursuit of pleasure. Their heart was immersed in pagan practices. You would be correct in saying that their hearts were so polluted with evil, that there was no place left for God.

But they were still God’s chosen people. They did not cease to be Jews. However, God was going to show them and the watching world their true identity and value. They were worthless in His sight. They were like a bunch of rotten figs.

In our world today, it can be quite easy for the Christian to become cavalier in our commitment to Christ.

We can become apathetic in our attitudes toward God.

We can become lazy in our love relationship with God.

We can become bored with our Bible reading.

We can take on a self-assured piety in our prayer life, while talking only to ourselves.

Our service for Christ can be substituted by busy activities which are designed to look good, but serve no eternal purpose.

When our walk with the Lord takes on these characteristics or others like them, we are either dangerously close or have fallen into the basket of bad figs. We will have lost our heart for God.

However, let me finish this message with good news.

Good Figs Equal New Hearts. - 24.4-7

Jeremiah 24:4–7 (NASB95)

Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans. ‘For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land; and I will build them up and not overthrow them, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. ‘I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.

In these verses, the Lord tells Jeremiah that the good figs represent the exiles from Judah. They were the ones already in captivity in that horrible foreign land of Babylon. Most likely, they may not have felt that their captivity was a blessing at the time, but God had promised to watch over them and protect them. He also promised that He would bring them back and establish them.

What I find most thrilling to my heart, and I’m sure it was to Jeremiah’s as well, is found in Jeremiah 24:7 “‘I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.”

God was going to enable them to turn to the Lord in spiritual conversion, if you will. They would repent of their idolatry and rebellion against the Lord. They would once again follow after the Lord with all of their heart. It was almost as if they had been taken to a secluded location until they had been completely cured.

Now to the average person, especially if they had not been listening to what God was saying, those Jews living in exile looked as if they were being punished. The reality, however, is that they were being protected. In fact, they were going to be spared the horrible destruction experience that would take place when Nebuchadnezzar came back the third time, totally destroying the city and all that the Jews held dear. Plus, those exiles in Babylon had a fantastic Bible scholar and instructor by the name of Daniel. Can you imagine the incredible influence he must have been in the lives of the exiles?!

Outward appearance does not always stand up to God’s scrutiny. What we and others may think, is not always what God thinks. What a testimony to God’s mercy and grace. God, in His sovereignty sent away this particular group, knowing their future and their upcoming desire to turn their hearts toward Him. They would have a heart for God. They would be totally committed toward God.

Conclusion

My friend, maybe today you see yourself as a fig, but you’re not sure if you are a bad fig or a good fig. Maybe your heart has not really been on the same wavelength or frequency as God’s. In fact, you sometimes may find yourself wondering if your prayer frequency has been cut off because of all you may have done against Him. Or maybe you know that there is an awful lot of static going on in your life because you’re not tuned in to Him the way you should be.

In our modern technological age, the human physical heart can be replaced if it is worn out or defective. If the arteries are a bit plugged, they can be cleaned. Sometimes simply a change in diet and exercise can enable heart patients to get on the road to recovery.

My friends, you are here today by God’s appointment. We are so blessed to live in an age of grace where we can have another chance.

If your heart does not belong to Jesus Christ, let Him give you a new heart. Allow Him to be the One Who watches over you and protects you and supplies you with what you need to live for Him.

Maybe you’ve already turned your life over to Jesus, but you’ve allowed a lot of the crustiness of the world to corrode your life, you’ve let spiritual laziness, slothfulness, and bitterness clog up your life. Allow Jesus Christ to cleanse you and continually purify you for Himself.

Do you have a heart for God? Do you know for certain that you belong to Jesus? Don’t be like the individuals represented by the basket of bad figs. They assumed everything was fine because they looked at life from their self-centered perspective. They didn’t want to look at life from God’s holy perspective.

We truly want to cultivate a heart for God.