Soul Disease

Soul Disease

Read Jeremiah 46:1–52:34

25. “The Lord has opened his armory and brought out weapons to vent his fury. The terror that falls upon the Babylonians will be the work of the Sovereign Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
26. Yes, come against her from distant lands. Break open her granaries. Crush her walls and houses into heaps of rubble. Destroy her completely, and leave nothing!
27. Destroy even her young bulls—it will be terrible for them, too! Slaughter them all! For Babylon’s day of reckoning has come.
28. Listen to the people who have escaped from Babylon, as they tell in Jerusalem how the Lord our God has taken vengeance against those who destroyed his Temple.
29. Send out a call for archers to come to Babylon. Surround the city so none can escape. Do to her as she has done to others, for she has defied the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.” Jeremiah 50:25-29

Vaccinations have given the world a prevention for several deadly diseases, most notably, polio, smallpox, whooping cough, mumps, and diphtheria. Also, common antibiotics have all but eliminated the threat from bacterial diseases such as bubonic plague and strep throat. Death has fewer weapons in its arsenal, it appears, so scientists are going after the rest of them, including the biggest ones: cancer and AIDS. Though cures for these have proven much more difficult to discover, hope runs high. Medical scientists have succeeded before; surely they’ll do it again. After all, medical science can do anything, right?

Not all diseases focus their attack on the body—some target the soul. Pride, for instance, is one of these diseases, and the final section of Jeremiah’s prophecies concerns Babylon, a country infected with pride. Will we ever understand how much damage this sin can cause? Or will we always see it as a natural right? As you read this section, check your life for pride.

Pride, or arrogance, was Babylon’s characteristic sin (Jeremiah 50:32). At best, pride is an oversight—a failure to recognize our total dependence on God for everything (life, health, and every skill). At worst, pride is spitting in the face of the one who created us.

We depend on God for our very lives. Only a humble acknowledgment of this makes any sense at all. That is why God resists the proud (see James 4:6). Because of sin, we naturally want to hold on to our pride, but there are steps we can take to overcome it by God’s power and grace.