FOR THE CUSTOMS OF THE PEOPLE ARE FUTILE
During the reign of Josiah, king of Judah the word of the Lord came to the people of God through the prophet Jeremiah. God’s people were divided into two separate kingdoms (nations) and neither one did well in following the Law of Moses. They were not longer a people that truly loved God but had become a people that loved the ways of the world represented by the nations around them. Jeremiah’s challenge was to bring the people back to God spiritually through the preaching of the truth. “Hear the word which the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel…” (Jeremiah 10:1). The people of God needed the truth, the word of the Lord, to bring them back in fellowship with God. One of the main problems that God’s people had was being enamored with the ways of the other nations and imitating their ways.
Jeremiah warned the people of God “Do not learn the way of the Gentiles…for the customs of the peoples are futile” (Jeremiah 10:2-3). Israel saw what they thought were new and exciting customs in the other nations and they wanted to be a part of that. However, Jeremiah said that the customs of the godless nations were futile. The definition of the word futile is “incapable of producing any useful result, pointless”. The Lord had in mind as he spoke through Jeremiah that the customs from a spiritual perspective and under the umbrella of truth, the Law of Moses, were completely incapable of producing any useful spiritual result.
Exactly what were some of the customs of the nations? Jeremiah said, “For one cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the as. They decorate it with silver and gold, they fasten it with nails and hammers so that it will not topple. They are upright, like a palm tree, and they cannot speak. They must be carried because they cannot go by themselves” (Jeremiah 10:3-5). Jeremiah’s point was that the nations make and worship their own gods and have rejected the one true God. 12-
Instead of following after the customs of the nations Jeremiah says “Thus you shall say to them (the nations). The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth…” (Jeremiah 10:11). “He (the Lord) has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and has stretched out the heavens at His discretion” (Jeremiah 10:12).
Even though the church of Christ and individual Christians in the 21st century may not be faced with the same kind of idolatry as in the days of Jeremiah there certainly is now a culture with customs that are futile. Customs that draw one farther from Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Customs that draw one farther from the sound doctrine of the apostles (Acts 2:42). Customs that draw one into denominationalism and or bringing it into the Lord’s church (Galatians 1:6-9, Jude 3). Customs that become the new tradition in the church rather than a “thus saith the Lord”.
The people of Jeremiah’s day regarded him as old fashion, conservative, out of touch, and probably variety of other things, but it was the people that in their desire to be popular in their culture had gone away from God, and the things that they followed after and began to practice were labeled by the Lord as futile. May the Lord’s church continue to follow the way, the truth, and the life so as to lead others to Christ.