The Hammering Word: Breaking Down Walls
He was speaking about false prophets in that passage. He criticized them because they spoke soft words meant to placate the people. In other words, they were telling the people what they wanted to hear.
The Hammering Word: Breaking Down Walls
There have been a lot of hammers in my lifetime. I’ve hammered nails into boards, stakes into the ground, and wedges into tight spaces. I’ve used hammers to chisel wood, tap hubcaps, unclog pipes, and adjust a setting or two. I have hammers, gavels, mallets, mauls, ball-peen hammers that shape metal—and even a meat tenderizer.
But Jeremiah meant none of those things when he referred to God’s Word as a hammer. What did he have in mind? Read and ponder:
Jeremiah 23:29
“Is not My word like fire?” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer which shatters a rock?”
Yes, in case you’re wondering, I have actually used a hammer to shatter rocks. Apparently, Jeremiah was familiar with the idea, too.
So what rock is Jeremiah talking about? It helps to know that he was speaking about false prophets in that passage. He criticized them because they spoke soft words meant to placate the people. In other words, they were telling the people what they wanted to hear.
Sound familiar?
That sounds a lot like many preachers in our churches today. They aren’t preaching the Word—they’re preaching their words. Do you see the difference? They aren’t hearing from God; they’re speaking their own words in His place.
The pulpit was never meant to be a platform for man’s opinions or ideas. The pulpit is where rocks are shattered. My words might be true, even eloquent and poignant, but they don’t shatter anything. That only happens when the Spirit-filled, God-sent, life-changing Word of God pounds away at our hearts. That’s when rocks are broken.
And you know the rocks I’m talking about.
Ezekiel described our hearts in much the same way Jeremiah did. The two prophets actually knew each other, and both recognized the same problem in mankind: our hearts have become stone.
Now let me make it personal. Your heart needs to be softened to allow God to work in you. That’s what the hammer is for—and a preacher without the Bible is hammerless, no matter how polished his delivery may be. Do you see the problem?
The Word hammers at stone hearts. It breaks away the hardness so the fire can reach it—and purify it.
Fire? We’ll talk about that tomorrow.
