In days of old, ladies who wore long dresses would lift them up past their ankles when they were walking near a mud puddle or climbing up some stairs. One reason why they did this was so they would not trip and fall; but another reason was to keep their clothing nice and clean. In order to keep the hem of their dresses from getting filthy, they had to put forth some effort in holding them up.
In Jeremiah 13:1-11 the symbolism behind holding up one’s garments will be discussed through Jeremiah’s use of the visual aid of a sash or waistband. What we will come to find out is that the effort put forth in holding up one’s clothes represents a willingness to labor for the Lord, and letting ones clothes drag along the ground is symbolic of laziness and a lack of zeal to work in God’s kingdom. Let’s take a look at this passage and see what we can learn about our relationship with God. Afterwards we will come to the realization that we either have a close relationship with the Lord or we have a soiled faith.
A Soiled and Dirty Sash (vv. 1-7)
1 Thus the Lord said to me: “Go and get yourself a linen sash, and put it around your waist, but do not put it in water.” 2 So I got a sash according to the word of the Lord, and put it around my waist. 3 And the word of the Lord came to me the second time, saying, 4 “Take the sash that you acquired, which is around your waist, and arise, go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole in the rock.” 5 So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me. 6 Now it came to pass after many days that the Lord said to me, “Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take from there the sash which I commanded you to hide there.” 7 Then I went to the Euphrates and dug, and I took the sash from the place where I had hidden it; and there was the sash, ruined. It was profitable for nothing.
In verse 1 the Lord told Jeremiah to take up a linen sash and put it around his waist. This sash, that some translations call a girdle, was the Hebrew hagora, which was a “belt or waistband . . . People at work commonly tucked up their clothes into their girdle [or sash], as is done in the East today,”(1) in order to keep their clothes from getting stepped on. The spiritual symbolism of tucking up one’s clothes is an image of readiness and a willingness to labor for the Lord (cf. Luke 12:35-48).
We read in verse 4 that Jeremiah was supposed to take the girdle off from around his waist. This action was symbolic of the wandering heart of Judah (southern Israel) for the people had chosen to stray from the Lord and serve foreign gods and idols. They left the warm intimacy of a relationship with the Lord for the coldness of graven stone images, and they chose to let their garments of faith down to follow the shallow religions of other nations.
We also see in verse 1 that the Lord told Jeremiah not to put the sash in water. This action represented an unwashed cloth, “signifying the moral filth of His people, like the literal filth of a garment worn constantly next to the skin, without being washed.”(2) Dirt and filth are commonly used as illustrations of sin in a person’s life, and through the prophet Jeremiah the Lord was telling Judah that she was completely covered in the dirt of sin.
In verses 4 and 5 the Lord commanded Jeremiah to take the sash to the Euphrates River and bury it in a hole in the rock. Commentator James Smith says that a trip to the Euphrates would have been a 300-350 mile trek in one direction.(3) This long journey was symbolic of the great distance that God’s people had strayed from Him in their relationship.
“The reference [to the Euphrates River] might be to Judah’s acceptance of Assyrian religion, as much as to the threat of exile in Babylon.”(4) We know that as a result of Judah’s disobedience, the Lord later allowed His people to be taken captive by the Babylonians and carried off, thus the hole mentioned in verse 4 could represent the prisons into which the Jews were to be thrown.(5)
Whenever we stray from the Lord we tend to feel like we are in a dark and muddy hole in the ground like the sash was. For example, when King Saul was rejected as King of Israel for straying from the Lord, he fled and hid from David’s men in a cave (1 Samuel 24:3), which was basically a hole in the ground. While he was there David almost decided to take Saul’s life (1 Samuel 24:4), showing us that we are on the edge of destruction whenever we disobey the Lord.
If we turn our backs to Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world, we will wind up in total darkness and we will stumble helplessly along until we eventually fall and perish. Romans 6:23 provides the warning that sin only leads to death and destruction, so we had better be careful. The sin that the people of Judah had committed was losing their love for the Lord and His work.
In verse 6 we read that after many days Jeremiah was commanded to retrieve the sash from the hole in the rock. The phrase “after many days” refers to the ample time “given for the [sash] to become unfit for use. So, in the course of time, the Jews became corrupted by the heathen idolatries all around, so as to cease to be witnesses of [the Lord].”(6) Straying from the Lord doesn’t happen all at once. We commit one sin here and another sin there, and we don’t even realize that we are slowly drifting further and further away from the Lord. Sin just creeps up on us until we are so distant from the Lord that we must go through extreme purification and chastisement (like the Babylonian exile) in order to be restored.
Warren Wiersbe summarizes these verses by stating, “For years, the leaders of Judah had turned to Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon for help, instead of turning to the Lord, and this ‘help’ had only defiled them and made them ‘good for nothing’ in God’s sight. Jeremiah was showing them that their ‘flirting’ with the pagan nations was only alienating them further from the Lord and that it would ultimately end in national ruin.”(7) The Babylonian exile was God’s process of purification of the dirty garments of faith of the nation of Judah, for we read in Malachi 3:2 that it would purify His people as if it were launderer’s soap.
A Soiled and Dirty People (vv. 8-11)
8 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 9 “Thus says the Lord: ‘In this manner I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10 This evil people, who refuse to hear My words, who follow the dictates of their hearts, and walk after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be just like this sash which is profitable for nothing. 11 For as the sash clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me,’ says the Lord, ‘that they may become My people, for renown, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear’.”
In these verses the Lord revealed to Jeremiah that the sash of which He spoke did indeed represent the country of Judah. In verse 11 God said that Judah was seen as a beautiful and glorious sash when the people clung closely to Him, but in verse 10 we see that Judah became an ugly and filthy sash because the people refused to follow after the Lord and went and sought other gods. The sash was in essence loosened and had fallen to the ground, representing a fallen faith and a fallen desire to serve the Lord.
In Luke 12:35-48 Jesus told His disciples that they should never give up on the day of His return and become idle in their labors for the kingdom. They were never supposed to lose hope, let their sashes loose and their garments down, and blow out their lamps and slumber. They were supposed to always be about the Lord’s work, for they knew not the day or hour when the master would return. If the master returned and the servants were caught off guard, then they would be beaten until they had many stripes upon their back. In the passage from Luke, letting one’s sash loose represented a fallen faith, just as it did in Jeremiah’s prophecy.
We fall in our faith in the Lord whenever we completely disregard God’s wishes in order to follow our own desires. If our sashes are tightly wrapped around our waists and our garments tucked up ready for labor in God’s kingdom, then we might be about the Great Commission of making disciples of all nations, baptizing people in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching people to observe God’s commands (Matthew 28:19-20). However, if we become idle, let our sashes loose, let our garments down and pursue our own desires, then we might go golfing or fishing rather than worshipping the Lord in church on Sunday morning.
Whenever we become idle in kingdom business to pursue our own gain then we have loosened our sashes and our garments have fallen to the ground and become soiled. In other words our faith is soiled – soiled in the filthy sins of apathy and selfishness. Instead of serving the Lord we, like Judah, serve idols. We serve the idol of our job; we serve the idol of money; we serve the idol of recreation with our new boat and golf clubs; we serve the idol of time by hording it unto ourselves; and the list can go on and on. Anything that we devote more attention to than God becomes an idol, and we have many idols as citizens of one of the wealthiest nations in the world.
If we are abiding in a close relationship with the Lord then we are like a sash bound tightly around the Lord’s waist. Since a sash serves the purpose of keeping up one’s garments for work, then this means our faith is demonstrated by our labor in the kingdom. In James 2:17 we are told, “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Works do not save us, but our salvation is evident by whether or not we work for the Lord; and works are an expression of our gratitude for God’s grace, and an expression of our genuine love and concern for others.
In the book of Revelation, the Lord spoke of a church known as “The Dead Church,” which did not labor in the kingdom. He said it claimed to be alive, but He knew its works and it was truly dead (Revelation 3:1). The Lord stated of “The Dead Church,” in Revelation 3:4, “You have a few names . . . who have not defiled their garments.” The Lord considers our faith to be as filthy rags when we don’t use it for His glory (Isaiah 64:6).
Revelation 3:4 continues to say something encouraging for those of us who do actually use our garments of faith for the Lord. We read that those who have not defiled their garments “shall walk with [the Lord] in white, for they are worthy.” If we are faithful unto God then we shall one day receive a brand new garment of white when we stand before the Lord in glory!
Time of Reflection
What we have learned this evening is that in order to exhibit our faithfulness unto the Lord we must keep our sash of devotion tied up tight and close to the Lord, and keep our garment of faith tucked up and ready for work in the kingdom. If we tire of God’s work, let our garment down to pursue our own pleasures, then we will become stained with the filth of sin; and as a result, we will be headed into spiritual bondage. If we remain true to the Lord, and keep ourselves busy by winning souls for the kingdom, then one day we will receive a brand new garment of white in heaven.
There are some people who believe they can gain salvation and entrance into God’s kingdom through works alone. They fail to realize that works are a byproduct of faith in Jesus Christ, and that faith in Jesus is the only ticket to heaven. Isaiah 64:6 says, “All our righteousnesses are like filthy rags,” meaning that all the works we do that make us “appear” righteous cannot really make us righteous.
Without faith in Jesus we will still be wearing garments stained with sin, and when we work for the kingdom without being saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, then we do it all in vain. Jesus said in Matthew 7:22-23, “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
If you want to have eternal life, and a righteousness that is truly acceptable to God, then you must confess His Son, Jesus Christ, as your personal Lord and Savior.
NOTES
(1) The New Bible Dictionary (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1962).
(2) Fausset Jamieson, A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997)
(3) James E. Smith, The Major Prophets (Joplin, Missouri: College Press Publishing Company, 1992), 227; J. F. Walvoord, The Bible Knowledge Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1983-1985).
(4) D. A. Carson, New Bible Commentary (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1970).
(5) Jamieson.
(6) Ibid.
(7) Warren Wiersbe, Be Decisive (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1996).
