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HAMMER and FIRE - Maybe you’ve employed the use of “rock, paper, scissors” to settle decisions.  It’s based on the understanding that one thing is superior to another in a given situation. Furthermore, if you like power tools, choosing which one is best for the task at hand can prove challenging. The prophet Jeremiah was surrounded by a lot of people who sounded spiritual but were wind-bags. They were making predictions that were popular and were getting lots of ‘likes’, but they were false. Like all of God’s true prophets, Jeremiah didn’t deviate from the riverbed of revelation formed by centuries of the divine breath moving across God’s creation.  Like his contemporary, Isaiah, they understood the relentless nature of God’s word, charting a course and making a way to bring about what God planned from ancient times. Fire warms, purifies and cleanses. A hammer breaks and subdues its opposition. There is a force that dismantles human pride, demolishes lofty arguments, sifts and silences the vain speculations of the powers. It’s the word of the eternal God. In 2006, a former vice-president became more famous for a documentary entitled, “An Inconvenient Truth”. It was arguably an overstatement, but depending on what a person believes, there remains an ultimate, inconvenient truth that has existed for much longer: “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Habakkuk 2:14)

Can you think of other symbols that signify the forceful nature of God’s word?