The people declare that they were safe because they had the Temple in their midst, but God calls their assumptions useless and profitless (verse 8). In verses 4 and 8, He says their overt emphasis on the Temple is tantamount to a lie—fatally deceptive. How? Their reliance on the Temple as a supposed guarantor of safety imbued them with false confidence. This illusory sense of security derived from the fact that God had erected His house in their city, and surely, God would not allow His own house to be destroyed! Yet, He asserts that He surely will!
Verses 5-11 list a number of the people's sins, predominately transgressions against fellow men, in which is a remarkable connection: Judah's seemingly unshakable trust in the Temple fostered an abuse of those who were most vulnerable and least able to defend themselves. They felt so secure in God's favor of them—after all, they had the Temple!—they were careless in judging between a man and his neighbor. It did not seem to bother them at all to oppress the stranger, the widow, and the fatherless, or to shed innocent blood. To them, stealing, murdering, adultery, and lying were inconsequential because, again, they had the Temple. Idolatry also receives mention, so plainly, their relationship with God was deplorable.
God makes an association that most people miss: that abuse in relationships occurs when a person trusts in the wrong thing. Verses 9 and 10 show that the people were behaving as if they had a free pass, a get-out-of-jail-free card. They were sinning against God, apparently believing that He had given them license to live however they pleased. They took the presence of the Temple among them as God's complete approval of them and the course of their lives.
Their confidence was in their ability to look up and see a magnificent building of stone, cedar wood, gold, silver, and bronze, and know that God was with them. That God dwelt in their city meant more to them than where they stood with Him or whether He was pleased with their direction and conduct. Unwittingly, the Temple, a mere building, became more real to the people than the God it was meant to glorify. By placing their trust and security in the Temple rather than in God, the Temple became an idol—and God destroyed it.
We can see a similar thing in our time and circumstances. If we substitute the phrase "church of God" for "Temple" in the stories of Israel and Judah, many correlations come into view. God's words against Israel and Judah serve as powerful warnings to us, as we are all aware of instances where greater emphasis has been placed on the church rather than on God. To some, the church—whether an organization or the believers with whom we were fellowshipping—became more real or important than the God they were supposed to be coming to know. In many cases, a tremendous amount of security came from the fact of being "in the church." Yet, as we have seen, such confidence is deceptive and misplaced.
In some corners, church leaders are even making what amount to "guarantees" of safety and deliverance during Jacob's Trouble and the Day of the Lord based on where a person attends Sabbath services and sends his tithes, rather than on his relationship with God. Idolatry in the form of trusting in a structure commissioned by God—whether physical or spiritual—is bad enough, but encouraging others to do likewise is worthy of even greater condemnation (see Matthew 5:19; Luke 17:1-2; James 3:1).
Presuming that we will be "kept from the hour of trial" (Revelation 3:10) because we have reasoned that our church is "Philadelphian" is little different than concluding that Jerusalem was unassailable because it contained the Temple. The truth is, though, that if one's relationship with God is not on good terms, nothing else really matters.
