Jeremiah 26 - Remaining faithful under threat.

This chapter probably follows chronologically after 7:15. However, it was placed here for a reason. It is in a sense giving a summary of God's dealings with the people and His intentions. The previous section has just told of the wrath of God that is coming upon the nation. 

Jeremiah was instructed by God to speak to the people. He stood in the courtyard of the Lord's house, ie the temple. The people had a superstitious attachment to the temple, so God went to where they were, where they expected to meet God, and they would indeed hear the word of the Lord there, but they would reject it. 

God's hope was that the people would listen to His word, repent, and so be saved. However, if they did not pay heed then the temple would be destroyed. Any "dwelling place" of God, any Christian denomination, church grouping or Christian project, is only good if it is a place where people listen to the Lord, trust the Lord and obey the Lord. 

Instead of repenting the priests, prophets and people seized Jeremiah because he was prophesying the destruction of the temple. There are great similarities here to the way they treated Jesus. The officials then came and decided that Jeremiah should be sentenced to death.

Jeremiah entrusted himself to the Lord and continued to give the same message. Notice that he does not "demand his rights". 

In verse 16 there seems to be a relenting of the people. Perhaps there was a recognition somewhere in their conscience that Jeremiah actually was speaking the word of God. They remembered that Micah had prophesied similar things. Some recognised the mistake they were in danger of making and recalled how Hezekiah had reacted. Notice the consistency of Scripture, and how the whole Bible hangs together. 

Jeremiah was not the only prophet of God, Uriah was another faithful prophet. He too was threatened with death. Uriah fled to Egypt but Judah sent Elnathan to capture him. Uriah was captured, returned to Jerusalem and killed. Jeremiah did not flee and was not killed. God is able to protect us in the midst of opposition.

Jeremiah 25:15-38 - The wrath of God

The wrath of God is not a popular subject, indeed even many "Christians" seek to pretend it doesn't exist. This is a foolish line to follow. There are two key aspects to the wrath of God: (i) it is a passionate hatred of sin and all its consequences; (ii) it is utterly rational and reasonable. We often confuse the wrath of God with a fit of rage, but this is not what the wrath of God is. The truly frightening thing about the wrath of God is that it is utterly reasonable. Moreover, as has been made clear in Jeremiah, the wrath of God comes only after many years of patiently waiting, giving the people the chance to repent. 

Those who seek to ignore or gloss over the wrath of God are ignoring and glossing over the reality of our sin, of its disastrous effects on us and on those around us. Indeed if we do this we are acting just like the religious leaders of Jeremiah's day. See what happened to them and take warning.

Now here the wrath of God is going not just to Judah, but to many nations. Many of the nations in the region are named, Sheshak (v26) is Babylon.

Verse 29 reminds one of 1 Peter 4:17, judgement begins in the house of God, but it does not end there. A storm of judgement would sweep across the whole earth. 

Jeremiah 25:1-14 - Without excuse

Jeremiah speaks to the people in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. He starts by reminding them that he has been prophesying to them for several years, but they haven't paid a blind bit of notice.

Moreover, Jeremiah was not the first prophet God had sent, He had sent many prophets, each one had been ignored. People often talk about the problem of hell, but it will transpire on the last day that no one is without excuse. They had had ample warning. Each prophet gave the same message, repent and believe.

The people had brought harm upon themselves.

It was because of the disobedience of the people that God was going to summon the Babylonians to attack and destroy Jerusalem.  Joy and gladness would be banished from the land, the place would become desolate.

However, even in the midst of this severe judgement there is hope and the ultimate destination is not Babylon. The captivity would last for seventy years. At that time Babylon would be punished for her guilt.

Jeremiah 24 - Figs

The defeat of Jerusalem has now taken place and Jehoiachin, along with his officials and many skilled workers and craftsmen, have been carried off into exile.

The Lord gives Jeremiah a vision. The vision is of two baskets of figs, one very good, the other bad beyond recovery. 

Surprisingly it is those who have been carried off into exile who are better off. The Lord will look after them and eventually bring them back to Jerusalem to rebuild without tearing down. He will also give them a new heart. "They will be my people, and I will be their God". This is a refrain repeated in various books of the Old Testament. 

Sometimes we suffer an uprooting in our lives, a disruption that seems devastating. But God is doing this to give us a new heart and to bring us to a place where we will be permanently established. Note that even during the disrupting times, during the suffering, God is still watching over us. Note also that the end result is an everlasting change. We need to understand that God is leading us to permanency, to immortality. 

Zedekiah sought to remain in Jerusalem and sought help from Egypt. This would do him no good, nor any others who stood by him. There comes a time when we need to accept change.

Jeremiah 23:9-40 - A warning to false prophets

Now we return to the deluge of judgement, this time aimed at the false prophets. False prophets have a section or two of their own in most of the major prophets. Jeremiah is appalled at the state of the nation.

A prophet was meant to deliver the word of God, to tell the nation how they were doing compared to the Law. Instead they acted unjustly and plotted evil. "Prophet and priest are godless". Sadly the same could be said about sizeable chunks of the church today. Evil even happened within the temple. In the same way evil happens within the leadership of the church, but disaster will come, they will not get away with it for ever.

In Samaria (the northern kingdom) they even prophesied by Baal. In Jerusalem prophets committed adultery. Evil ran throughout Israel, north and south. 

So the Lord instructs the people not to listen to the prophets. For they spoke out of their own minds, not out of the mind of God. They prophesied peace when there was no peace. In charismatic churches we do need to be careful about prophecy. It can easily be used just to tell people what they want to hear. At the same time, note that the answer is not to abandon prophecy, but to prophecy properly. 

A true prophet stands in the council of God and proclaims God's word. This does not just mean new revelations, or "personal words", but includes applying the written word of God, assessing current events in the light of God's written word. A prophet needs to be most careful that he does not prophecy falsely.

Jeremiah 23:1-8 - A branch line

Calling someone a "Jeremiah" means they are someone who is always bringing doom and gloom, and given all that Jeremiah has been saying we can understand that, though this does rather neglect the fact that what he was saying was true. However, in the midst of all this is a message of salvation. We have actually seen hints of it here and there, though they tend to be quickly overwhelmed by the tsunami of judgement. Here we get one of the more explicit salvation passages. The general message is that we need to face up to the truth of the "human condition" before we can receive God's salvation. That is why we need to repent and believe.

This section actually starts with more judgement, this time on the shepherds, the leaders. They were meant to care for the flock, instead they were destroying and scattering then. So God would pore judgement upon the leaders. However, He would also take care of the flock Himself. This is why the good shepherd passages in the gospels are so important. Jesus is the fulfilment of the good shepherd prophecies in the Old Testament.

God Himself would gather a remnant from the nations and bring them back to their home. They would then be fruitful and increase. Sometimes sections of the church focus over much on being a remnant. We may start off as a remnant, but God's ultimate plan is always to be fruitful and increase, just as it was right back in Genesis. This has not changed!

The sheep will no longer be terrified nor will any go missing. Again we can appreciate the significance of Jesus saying He would not lose of any of those given to Him, and of the parable of the lost sheep.

Branch is a messianic title. He would be in the line of David and would rule wisely. He will bring salvation and safety.  He will called "The Lord our Righteous Saviour". 

This salvation that He will bring will be infinitely greater than anything that has gone before.

Jeremiah 22 - Speaking truth to power

Jeremiah is now sent to the centre of political power in Judah, to the king's palace. First the king is reminded that he sits on David's throne, a reminder of the heritage he has and the faithfulness of David.

"Do what is just and right". Any power we are given is the power to serve, in all positions of authority we are to what is "just and right", and we will be called to account one day. Rulers are also to protect the weak and certainly ensure that they do not do wrong to them. This is reminiscent of Micah's words (Mic 6:8). If rulers do this then they will prosper, but if they do not then disaster will come.

Great destruction would come and the nations would ask why the land was now desolate. They would also know the answer, because Judah abandoned her covenant with the Lord.

Shallum (v11) is Jehoahaz. He had been taken off to Egypt, and would never return.

Then the king is castigated for building wealth out of unrighteousness and exploiting workers. We need to take on board the whole word of God. Those on the "right" focus on some aspects of the word of God, claiming they have God's word on their side, but ignore many other sections of God's word. But those on the "left" talk an equal amount of nonsense, focusing on other aspects of the word of God, claiming they have God's word on their side, but ignoring many other sections of God's word.

The leaders had become corrupt, seeing power and authority as a means or personal aggrandisement. We see the same phenomenon today. Perhaps the clearest example is the bankers and other financiers who somehow find it impossible to do their job unless they are paid millions. All they do is demonstrate how pathetic they are, and reveal a true poverty.

The king would suffer much judgement, and would not be missed nor mourned by the people.

Jeremiah 21 - Zedekiah

The events in this section probably happened at some time later than those in the immediately preceding part.

Jeremiah had been warning of the coming attack for a significant amount of time, to much ridicule and persecution. Now the attack is beginning. So Zedekiah calls on Jeremiah to pray for the city, hoping that the Lord would rescue Judah as He had on many occasions in the past. This is typical of human thinking. We ignore and actively reject God for many years, then when trouble arises we turn to Him, thinking that He will answer us.

The Lord tells Jeremiah to give Zedekiah a reply in no uncertain terms. The attack would happen and there would be much destruction. Indeed it would be the Lord Himself fighting against Jerusalem.  

Yet even now there is the chance of salvation. The people are offered a choice, life or death. They are commanded to abandon the city. This would be the only way to escape. It was because he offered this advice that Jeremiah was considered a traitor.

In verse 11 onwards they offered one last chance. They must administer justice an help the oppressor. Yet, this is offered in a way that God sees judgement as inevitable.

All these events happened. People foolishly talk about the "problem" of hell and a God of love. The cross clearly demonstrates the reality and depth of God's love. Historical events like this demonstrate that God can and will execute judgement. It comes only after holding out the offer of repentance for many, many years, but it will come.

Jeremiah 20 - A spiritual roller coaster

The persecution of Jeremiah continued and he was put in the stocks by the priest Pashhur. Jeremiah was put in the stocks, and the reason for this was that Jeremiah had been prophesying about the coming destruction of Jerusalem. Jeremiah was unrepentant and warned Pashhur that he himself would become a terror to himself. The destruction would come. The people, including Pashhur, would be carried off to Babylon.

Earlier (Jer 15:18) Jeremiah had spoken of God as being a deceptive brook. Here he says that God has deceived him. Once again we get an insight into the heart of the prophet. He has been faithfully carrying out the task given to him by God, despite all the opposition. Yet inside he is experiencing all sorts of turmoil. On the one hand he feels that the more he carries out God's word the greater the suffering gets. Yet God's word is burning within him and he has to let it out. Giving up isn't an option either.

His friends are of no help either. It is good to have close friends, but there is a limit to what even they can do. "But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior". Faith starts to arise in Jeremiah. Difficult times force us to draw deep on the power of the Lord, to put our trust more and more in Him, to rely more and more on Him, for we are left with no other option. 

This faith lasts for verses 11-13, then in verse 14-18 he falls back into despair. Isn't this roller coaster what we often go through as well? We have this notion that if only we were really good Christians then we would go serenely through life trusting God. It doesn't happen that way, and God is well able to cope with all our ups and downs, with the reality of who we are and what we are like.

Jeremiah 19 - Complete destruction

At the end of the last chapter Jeremiah had called on God to judge the people, now we get the judgement, and the reason for it. Absolute disaster would come upon the people, and the reason for it was that Judah had worshipped foreign gods. Now this was not some fit of pique, but because there is only one true God. Moreover, worshipping false gods has disastrous consequences. In the case of Judah it involved the people sacrificing children. 

So destruction would come upon the people. The city would be devastated, and many would die, becoming carcasses for the birds. They would even end up eating their own children. This would happen because of the severity of the siege on the city.  This actually happened and is recorded in historical records, similar things also happened in AD 70. 

Jeremiah was then to smash the clay jar that he had taken as a demonstration of the utter destruction that was coming. Then Jeremiah stood in the temple courts proclaiming the judgement.

Jeremiah 18 - The Potters house - seeing things as they really are

Note that this is not just a "message", God is giving Jeremiah fundamental understanding. We think that we are masters of our own destiny and of our own lives. This is not true. We are utterly and absolutely dependent upon God for our existence in the first place, and our continued existence. God has the right to do whatever He likes with our lives, until we come to terms with this basic truth we will have no true understanding.

So if God decides that He is going to reshape Israel then He has every right to do so. However, this is not arbitrary. Nations are given the opportunity to repent. If they do so they will be spared. 

You see the people of Judah thought "we have all these promises from God, therefore we will be alright". Now if they had trusted the Lord and worshipped only Him then they would indeed have been alight, but they did not. 

Judah suffered purely because of her own stubbornness. We need to beware that the same cannot be said of us.

Judah was not created to be a people who worship idols, yet that is what they had become. So judgement would come.

The response of the people was to make their sin even worse, they sought to attack Jeremiah. Jeremiah's response is to call on God to exact vengeance upon the people. Now some might say he should have a more "Christian" attitude, but now he understands the frustration of the Lord.

Jeremiah 17:19-27 - Sabbath

This section is very interesting, and also causes us problems. Why is there this emphasis on the Sabbath? Some churches take a very strict attitude towards the Sabbath (though, of course, it has now become Sunday, which does seem to rather weaken the point), most are ambivalent. It should also help us to appreciate something of why so many of the clash points between Jesus and the Pharisees focused on the Sabbath.

Why is the Sabbath so central and so important? The reason, I believe, is because it is a fundamental symbol of whether or not the nation truly relied on God, truly trusted Him. By resting from their labours, and the Sabbath years,they would have demonstrated that they knew it was the Lord who supplied them with all that they needed. By working on the Sabbath, by carrying on in the normal way, they were saying that they really thought it was their own efforts that were paramount.

Now we need to ask ourselves the question. Do we really believe that ultimately it is God who provides? Or, as it says in Psalm 127, unless the Lord builds the house the builders labour in vain?

Now the Pharisees had demonstrated the deceitfulness of man's heart that we read about earlier in this chapter. They turned this God trusting ordinance into a man-centred rule, and so it became ungodly and enslaving instead of liberating. Sadly, we are very good at turning what God intended to bring freedom, into something that is enslaving.

Jeremiah 17:9-18 - The heart of the matter

Verse 9 is a crucial verse for understanding humanity. The human heart is fundamentally deceitful, and beyond cure, that is without the Holy Spirit of course. People are always doing things that surprise us, we can be astonished at the perversity of people at times. Indeed we can sometimes be surprised at the perversity of our own heart. This is the effect of sin in our lives.

But the Lord does know the heart and the mind. Sometimes we deceive ourselves and maybe think we deceive others, but we cannot deceive the Lord. Everyone will receive proper judgement.

The supposedly wise people of the world will ultimately be shown to be fools. 

The Lord is a glorious throne, and He is the place of our sanctuary. The positive side of this is that when we trust in Him we are safe, the converse of this is that of we turn away from the Lord and trust in other things we will indeed be put to shame.

Verse 14 gives the necessary response to this. We need the Lord to heal us. Note that this (as in Isaiah 53) healing is healing from sin, not from disease (though that may well follow as well). This call to the Lord is Jeremiah's call. He is being accused of all sorts of things and mocked for his faith in the Lord (sound familiar?). So he dedicates himself to the Lord and calls on the Lord to protect him. This is what we should do too.

Jeremiah 17:1-8 - Trust in the Lord

I am afraid it is more judgement! The reason is that Judah was much deserving of judgement, just as the whole human race is. Judah's sin was engraved on their hearts and on the alters. Sin is seen in the condition of our hearts and by the things that we do. Even the children were affected by the worship of idols. We often talk about the innocence of children, this is actually a notion without much foundation.

Judah would lose her wealth and her inheritance, and would do so through her own fault.

Verse 5 is crucial and something we should get a hold of. To trust in mortals, in our own strength or in that of other men is folly and brings judgement. Yet think. When you are under pressure, when facing difficulties, what do you feel you must trust in or turn to? There is a very strong urge to think we have to rely on human strength. This is not the way we should go, we need to trust in the Lord. 

In verse 7 we get a change of tone, a recounting of the blessings of those who do trust in the Lord. First we are blessed. Unlike relying on humans, relying on the Lord means we are relying on an everlasting flowing stream of life. We may go through difficult times, but in the midst of them we will experience the Lords' provision. 

Jeremiah 16 - The harsh reality of judgement

Jeremiah is instructed not to marry and have children. The reason is that a terrible time is coming. Sometimes God's leading may seem harsh, but His interest is always for our well being.

Jeremiah is not to mourn either. Now this does seem harsh, but we need to look at this a little more. If hr went to a house of mourning he would effectively be saying "isn't this terrible", but the reality was that the what was happening was God's righteous judgement upon the nation. All would suffer the judgement, rich and poor alike.

Nor was he to join in with celebrations, for celebrations were totally out of place.

The people were so blind that they did not realise what they had done wrong. Jeremiah's actions would make them ask, and he was to tell them that it was because of their sin and idol worship.

However, the judgement was not the end, for a greater salvation was coming, greater than the release form Egypt. They would remember the release from Babylon as a greater release. In fact after the Babylonian return they knew that the promises had not really been fulfilled, there was something more to come (this is known as second temple Judaism). It is all pointing forward to the salvation from sin that Jesus would bring .

The people thought their sins were hidden from God, but He sees all. The judgement on sin must come first. In the same way there is no forgiveness without the cross, no salvation without repentance.

Jeremiah 15 - Judgement and coping with difficulties

The Lord emphasises the inevitability of judgement. Even if Moses or Samuel were praying for them it would do no good. We need to realise that ultimately we are answerable to God and it is God with whom we are dealing. 

Verse 2 is echoed in Revelation 13:10. Then we get the "promise" of four kinds of destroyer. Again there are echoes of this in Revelation. Some months ahead we will be looking at Revelation and it is important to realise how much of the Old Testament prophets Revelation draws upon. Israel would become abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth. As an aside there is an interesting interpretation point here. It seems perfectly reasonable to take "all the kingdoms" to mean the kingdoms in the region, not literally all the kingdoms of the earth as nations in other continents had not heard of Israel. There is much debate about whether Noah's flood was literally global or just an enormous one in a regional scale. I don't think the matter is as clear cut as some would make out.

Anyway, back to the text. Since they had rejected God they were totally alone, without any source of help. 

Verse 11 seems totally out of context, a promise of deliverance in the midst of promises of destruction.

At verse 15 Jeremiah then starts thinking and praying about himself again. We all go through testing times and we need to realise that God knows we find it tough, and He is perfectly able to cope with our weakness and our complaints, However, His answer will not be the answer we expect.

Jeremiah had been as faithful to god as he could be, yet seemed to be suffering much. In verse 18 he is effectively calling God a liar, saying He has let him down. It is perfectly normal to think that God has let us down at times. But be prepared for the answer!

It is Jeremiah who needs to repent. We should complain to God (along with Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Job etc), but we need to be aware that it is God will be proved right and it is us who will need to repent.

Jeremiah must remain faithful to God, and, despite all the pressure, he must ensure that it is the people who turn to him, not he to the people. The church today would do well to heed this message. It is only as we remain faithful to God that we can be sure of deliverance.

Jeremiah 14 - Judgement

Water is vital for life, but we tend to take it for granted in our country. When the siege came water would be very scare. Indeed a tactic of many sieges was to cut off the water supply to the besieged city, and key defence mechanism was to somehow ensure that a supply of water was maintained.  Drought would also come upon the land.

In verse 7 Jeremiah calls on God to have mercy, even though the people were clearly guilty. Jeremiah makes his plea on the grounds of who God is and that His name is attached to the people of Judah.

The Lord refuses. The fundamental fact is that a time will come when judgement cannot and will not be put off any longer. The events foretold by Jeremiah happened, they are recorded in history. In the same way hell and the final judgement will happen. Instead of having silly and futile debates about how can a God of love send people to hell and on the precise nature of hell, we would be far better off focusing on repentance.

Jeremiah is instructed not to pray for the people. Now we should be most wary of making general advice out of this! 

Jeremiah points out to God that all the other "prophets" were saying sword and famine would not happen. It is quite normal for society in general to be totally ignorant of the truth. These false prophets were lying and not speaking God's word. 

It is not clear who is speaking in verse 19-22, but it seems like it is Jeremiah. He still calls on God to be merciful. He still puts his hope in the Lord.

Jeremiah 13 - Judgement is coming

The Lord reinforces to Jeremiah what He is going to do to Judah and Jerusalem. Jeremiah is instructed to get a linen belt and bury it. The a few days later he is sent to get it again, by this time it was completely ruined. In the same way the pride of Judah and Jerusalem would be ruined. When people rebel against God they become proud, they imagine they know better than God and that they can get on fine without Him.

A belt belongs around the waist of someone, Israel belonged around the waist of God. They should have remained close to Him. In the same way, if we are to be what we are meant to be we need to remain close to the Lord. Otherwise we will perish like Jeremiah's belt.

Next God uses a wineskin analogy. Now what is the point of this one, what is God saying? It was obvious that a wineskin should be filled with wine. In the same way it is obvious that a rebellious people should be judged.

This judgement would include the women and children. This offends us, but God's judgement covers all. We object that this cruel. But something could have been done about it. The people could have not rebelled in the first place, then they could have heeded the many warnings and repented. They chose not to. The judgement would be entirely just and the people were to blame, not God.

Jeremiah 12 - Dealing with difficulties - toughening up

One of the features of the book of Jeremiah is that it periodically reveals what was going on inside him. This is one of those occasions. Remember that Jeremiah has just become aware of people plotting against him. He has also just heard God declare that He will punish the plotters (Jer 11:22,23). Yet Jeremiah asks God why do the wicked prosper and the faithless have an easy time of it.

These people talked enough about the name of the Lord, but their hearts were far from the Lord. Jeremiah feels that he is devoted to the Lord and that the Lord should judge these wicked people pretty quickly. 

What is God's answer to this complaint? Jeremiah, you need to toughen up!

Things were not going to get any easier for Jeremiah, the battle had only just begun. This was the easy part! If Jeremiah could not handle these challenges, how would he cope when the going really got tough. Even members of Jeremiah's own family were speaking against him, so he must not trust them. Remember that Jesus warned that there would be times when family members turned against us. 

Then God goes on to explain what His purposes are. Judah had forsaken the Lord, therefore He would forsake them. Judgement would come upon the land. There would be the chance for the people to come back if they repented.

So what are we to make of all this in the light of Jeremiah's trials, and what can we learn about how we should react in difficult circumstances? Well, remember the words of Jesus that we should seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then everything else would be taken care of. Jeremiah was focusing on himself, God was getting him to focus back on the Lord's plan. We need to remember who we are and what we have been called for.

Jeremiah 11 - Inevitable judgement

When the Lord took Israel into the Promised Land He made a covenant with them, a covenant that Israel had agreed to. Deut 28:15 in particular begins a long list of the curses that would follow if Israel broke the covenant. By the way, a curse is not a spell, but is God's judgement on man's sin. The Lord had rescued Israel from slavery and the Law told them how they should live in the Promised Land. In the same way we have been rescued from slavery to sin and all that that entails, but that does not mean we can live any way we like. How we live does matter, and we are to follow the ways of the Lord.

Now it was several hundred years that the people had been in the land, repeatedly disobeying the Lord, so He cannot be accused of lacking patience! 

The reference to returning to the sins of their ancestors may be associated with the return to idol worship after King Josiah. Josiah had instituted many good reforms, but as soon as he was gone the nation deserted God again. With the threatening danger Judah would call out to her false gods, and of course would receive no answer from them. 

Judah had been rescued many times, but this time there would be no hope. Jeremiah is instructed not to pray for them. Any attempts at seeking God by the nation would come to nothing. There comes a time when judgement is inevitable and can be delayed no longer.

Instead of repenting the people reacted by plotting against Jeremiah. Kill the messenger then we won't have to hear the message! They did the same with Jesus. Today our society seeks to do exactly the same with anyone who questions the wisdom of same-sex marriage. What they do not realise is that it is the Lord they are fighting against, and they will lose.

Jeremiah 10 - Worthless idols

This section compares the Lord to the false and worthless religions of the world. The Bible is consistently realistic and scathing about idols. The world tries to paint Christianity as being mere superstition, but nothing could be further from the truth. The gospel is supported by evidence, and the Bible is very hard nosed about faith. 

The nations fear things for no good reason, and refuse to fear what they should really fear. We need to be very careful not to be taken in by the fears of the world. The idols of the world were worthless. Jeremiah points out that they were merely wood chiselled out by the hand of man. Now we may think that we no longer indulge in these silly practices, but when we put trust in the work of our hands and our minds as providing the complete answer for everything we are fools.

The Lord is different. He is the creator and sustainer of all things. He is worthy of worship. 

The purpose of all this is to make Judah realise the reason for her ejection from the land. Judah had been rebellious and foolish in rejecting the Lord and chasing after idols.

Jeremiah calls on the Lord to discipline him, "but only in due measure". 

Jeremiah 9 - What happens to a society that abandons God

There seems to be two things at work in Jeremiah here. On the one hand he is distraught at the suffering that is going to come upon them. At the same time he wants to be far away from them because of their unfaithfulness. 

The whole of society was built on lies and deceit. This is what happen when a people abandon God. No one can be trusted. And a guaranteed outcome of all this is that no one acknowledges God. 

God has to deal with the sin of His people, it is not possible for Him to do nothing. Jerusalem would be made a heap of ruins. 

When a people abandon the ways of God they become foolish. So they would be scattered among the nations. The women are urged to teach their daughters how to wail, for there would be much opportunity for mourning to come. 

A society that has abandoned God values all of the wrong sorts of things. They boast in their own wisdom. See how our society thinks it is so clever and knows so much better than God. But it is only in the Lord that we should boast.

Verses 25 and 26 are an indictment of those who rely on circumcision. See how this is totally consistent with what Paul taught in Galatians, and elsewhere. See  also how Judah is lumped with Edom, Ammon, Moab and Egypt. This would be galling for them, yet it was utterly deserved.

Jeremiah 8 - Life without God

The Israelites put great store on where bones were buried. During the onslaught from Babylon there would not even be any dignity in death. The bones of the dead would be exposed to the moon and the stars which they had worshipped. The exiles would suffer greatly.

Jerusalem was utterly stubborn in her ways. She turned away from God never to return. They would do anything except repent of their sin. Again, Israel is a model of the whole human race. We are utterly stubborn in our persistence in sin. Nature follows its course, it does what it is supposed to do, but we human do not do what we are supposed to do. The reason for this is a combination of two things. One, we are made in the image of God, we have a degree of autonomy that other creatures do not have. Secondly, we have rebelled against God so our nature is corrupt. Therefore we persist in doing the wrong thing, in taking the wrong course. We need to be submitted to God to be what we are meant to be.

Yet we claim to be wise. Listen to the world today, it claims to be wiser than God, to know what it is doing. In reality it lives a lie and bases its wisdom on a lie. Sin has taken such deep root. 

Jerusalem would suffer the consequences of her sin. She would be faced with the reality that it is God who supplies the harvest, so since they showed no interest in God He would withhold the harvest. If you want a life without God you can have a life without God, and all that that entails. This is the judgement on man.

Jeremiah is in agony at the crushing judgement. People object to the idea of hell, but the reality of hell is that it is the natural consequence of man's choice to have life without God.

Jeremiah 7:30-34 - The reality and reason for judgement

We see the utter evil that their idol worship had resulted in. When a people abandon God it will lead them in all sorts of paths they never imagined. In the case of Judah the idol worship led them to child sacrifice. People often say how can God execute such terrible judgements upon people. The only reason we ask such questions is that we are blind to the terrible consequences of sin. Our abandoning of God's standards of sexual morality has led to the death of thousands, even millions worldwide, of unborn babies. Sin is a very serious business. 

A day of judgement would come. Now we know that the destruction of Jerusalem, and all that went with it, did indeed happen. It is a historical event. So we know that when Jesus talks about coming judgement we can be sure that it will come. We need to take God's words of judgement very seriously. At present the attitude of much of the church is to adopt the same attitude as Judah did in the time of Jeremiah, and see where that got them.

Jeremiah 7:21-29 - Refusing to listen

The people were demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of God's ways. It is true that in the Law God gave commands on sacrifices and burnt offerings, but the religious leaders had then decided that if they were obeying this part of the Law then everything would be OK. But God had given them many commands, and these could be summed up by saying they should walk in obedience to the Lord, which Judah was manifestly not doing. We need to beware of this feature of human nature. When disobeying God in one area we will make the excuse that obeying Him in some other area will make up for the disobedience. This is not the case. We need to follow the whole counsel of God. 

God had repeatedly sent prophets to warn the people. Note that the primary purpose of a prophet is to keep the people on track with the Lord and to warn them when they are straying from God's path. We very much need such prophets today. But the people were stiff-necked and refused to heed the warnings. Verse 28 is a damning indictment of Judah. It is remarkable that you consider that the Old Testament is the national book of Israel, yet if you were to name the book that is most consistently critical of Israel, it is the Old Testament. 

At the same time it is vital that we remember that all this applies to the whole human race. Israel is in a sense representative of the whole human race, and God's plan is that through Abraham all nations will be blessed. When we see these indictments of Israel and Judah we do well to remember that they are typical of the whole of humanity, and we can well see the truth of this.

Jeremiah 7:1-20 - False religion

This is a severe warning against false religion. It had all the trappings of religion, they worshipped at the temple built following God's instructions, but their ways were far from God. Notice that Jeremiah starts with a positive message, if they truly turned to The Lord they would live. Instead they chose to trust in false religion. They trusted in empty words. True religion shows itself by justice and mercy.  Instead there was bloodshed and worship of false gods.

See how worship of idols goes together with adultery, murder, theft and lying. And yet they thought they were safe in the temple. The terrible truth was that the temple was the most dangerous place for them, for their first sin was against The Lord Himself. Verse 11 was quoted by Jesus when He cleared the temple (Mark 11:17). So Judah would suffer the same fate as Israel.

Jeremiah is told not to pray for the people for their whole lives were devoted to the worship of false gods. The people were bringing pain upon themselves to their own shame. We can see the same sort of thing happening in our own society. Society rejoices in rejecting God's standards of sexual morality in all sorts of ways, thinking it is somehow more sophisticated. In truth all society is doing, and has been doing for many years, is bring harm and shame upon itself.

So God's wrath would be unleashed upon Jerusalem, and all the land would suffer.

Jeremiah 6 - the state of Jerusalem

The people assumed that Jerusalem was the safest place to be, especially with the temple being there. Surely God would not abandon His home! But quite the opposite was true. Benjamin is urged to flee for safety and this meant fleeing from Jerusalem, not to Jerusalem. There are echoes of this in the Olivet discourse (Matt 24:16) . 

God's plan now involved destroying Jerusalem! The people needed to realise that God was in charge, not man. God was summoning the nations to come against her. Verse 6 emphasises that this is a carefully thought out plan. Yet verse 8 contains a hint that if even now they turned away from their sin there was hope. Sadly the nation was not about to do that.

It was not that Judah was not warned, but that she would not listen. Our society today is in no mood to listen to the voice of God. As it says at the end of verse 10, the word of God is offensive to our society.

The problem was the sin of the people. There was violence and greed in the city. And it affected all strata of society. The leaders did not treat the matter as serious. As leaders in churches we need to be sure that we take sin seriously. 

Man is faced with a choice (v16). We can choose to follow God's ways or we can choose to go our own way. One way leads to life and peace, the other leads to death. The sacrifices and religious offerings meant nothing to God because there was sin in the camp, because there was no true devotion to the Lord.

So a mighty destroyer would descend upon the land, and no one would be able to stand.

Jeremiah 5 - The state of the nation

The criticism of the nation continues. Towards the end of chapter 4 Jeremiah was agonising at the terror that was about to come. God is revealing to Him just why it is necessary and just. In the same way, people are concerned about the concept of Hell, but the awful truth is not that there is a hell, but that the human race is worthy of hell.

God challenges Jeremiah to find one person who is righteous, and says that if he finds just one such person then He will forgive the city. The people's words may be fine, but their hearts were far from God.

Jeremiah observed that the common people were unresponsive to God's chastisement, refusing to repent. Then he went to the leaders, expecting to find a better response, but they were no better.

God had supplied all the people needed, but the people responded by going after false gods. 

The people lied about the Lord when they said "He will do nothing. No harm will come us.." The people scoffed at the prospect of judgement. They despised His prophets. So judgement would come upon them. Our society is putting itself in similar danger.

So Jeremiah's words would be like fire. The judgements he declared would (and did) come to pass. Even so, the nation would not be completely destroyed. A remnant would remain who would learn from the sins of the past.

The prophets prophesy lies and priests rule by their own authority. We need to be very careful how we handle the word of God.

Sermon - Trials and Perseverance

Listen to a sermon of mine on Trials and Perseverance: understanding the trials, the reality of trials, and getting through the trials.

Jeremiah 4 - Coming destruction

The way back to God is always open. People are forever complaining "why should God send people to hell". The truth is that no one needs to go to hell, the way of salvation is open. But notice what the way of salvation is. It involves a returning to the Lord, a ridding ourselves of idols and a commitment to the Lord. Notice also the looking forward to "the nations" believing in the Lord. It is interesting that in both Jeremiah and Isaiah there is a strong recurrent theme of the nations believing in the Lord.

Mercy and judgement go together. God calls on Judah to repent. To change her ways and truly commit herself to the Lord. Without repentance we will receive the just judgement for our sins.

God knew that Judah would not repent. So we then get a dramatic looking forward to the coming disaster from the North. The destroyer of nations was Babylon. Babylon only had power because God let her have power. Today the nations of the world and other powers only have power in so much as God lets them have power. Judah would be utterly demoralised.

The dramatic foretelling of the coming disaster continues, and Jeremiah feels the pain. He is not a dispassionate deliver of a message, but one closely involved in it.

The destruction would be terrible, but would not be complete.

Jeremiah 3:6-25 - God's willingness to bless and man's stubborness

It is interesting that this prophecy was given during the reign of Josiah, one of the good kings. 

God points out what had happened to Israel and what little Judah had learnt from Israel's example. Israel had abandoned God and as a result she had been utterly defeated. Instead of turning to the Lord she had worshipped all sorts of idols. Israel's defeat is likened to God giving her a certificate of divorce for her unfaithfulness. 

One might have thought that Judah would learn from this and remain committed to the Lord. Instead, Judah decided to go down exactly the same road that Israel had travelled, and the destination would be the same as well. Verse 10 shows the true nature of Judah. There were times when she appeared to repent, the reign of Josiah being one of them. Yet this "repentance" was only skin deep. Even Josiah failed in the end, and as soon as he had gone the nation resumed its apostasy. We need to be born again, we need a deep change. 

Now see God's response in v11-13. God tells Jeremiah to call Israel to repentance. Why Israel? She had suffered occupation for many years, perhaps now she would have learnt the error of her ways. Note also the willingness of God to forgive. All she needs to do is "acknowledge her guilt". The problem is not with God's willingness to forgive, but with man's reluctance to admit his guilt.

What happens when we do repent? First is a personal relationship with the Lord, see in v14 it says "I am your husband". Then He sends good shepherds to lead and teach. Notice also that this is a moving forward, not a mere returning to a previous state. For the ark of the covenant would no longer be central to their thoughts. There will be a transformation of their hearts, and nations would come to Jerusalem to honour the Lord.

The Lord longs to bless His people, but they refused to trust in Him.  He longs to "cure of us our backsliding". Then there is an apparent repenting of the nation. 

The problem is never with God's willingness to bless, only with our unwillingness to turn to Him.