Jeremiah 22:8-14 - Because they have forsaken the Lord

22:8-10

Judah wanted to be like other nations, this was the very reason that they had wanted a king in the first place. So often the church plays the same game, but it will all come to nothing. Jerusalem would be destroyed, the nations would ask why and would know the reason. They would be wiser than the people of Judah! For they would see that it was because Judah had abandoned her God and worshipped idols. The dead king who was mourned was Josiah, the one who would die in exile was Jehoahaz/Shallum.

22:11-14

Shallum had been carried off to Egypt and there he would die. Then we get another telling of why these things were happening. It was because the kings were building by unrighteousness and injustice.  Rulers who do this will eventually come to a sticky end. They also exploited their workers, not paying them their proper wages. They thought their plans would bring them wealth, but they would only bring disaster.

Matthew 10:16-18 - Be on your guard

10:16

Jesus was under no misapprehensions about the nature of the mission He was sending them out on, and He was also looking ahead to what they would encounter after Pentecost, and what the church as a whole would encounter at many times and in many places. He sends us out into a world that is hostile to God, in rebellion against God. “If the world hated me, it will hate you” (John 15:18). We are to be as shrewd as snakes, and as innocent as doves. Our normal reaction is either to be totally naive, thinking everyone will like us because we are so loving and nice, or to be utterly devious. Leaning towards the former is by far the more common, but parts if the church have lapsed into the former at times.

10:17,18 

Jesus is then quite explicit. They would be handed over to councils and synagogues, and beaten. In this Jesus was looking ahead, rather than just the immediate mission, for it was not until after the resurrection that this started to happen. While the early persecution would come primarily from the Jews, the Gentiles would then get in on the act. The kings and governors would think that they were in charge, but what was happening in reality is that they were God’s witnesses to these leaders.

Jeremiah 22:4-7 - I will send destroyers

22:4,5

The coming destruction was not a random event, it was not a capricious act on God’s part. Rather, it was the result of Judah’s persistent sin, and judgement upon her actions. If they obeyed God’s commands then the kings would be glorified and the city would prosper. But if they did not then the palace would become a ruin, and this would happen as a result of God’s decree.

22:6,7

The palace was precious to God, something to be treasured, yet He would make it into a wasteland. Why? Because Judah’s sin was so great and so persistent. I have said this before, and will say it now and no doubt again. When people ask “how can a God of love send people to hell” they are demonstrating a total lack of understanding. The fact that a God of love sends people to hell is not an indication of a lack of love on His part, put a demonstration of the depths of our sin. The palace would be completely destroyed. God is talking specifically about the palace here because His words are directed towards the king and so He is talking about something that is precious to the king.

Matthew 10:11-15 - Give it your greeting

10:11-13

We sometimes have the impression that we are to persist in witnessing or evangelising whatever the response we get, and there is some truth to this. However, here we see Jesus giving very practical and down to earth advice. When they visited a town once they found someone who welcomed them they were to stay there. They were to declare a blessing over that house. So they were not to flit about from one place to the next. We can perhaps draw a lesson about church membership here. Once we find a “deserving church” (to use the terminology of these verses) we are to stay there. A “deserving church” would be one that welcomes us and is true to the gospel. We will grow and God will achieve His purposes in us far better if we are settled than if we are constantly looking for somewhere better! There is no such thing as a perfect church, so stop looking for one. 

10:14,15

We now get advice about what to do if we are not welcomed. There is no persistently banging our head against a brick wall. If they will not welcome us nor listen to us then we are to shake the dust off our feet. The person or town that rejects the gospel, rejects Jesus, will suffer great judgment. Again, notice that Jesus is not beating about the bush here, comparing that town’s fate to Sodom and Gomorrah. Now we do need to ensure they are not rejecting us because we are being obnoxious, but some will reject the gospel, will reject Jesus. We need to be utterly realistic.

Jeremiah 22:1-3 - Do what is just and right

22:1,2

“Go down ...”, the palace was at a lower elevation than the temple. Jeremiah, as he had done before, was to take the word of God to the king. Kings and rulers have authority, but they are all under God’s authority, all are answerable to the Lord. When they claim to not be under God’s authority they are living a lie. Jeremiah is to remind the king that he sits on David’s throne. This throne was established by God, not by man, and required obedience to the word of God. The word applied not just to the king himself, but also to all the officials.

22:3

“Do what is just and right”. This is the responsibility of all people, but especially of rulers. So rulers are to protect and rescue people from robbers. They are to treat foreigners properly, not doing any violence to them. And the same applies to widows and orphans. With foreigners a ruler may be tempted to think “no one likes foreigners anyway, I can do what I like”. Or with widows and orphans he may think that they are weak and powerless so I can do what I like and get away with it. A ruler must not shed innocent blood.

Matthew 10:8-10 - Heal the sick, raise the dead

10:8

“Heal the sick, raise the dead  ...” This is quite explicit, the disciples were to do the things that Jesus was doing, and He had given them authority to do this. “Freely you have received, freely give”. We apply this latter instruction mostly to money, and this is a good thing to do. It is also something we know how to do, but it is not the primary focus here. Jesus is speaking about healing the sick etc. So was this just a one-off? Well that doesn’t work, for they healed the sick and raised the dead in Acts. Was it just for the New Testament times? There are many who believe that, either explicitly for those who are cessationists, or functionally for most of us. But it is clear from the gospels that the coming of the kingdom has material effects. Now we also need to take account of the whole of Scripture, and there were people in the New Testament, including Paul himself, who got sick and were not healed miraculously. So if we are not seeing much of this stuff we are getting something wrong, or, at least, we have much more to learn, not as part of a separate “healing ministry”, but as part of kingdom life.

10:9,10

They were not to take extras, they were not to “worry about what you will east or drink” (Matt 6:25), but instead to “seek first the kingdom” (Matt 6:33). Again, we need to look at the whole of Scripture, which makes it clear we are to work, and to manage our affairs sensibly. So the instructions here are not a general state of affairs, but there will be times when we are trusting completely in God to provide.

Jeremiah 21:11-14 - Administer justice every morning

21:11-14

The judgement we hear, such as in verse 8-10 seems so final, but it is only final if we refuse to repent. Here we get what is the Lord’s desire for Israel’s response. They should administer justice and rescue the oppressed. This is not to be a one-off thing, but a way of life. The wrath which was coming was coming because of the evil in the land, including the lack of justice and the oppression of the poor. Jerusalem was thinking that they were safe because Jerusalem was God’s city, the temple was His temple. But if the city was God’s city, and the temple His temple, then the inhabitants should have endeavoured to administer justice in the city and worship of the true God. Instead they oppressed the poor, among many other evils, and they worshipped idols. Far from being a place of safety, Jerusalem was a place of great danger.

We need to be wary of taking the gospel for granted. We can never be perfect, we do not earn salvation, but what have we been saved from and what have we been saved for? We have been saved from our sins, and have been saved in order to become ever more Christlike. We need to know what we have been saved from, and what we have been saved to. We have not been forgiven so that we can carry on in our old ways without consequence.

Matthew 10:5-7 - Go to the lost sheep of Israel

10:5,6

First to the Jews. Jesus’ ministry was initially restricted to Israel (though there are one or two exceptions noted in the gospels, such as the Roman centurion and the Syro-Phonecian woman). So the disciples were not to go to the Gentiles. Nor were they to go to the Samaritans. There was great hostility between Jews and Samaritans. This traced its roots back to the Assyrian time when Gentiles were brought into Samaria and there was much intermarriage. So the Samaritans were considered as impure by the Jews. Sometimes God will restrict what we are to do. Not everyone is to try and do everything all of the time!

10:7

They were to proclaim the message “the kingdom of heaven has come near”. This does not mean they were the only words that the disciples had to say! The gospel involves a clash of kingdoms, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. So there is conflict and change. God’s kingdom brings justice and righteousness. It brings concern for the poor, it brings healing for the sick, it brings repentance.

Jeremiah 21:9,10 - Whoever stays in the city will die

21:9

God gives the people a clear choice. If they stay in the city they would die, if they surrendered to the Babylonians they would live? What are we to make of this in the light of the cross? One of the most fundamental things is that we need to accept our guilt, our sin, our sinfulness. Jerusalem needed to face up to the fact that she was not just the unfortunate victim of Babylonian aggression, she was enduring the judgement that God had placed upon her for her persistent sin. Jesus died upon the cross for our sins, and we need to face up to that. Those who deny penal substitutionary atonement seem to be very close to denying our need for Jesus to die in our place because of our guilt.

21:10

Judgement was coming upon the city, and God had determined to do this. We do not like facing up to the fact of our guilt, of the whole human race. Unless we accept that God has declared judgement upon the whole world we will never understand the gospel, we will never understand God. Nor will we understand ourselves.

Matthew 10:1-4 - Jesus gave them authority

10:1

This is another instance where we should ignore the chapter division. Jesus has just spoken about asking the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest field. Now Jesus sends out the twelve! Jesus is the Lord of the harvest, and the disciples (and by implication, us) are the workers. Jesus gave the disciples authority, and this was authority to drive out demons and to heal every disease and sickness. We cannot but read this verse and think that we really are missing something. It seems to me that from any reading of the gospels it is God’s intention and desire that His disciples have an awful lot more authority than we seem to have. Now this must be taken in context, and that it is part of our mission. Teaching and preaching is essential, as is sharing in Christ’s sufferings, but it is part of the mission.

10:2-4

We then get a list of the names of the twelve. 10:2 is the only occurrence of the word apostle in the Matthew’s gospel. Apostle means one who is sent, and Jesus is sending the disciples, so it is a very appropriate use. They are a very mixed bunch, and include Judas who would betray Jesus.

Jeremiah 21:5-8 - I myself will fight against you

21:5-7

Just in case Zedekiah was missing the point, which he clearly was, God makes it clear beyond all doubt what was going to happen. The first and most important thing was that God was against Jerusalem, His wrath was being poured out on them. Babylon was not their biggest problem, and so asking God to rescue them from Babylon was beside the point. God was their biggest problem, or rather their rebellion and perpetual sin against God. That was the issue that they needed to address, and the issue that they were steadfastly refusing to address. So death awaited them all.

21:8

The words in the previous verses seem very final, as though that is it. However, when God speaks judgement He does so looking for a response. When Jonah eventually went to Nineveh he preached a very simple message, forty days and the city would be no more. It seems stark and final, but Nineveh repented and God relented. What is final is that a people have repeatedly sinned against God and the only outcome unless they repent is judgement. So God here sets a choice before the people, a way of life or a way of death.

Matthew 9:36-38 - Ask the Lord of the harvest

9:36

Jesus was fully aware of the sinfulness of man, and was not afraid to speak about it, but He did not see humanity as “a bunch of dirty rotten sinners”. Instead He had compassion on the crowds, and He has compassion upon us. Matthew tells us why He had compassion, it was because the people were “harassed and helpless”, like sheep without a shepherd. We see here the importance of good leadership. We need good leadership within the church, and within the civic structures within society. Israel had neither, and the same applies to us today as well.

9:37,38

What was Jesus’ reaction, or response to this situation? It was not to despair, instead it was prayer. Nor did He see the situation as hopeless, rather He said “the harvest is plentiful”. In our society today the harvest is plentiful. “But the workers are few”. In fact, Jesus’ response was to give an instruction to His disciples. They were to ask “the Lord of the harvest” to send out workers into the harvest field. So who is the Lord of the harvest? It is either Jesus or the Father, if it is Jesus why does He not just send the workers out? If it is the Father, why does Jesus not ask the Father? Instead He tells us to ask. God always involves us intimately in His plans, in what He is doing. Today we should ask the Lord to send out workers.

Jeremiah 21:1-4 - I am about to turn against you

21:1,2

“The word came ..” This phrase does not appear again until chapter 25, indicating that chapters 21 to 24 are an integral section. The Pashhur mentioned here is not the same one we encountered in chapter 20. Zedekiah means “the Lord is my righteousness”. Names are important in the Bible. However, Zedekiah is a warning against taking this too far, the Lord was certainly not his righteousness! It seems that Zedekiah and the priest were somewhat confused. Babylon was now starting to attack Judah, so perhaps Jeremiah had been right all along, or at least something worth listening to. However, they had not listened that closely, for they had not grasped that repentance was the only “escape route” open to them.

21:3,4

Jeremiah is not for being bought off or flattered. He repeats the message from God that He has been preaching to them for some time by now. God was against Judah, and Zedekiah in particular. All Judah’s efforts would come to nought, they would even be turned against them. There was one way out, repentance.

Matthew 9:32-35 - It is by the prince of demons

9:32-34

This series of healings closes with a mute man being enabled to speak. It also says that he was demon-possessed. The casting out of the demon was the key to the man’s healing. There are cases where demonic activity is the root of the matter, and that is still the case today. However, there are cases where demonic activity is not the root of the matter. So we have had Jesus setting a variety of people free from various things, from sicknesses and from demon possession. The crowds were amazed and delighted. The Pharisees had a rather different reaction. They said it is only because Jesus had the power of the prince of demons that He could drive out demons. Now, just think for a moment. This is the Son of God, and they are accusing Him of using demonic power! Their thinking was seriously warped, and that is what happens when we become obsessed with protecting ourselves.

9:35

This verse gives a brief, but complete, summary of the ministry of Jesus. He went through all the towns and villages. He taught in their synagogues. He proclaimed the good news of the kingdom, ie the rule of God. He healed every disease and sickness. Teaching and healing went together in the ministry of Jesus, yet we seem insistent on separating them. There will be good Bible teaching churches, but not much, if anything, in the way of healings. There will be churches that focus on healings but whose teaching is limited. Neither is following a Biblical pattern.

Jeremiah 20:11-18 - The Lord is with me like a mighty warrior

20:11,12

Jeremiah now moves to faith. “The Lord is with me like a mighty warrior”, therefore he knows that his enemies will come to nothing, they are the ones who will be defeated. He calls on the Lord to show His vengeance. So what is going on here? At the start (20:7) we saw Jeremiah calling God a liar, now he has moved through to great faith. We should not be afraid of our emotions, we should not pretend that we don’t have them, but neither should we be ruled by them. The religious types tend to reject emotions or think of them as a bad thing. Others see our emotions as the be all and end all, things that must be bowed down to. Both these approaches are equally wrong, and the latter is the dominant error today. Emotions matter, but emotions do not determine truth.

What about the vengeance bit? Surely Jeremiah should be pleading for mercy on them? We should remember that these people were beyond mercy. They had had chance after chance to repent.  Jeremiah’s plea is probably more realistic than our often sentimental approach.

20:13-18

Jeremiah now breaks out in praise to the Lord. “He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked.” Jeremiah has worked through the situation, but then we come to verse 14! “Cursed be the day I was born!” He seems to be back in the depths of despair. I guess we all know what this is like. Our mood can swing dramatically from high to low and back again. Jeremiah is now regretting ever having been born. A day that was greeted with joy, but that now seems a day of disaster. Severe mood swings are normal and are something God can handle.

Matthew 9:27-31 - Have mercy on us, Son of David

9:27,28

Jesus moved on. He has never finished what He is doing (apart from the cross, before you question my theology!). But whatever God has done, He has more to do. Two blind men followed Him and asked Him to have mercy upon them. They called Him the Son of David, implying that they saw Him as the promised Messiah of the Old Testament. It seems that Jesus did not respond immediately, maybe, given what He said later, Jesus wanted to deal with them privately. Jesus asked if they believed He was able to heal them. If we look at the healing incidents we find many examples where faith is highlighted, but we also find others where it isn’t. We must beware of making rules about healing, otherwise we lose the faith element. We can so easily start trusting in the “rules” rather than trusting in Jesus. They replied that they did believe.

9:29-31

Jesus touched their eyes and said “according to your faith let it be done”, so if they were not telling the truth when they said they believed they would not have been healed. Their faith presumably was genuine, for they were healed immediately. Jesus gave them a stern warning, “see that no one knows about this”. Note the importance that Jesus attached to this command. However, it also seems rather odd. It makes sense that Jesus did not want people to get focused just on the healings, but people would surely notice that the previously blind men could now see! However, it was all rather irrelevant for the men, quite understandably, went out spreading the news about Jesus all over the region. We have great difficulty in the church (and in ourselves!) in motivating people to “do evangelism”. People who are willing are those who know Jesus has done something for them.

Jeremiah 20:9,10 - His word is in my heart like a fire

20:9

Despite his complaining, Jeremiah was actually in a bind. For if he decided not to speak the word of the Lord was still in him, and it burnt away like a fire, desperate to get out. So Jeremiah could find no peace. The word of God is living and active, it is not just words on a page when the Holy Spirit has put the word into us. 

20:10

Then we get back to Jeremiah thinking about the woes he is experiencing. There are many all around him whispering “denounce him!” This sort of thing went on in countries like East Germany and other communists regimes. It still goes on today in many nations. It may even occur in the West, and is increasingly likely to do so as society finds Christian teaching to be ever more abhorrent. Even his friends were looking for opportunities to denounce him.

Matthew 9:20-26 - If I only touch His cloak

9:20-22

We then get yet another truncated version of an incident, this time the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. Matthew just tells us that she had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She believed that if she just touched Jesus’ cloak she would be healed. So the reputation of Jesus had obviously got around. There may well have been more to touching Jesus’ cloak than just touching the “cloak of a healer”. With her condition she would not be allowed to touch people, for it would make them unclean. Jesus turned and saw her and assured her that “her faith has healed you”. He also addresses her as daughter. She would have very much been a second class citizen with the condition. So Jesus is affirming her in two ways. First, He calls her daughter, assuring her that she belongs to Israel, belongs to God. Then He says that her faith has contributed to the healing.

9:23-26

Jesus then arrived at Jairus’ house. Mourning was in full flow with people playing pipes and making a noise, as was the custom in middle eastern funerals. Jesus is having nothing to do with this, announcing that the girl is “not dead, but asleep”. Presumably this means that He was going to bring her back to life, rather than being a more accurate medical diagnosis. The crowd laughed at Him. We should note that people in those days were much more familiar with death than we are. Jesus had the crowd put outside, He took the girl by the hand and she got up. Not surprisingly, news of this event spread throughout the region.

Jeremiah 20:5-8 - You deceived me Lord!

20:5,6

Pashur was to pay a heavy price for his disobedience. This was not a one off, but was the result of his acting on his own behalf, instead of God’s behalf. All the valuables of the city would be taken off to Babylon. Pashur and his whole household would be among the captives taken off to Babylon. There he would die, along with all his friends to whom he prophesied lies. False prophecy is a very serious matter.

20:7,8

Jeremiah now voices another complaint. Yet again he is calling God a liar “You deceived me Lord, and I was deceived”. He feels that God forced him into this situation, and forced him to obey the Lord. He faithfully proclaims the word of the Lord and gets nothing but insults and attacks. Was Jeremiah wrong to respond in this way? Of course he was, but God has recorded this. Religiosity teaches us to cover up our true feelings, the Bible teaches us to take them to the Lord. Wrong as they are, God can sort us out if we are open with Him.

Matthew 9:16-19 - New wine, new wineskins

9:16,17

No one, except Jesus, realised the enormity of what was happening, nor the enormity of who Jesus was. This was not a mere continuation of the past, not a mere rerun of things that had happened before but at an enhanced level. The Son of God was living among them. If they tried to contain the new wine in the old wine skins they would simply burst, they could not contain it.

9:18,19

While the opposition to Jesus came mostly from the Pharisees and other religious leaders, not all the religious leaders were against Him. A synagogue leader would be fairly low down the pecking order, nonetheless he was an important man in the local community, and when his daughter died he went to Jesus. Note that at this point while Jesus has healed many, He has not raised anyone from the dead. Mark and Luke, as is normal, have longer accounts, and when Jairus (the synagogue leader) came his daughter was seriously ill, but later people sent news that she was dead. Matthew just focuses on the fact that Jesus was going to bring a dead girl back to life. So Jesus and the disciples went to Jairus’s house.

Jeremiah 20:1-4 - Terror on Every Side

20:1,2

Jeremiah encounters more opposition, and of a violent type. Pashur was a priest and he was in charge of the temple of the Lord. Since Jeremiah was prophesying the destruction of the temple, among other things, he probably felt that he was on safe ground in opposing Jeremiah. There are, of course, some similarities to the priest opposing Jesus on the grounds of Jesus talking about tearing down the temple. Pashur had Jeremiah beaten and then put in the stocks. This is the first reference to “Jeremiah the Prophet” in this book, stressing the enormity of what the priest was doing.

20:3,4

The next day Pashur had Jeremiah released. It isn’t clear what he had hoped to gain from his short term confinement of Jeremiah, maybe just to “teach him a lesson”. However, Jeremiah had a lesson for Pashur, saying his name would be “terror on every side”. He would see the destruction of the whole of Judah and the people being carried off to exile. The only way to escape the word of the Lord is to repent.

Matthew 9:14,15 - Your disciples do not fast

9:14

It wasn’t only the Pharisees who were concerned about Jesus, John the Baptist’s disciples were also questioning His behaviour. For Jesus and His disciples were not fasting. Fasting was seen as an important part of spiritual discipline, it was a good discipline (if done for God and not for show), and still is. But any discipline can become an end in itself, rather than a means to an end. John’s disciples, and certainly not the Pharisees, did not understand the full enormity of what was happening, of who Jesus was.

9:15

Jesus puts them right on what was happening, and who He is. Jesus is the bridegroom, He is the king of kings. The marriage metaphor has been used throughout the Old Testament, often in the context of the wife being unfaithful and being divorced. In Revelation the church is seen as being married to Christ. Before a wedding when the bridegroom is with the guests is no time for mourning. Those who rejoiced over Jesus were nearer to the truth than those who wanted to fast. However, fasting is not out of the window, for Jesus says that a time would come when He would be taken away, and the disciples would fast.

Jeremiah 19:10-15 - Break the jar

19:10-13

Jeremiah is then to smash the jar to pieces. The hearers are to be in no doubt about the destruction that is coming. It is not a matter of a little overhaul of the system, a wee tweak here and there. The system is utterly corrupt and needs a complete restart. To put that in theological terms, we suffer from “total depravity”, not meaning we never do anything right, but that sin has utterly corrupted us, and we need to be born again. As with most things wrong with Israel and Judah, idol worship lay at the heart of it all. This can apply to us as well. Whenever we make an idol of something, even if that something is good in itself, then we are in deep trouble.

19:14,15

Jeremiah then returned from Topheth and stood in the court of the temple and proclaimed to all the people the destruction that God was going to bring upon the place. This would happen because the people were stiff-necked and refused to respond to the words of the Lord, which had been sent on many occasions.

Matthew 9:11-13 - I desire mercy, not sacrifice

9:11

We get another incident of the Pharisees questioning what Jesus was doing. They didn’t go direct to Jesus, but to His disciples. “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” There are two attitudes behind this questioning. One is a self-righteousness, they considered themselves to be OK, to be worthy of God’s attention. The other is that they considered the tax collectors and sinners to be beyond the pale, not to be worthy of God’s attention. Indeed, they were to be avoided.

9:12,13

Jesus reveals God’s real attitude. We need to be very careful about considering our own ideas to be the same as God’s ideas. In order to avoid that we need to take the Bible as our guide (I really need a stronger word here!), as the Word of God, something that must be paid attention to. And that means taking the whole of the word of God. First of all Jesus says that it is the sick not the well who need a doctor. Jesus is our saviour, that means we need saving, and most of all saving from ourselves, from what we are because of sin. Jesus quotes from Hosea 6:6, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. Both the self-righteous and the sin-affirmers deny mercy. With the Pharisee types this is obvious, for they condemn “sinners”, but the sin-affirmers (eg those who condone various forms of sexual immorality, or overlook other sins) also deny mercy. For they say, effectively, that the person has no sins to repent of, and if that is the case then there is no need for any mercy. Both Pharisees and the “progressive Christians” deny mercy. In the Bible there is an absolute recognition of sin, but then a desire to see people saved from their sins. Jesus came to save sinners, and, of course, the Pharisees needed to recognise themselves as sinners.

Jeremiah 19:5-9 - Valley of Slaughter

19:5,6

We now get the true horror of what was going on, and the reasons for God’s actions. “They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal”. This is what was going on. We can read the judgement passages in the Bible and sometimes think that God is being harsh or even vindictive. This is not the case. Terrible things were going on, and the same applied to the other nations as well. Likewise, at the end of time when there is the final judgement no one will think that any of God’s judgements are wrong, but will see the justice of it all. This child sacrifice was not a command of God, and was something He never even considered. So judgement was coming, and with good reason.

19:7-9

God would ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, for their plans were full of evil and would result in evil. The same applies to the nations of the West. We are deserting God and can expect nothing good to come of it. Jerusalem would become a place of derision. People would “scoff because of all its wounds”. So again we see wounds associated with the sinfulness of the nation. During the siege of Jerusalem things would get so bad that they would even eat their children. A terrible siege was coming upon them.

Matthew 9:9,10 - Follow me!

9:9

We are now back to Jesus reaching the surprising people. Earlier we had seen how He healed people who were “outsiders”, either not being Jewish, or being a leper. Now He goes further and calls an “outsider” to follow Him, to be a disciple. Tax collectors were not popular. There were two main reasons for this. One was that they often took money over and above the normal tax rate to line their own pockets. Secondly they worked for the hated Roman occupation. See that Jesus says to Matthew “Follow me”, this was a command, not an invitation. Matthew got up and followed Jesus.

9:10

Jesus then went to have dinner at Matthew’s house, and there were many tax collectors and sinners there. Jesus attended many meals! He was also at ease meeting with various sorts of “sinners”, yet did so without compromising Himself or the Word of God at all. We struggle with this and tend to go down one of two wrong routes. On the one hand we know how to condemn people. That is easy to do. On the other hand we can mix with people and condone their sin, or at least not be clear that they need to repent, and effectively become sin-affirming. We need the Spirit of God to enable us to act in a truly Christlike manner.

Jeremiah 19:1-4 - I am going to bring disaster

19:1,2

Having had Jeremiah’s response to the situation, essentially feeling sorry for himself wishing all sorts of ills upon his enemies, we now hear what the Lord says. God has His purposes, and Jeremiah is to get on with doing it. So he is to buy a clay jar from the potter, and go to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, along with some of the elders and priests, and to proclaim the word of the Lord there. Ben Hinnom as a rubbish tip, and a place where children were sacrificed to pagan gods. 

19:3,4

Jeremiah is to tell them that God will bring disaster upon the people. This is why Jeremiah was to take them out to Ben Hinnom. It served two purposes. The fact that it was a rubbish tip was a graphic description of what Jerusalem would become, and the fact that it was a place where children were sacrificed was a reminder of why this would happen. The people had forsaken the Lord, instead they worshipped foreign gods, gods who should never be worshipped, and this resulted in the death of innocent children. See how the same thing happens in our own society, with abortion being the most obvious example.

Matthew 9:5-8 - Take your mat and go home

9:5

“Which is easier to say?” In truth, saying your sins are forgiven is easier to say, for we cannot see any obvious evidence either way whether the person saying it had any authority to do so, or whether their words had any effect. Whereas, if you say “get up and walk” then people will immediately see if your words had any effect or power behind them. Yet to have the authority to forgive sins, to have that right, is far more difficult to do. Jesus had to go to the cross in order to be able to forgive sins with authority.

9:6-8

However, Jesus wanted to demonstrate that He did indeed have the authority to forgive sins. So He commanded the man to “Get up, take your mat and go home”. And the man did get up and walk home. Jesus demonstrated that His words had power. The people were amazed and gave praise to God “who has given such authority to men”. So in this passage we see both the divinity of Christ and His humanity. God does give power to men.

Jeremiah 18:19-23 - Should good be repaid with evil?

18:19-21

Jeremiah learnt of these plans and then prayed to the Lord. Jeremiah is still feeling sorry for himself! We must admit that this is understandable. He has been faithful to God, yet he is being repaid with evil. This has been the finding of many people throughout the Bible, and throughout history. Jeremiah reminds God how faithful he has been, and calls on God to hand his enemies, and their families over to the sword. We find it difficult to cope with these sort of verses, but the Bible is far less squeamish than we are about being honest with regard to our feelings. Jeremiah gives a very comprehensive description of the harm he would like to be done to his enemies.

18:22,23

Jeremiah then comforts himself by envisaging the prospect of God pouring out judgement upon his enemies. Jeremiah does not have a lot of mercy for them! Why has God recorded this for us? One reason is that it is normal to have pretty horrible emotions in these sorts of circumstances, and God can handle it! What He does not like is our pretending to be fine when we are not, putting on a religious face! Also, maybe He is letting Jeremiah go through all this so that he can better appreciate why it is now necessary for God to bring judgement upon Judah.

Matthew 9:3,4 - This fellow is blaspheming

9:3

We have here the first hint of the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders. The teachers of the Law were taken aback by Jesus’ forgiving sins. It is only God who can forgive sins. Priests could forgive sins, but only after a sacrifice had been offered, so they were not offering forgiveness in their own right, but as carrying out the Law. Jesus was assuming the authority Himself to forgive sins. There is sometimes debate about whether Jesus being the Son of God was something added by the church many years after His time on earth. The gospels make it quite clear that the religious leaders thought Jesus was claiming equality with God.

9:4

Jesus knew what the religious leaders were thinking. This is another example of the divinity of Jesus, for it is only God who knows all our thoughts and motivations. By the way, we need to recognise that all hearts are not open to us! We need to recognise this in terms of church government, and civil governments do well to remember this as well. Notice that Jesus says “why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?” The religious leaders’ motives were not one of honouring the name of the Lord, but of protecting their own position.

Jeremiah 18:13-18 - Let's make plans against Jeremiah

18:13-17

God now makes the true awfulness of Israel’s sin clear to Jeremiah, and this is not simply a delineation of the facts. It is an utter betrayal of God by Israel, something which should never have happened. Instead of worshipping the one true God, instead of calling upon Him when in trouble, they offered incense to worthless idols. It was not just that the idols were worthless, they made Israel walk in ways they should not have gone down. We may think that our own society is equally wandering down roads that were never intended to be travelled down. And so destruction awaits. Judah would be destroyed and scattered, an object of scorn to the nations, instead of a symbol of glory.

18:18

The ruling elite made plans against Jeremiah. They were in complete denial, they thought that Jerusalem would not be destroyed, that the teaching of the Law would continue.The Law which they were ignoring. There would still be teaching of the wise and the prophets. So they planned to attack Jeremiah with words and ignore his warnings. Oh, how foolish the “wise” can be, as we see in our own day.

Matthew 9:1,2 - Your sins are forgiven

9:1

This incident is recorded in Mark 2:3-12 and Luke 5:18-26. As with the previous one Matthew gives a much briefer account, not mentioning the breaking through the roof part. Why is this? Matthew seems to want to put more incidents in his gospel, and he is focusing on different aspects. One of the themes of the last chapter or so, which is continuing here, is that of authority. We have seen His authority in teaching (Matt 7:29), authority over sickness, over demons and over nature. Now we see His authority to forgive sins.

9:2

So the paralyzed man is brought to him by some friends of the man, no doubt with the intention of him being healed and able to walk again. Instead, the first thing Jesus says is “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven”. Why does He do this? Well, in Judaism there was a strong belief that there was a very close relationship between sin and sickness (or infirmities). So the man would be convinced that he had done something terrible in order to be in his condition. So Jesus calls him “son”, and then assures him that his sins have been forgiven. Now in our age we have virtually the complete opposite view, sin and sickness are totally unrelated. If we look at the Bible, both here and as a whole, we see that both views are complete nonsense. Sin and sickness are not always directly related in the sense that if a person is seriously ill or infirm then they must have committed some vile sin. Conversely, it is equal rubbish to say that sin and sickness are never related. Because of the fall sickness does reign in the world, so there is a relationship between sin and sickness. Sometimes there is an obvious direct relationship, eg if a person drinks too much, takes drugs, is sexually promiscuous etc, then there are direct health consequences. There are instances in the Bible where an illness is inflicted by God as judgement. So sometimes the two are related. But we are not to go around judging people on this basis! And note here that Jesus, confronted by a paralysed man, tells him his sins are forgiven. The issue is more complicated than either of the two simplistic approaches we tend to go with.

Jeremiah 18:11,12 - We will continue with our own plans

18:11

This verse must be read in context with the preceding verses, and also demonstrates how we are to take God’s announcements of judgement. God has just told Jeremiah that if a nation destined for destruction repents then God will relent. So here God gives Jeremiah a message of judgement to deliver to the people, He is preparing disaster for them. So what Judah should do is to repent of their sins, of their evil ways. If they had done this then they would have been spared. When God delivers a message of judgement it is done with the hope that people will respond to it and turn from their evil ways. It is a warning that should be heeded.

18:12

However, God knew that the people would not repent. Instead they would continue in their evil ways. They would not turn to God, but persist in following their own path. No one has any need to go to hell, but many will. Not because God is cruel, but because men are stubborn, refusing to take the offer of salvation.

Matthew 8:30-34 - They pleaded with Him to leave their region

8:30,31

The demons knew they were in deep trouble and pleaded to be sent into the herd of pigs. The region where this was taking place  had a large Gentile population, and it is likely that the pigs belonged to Gentiles. So the question of “what were Jews doing with a herd of pigs” is possibly totally irrelevant because the Jews did not have a herd of pigs.

8:32-34

“Go!” The demons came out of the men and went into the pigs.The whole herd then proceeded to rush down the steep bank, into the lake and drowned. So Jesus giving the demons what they wanted did not do them a great deal of good. This clearly caused great consternation for those looking after the pigs, a great economic loss! Not to mention the unusual nature of the event. The whole town then came out to Jesus and pleaded with Him to leave. We often labour under the misapprehension that people will naturally like and want Jesus, if only we present Him in a nice enough light. This is utter nonsense. It is only the Spirit of God who can open a man’s eyes to the truth of who Jesus is.

Notice that Matthew does not mention the two men who had been set free. Matthew seems to be focusing on the reaction of people. So if we look at this chapter as a whole, we see that people considered outcasts (lepers and Gentiles) were freely accepted and demonstrated faith. Peter’s mother-in-law was healed. Then there was Jesus making clear the cost of following Him, it is no light decision. Now we have people outrightly rejecting Jesus. The reaction and response of people to Jesus is not a simple matter. There will be all sorts of reactions from all sorts of people.