Through the Bible - Jeremiah

Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor will I speak any more in his name. But his word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. (Jeremiah 20:9)

The weeping prophet preached destruction to a people who would not listen—yet still heard God say, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love."

A Long and Lonely Ministry

The prophet Jeremiah, like Isaiah, had a long career speaking to a people who would not listen. We looked at Isaiah a couple of weeks ago, and after his call and commission in Isaiah 6 he received from the Lord the hope that a remnant would return. Jeremiah didn't have that. Throughout his ministry nobody would listen. As he pleaded and cried out, the people mocked him, persecuted him, and ultimately he watched as his countrymen were led away into captivity in Babylon.

And he did this work completely alone. In Jeremiah 16:2 the Lord says to him, "You shall not take a wife, neither shall you have sons or daughters in this place." The reason given is a sad one: all the sons and daughters of that nation were going to be killed or taken captive, and the husbands and wives would die from pestilence or famine or go into exile. So for some 40 years Jeremiah never had a helpmate by his side.

It was a discouraging ministry. He spoke boldly before the people but cried humbly before God, and several times in the book you see him pleading that the Lord would let him give up. In Jeremiah 20:9 he actually tries: "I will not make mention of him, nor will I speak any more in his name." But God's word was in his heart "as a burning fire shut up in my bones," and he could not stay silent. He had to speak again.

A People Who Worked at Sin

The people to whom Jeremiah prophesied were wicked, stiff-necked, and hard-hearted. We've been studying through the Bible for months and watched the children of Israel in Judges do what was right in their own eyes but evil in the sight of the Lord. You see it here too. They turned their backs and not their faces to God, and they lived almost as if they worked at sin. In Jeremiah 9:5 we read, "They have taught their tongue to speak lies, and they weary themselves to commit iniquity."

Romans tells us the wages of sin is death—the compensation for that hard labor. These people literally worked at sinning. And it wasn't just the commoners. Jeremiah 5:30 says, "A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their own means." Notice the people's reaction: "and my people love to have it so."

Isn't that so much like our nation today? Just give me my 401k, keep interest rates good, let me make money—and the people love to have it so. Righteousness is not exalted, yet the Bible tells us it is righteousness that exalts a nation. God called His people in Jeremiah 6:16, "Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein."

Foolish Shepherds and False Peace

In Jeremiah 10:21 God speaks again to the religious leaders: "For the pastors are become foolish, and have not sought the Lord; therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered." How would they be scattered? Through the coming desolation by King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. And all the while the false prophets were saying, "Don't listen to Jeremiah—peace, peace." But God's word was, "There is no peace."

The whole world still cries out for peace this way—treaties, envoys, especially toward the Middle East. After long years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, people in this election year hope someone can bring peace. But the peace that Washington or the United Nations might broker is never a true peace. We will have wars and rumors of wars until the Prince of Peace rules and reigns on this earth. We say, "Come, Lord Jesus, come."

The northern tribes had already been exiled under the Assyrians. You would think Judah would learn from watching their brothers disappear, but they did not. They turned their backs against God and went into the same exile.

I Myself Will Fight Against You

Because of Judah's utter backsliding, Jeremiah's message was one of destruction and woe—much like Isaiah's opening chapters. In Jeremiah 15:1 God says, "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people. Cast them out of my sight." Even those great intercessors could not turn back His hand. Indeed, several times in this book God tells Jeremiah, "Do not pray for this people; I will not hear your prayer."

Why would God do this to His chosen people and His holy city? Jeremiah 15:3-4 gives the answer: He would appoint four kinds of destruction—the sword, the dogs, the fowls, and the beasts—"because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem." Remember that Hezekiah, after God graciously gave him 15 more years of life, fathered Manasseh, who became king at twelve and turned everything his father had done toward good back to evil. He set up worship to Molech, passed his children through fire in the valley of Hinnom, and brought Baal and Asherah into Jerusalem. That wicked king is the reason given for the coming exile.

So in Jeremiah 21, when King Zedekiah sends messengers asking Jeremiah to inquire of the Lord—hoping God will strike Nebuchadnezzar as He struck Sennacherib's 185,000 soldiers in one night—God answers shockingly: "I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands... and I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger and in fury and in great wrath." The very language used to deliver Israel from Egypt is now turned against them.

The Way of Life and the Way of Death

God then sets before them a choice, echoing Moses in Deuteronomy 30: "Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death." He that abides in the city dies by sword, famine, or pestilence; he that goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans shall live. The only way to live was to become a slave of Babylon. The false prophets said, "Stay here, peace, peace," but staying meant death.

In Jeremiah 22 God sends Jeremiah to the house of the king: "Execute judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, and do no wrong... to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow." If they would do this, kings would still ride through these gates. But if not, "this house shall become a desolation." And nations passing by the ruined city would ask, "Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this great city?" The answer: "Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshipped other gods."

If You Repent, I Will Relent

Yet in the midst of this coming destruction, the Lord still cries to His people. In Jeremiah 7:3 He says, "Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place." Again in Jeremiah 26:13, "Amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God; and the Lord will repent him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you." If you will repent, then I will relent—that is essentially God's word.

Jeremiah 7:5-6 adds, "If ye thoroughly amend your ways... if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow... neither walk after other gods to your hurt, then will I cause you to dwell in this place." Notice that phrase—"to your hurt." So often we don't recognize that turning away from the Lord is what brings the very pain we suffer. Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. As we look at our nation, we must trace its troubles back to that root cause of sin.

God's grace and mercy are clearly visible in this book; He lovingly calls His people back. But their hearts were hardened. God prophesied Babylon's coming because He knew His people would not turn. They had witnessed the ruin of the ten northern tribes and missed the message, so they too would be led away as slaves.

Thoughts of Peace and a New Covenant

Yet even the captivity displays God's grace. Many know Jeremiah 29:11, but the context matters. In verse 10 God says, "After seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place." Then verse 11: "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end."

Sometimes we assume chastening means God is simply angry and wants to destroy us. We have a distorted view of our own actions and His. But the Lord says His thoughts toward us are thoughts of peace—thoughts to give us a future and a hope. "Then shall ye call upon me... and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." Their seventy years in Babylon actually purged Israel of idolatry. God's judgment is always for purification, separating the wheat from the chaff.

Then, while Jeremiah was being persecuted and cast into a pit (chapters 30-33), God gave him the New Covenant promise in Jeremiah 31:31-34: "I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers... I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts... and they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."

The New Covenant Fulfilled in Christ

This is the beautiful work our Lord does when He comes. As 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be the righteousness of God in Him. On the cross 2,000 years ago He took all our filthy rags upon Himself, God poured out judgment and wrath against sin, and Jesus declared, "It is finished." He calls us in Matthew 11:28, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden."

Man has labored at sin since Eden, and the wages of sin is death; he cannot kill death himself. But Jesus dealt with both death and sin on the cross. And His work does more than cover our past sin—it deals with our wicked heart. As Ezekiel 36 will tell us, God removes the heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh, a heart upon which His law is written. Other religions try to reform man from the outside while the heart stays wicked. Jeremiah 17:9 says the heart is desperately wicked—who can know it? The very next verse says God searches the heart. He does not merely reform that heart; He replaces it.

The blood of bulls and goats could not accomplish this. Hebrews 9 tells us without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, and the Old Covenant sacrifices did not reach down to the conscience. But God does, through the cross. The message of Jesus is, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Forsaking the Fountain of Living Waters

These people would not repent. In Jeremiah 2:26-27 God says they are ashamed like a thief found out, having said to a stock, "Thou art my father," yet in the time of their trouble crying, "Arise, and save us." Isn't that the way of man—turning from God while things go well, then crying out only when hard times come? God answers in verse 28, "Where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? Let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah."

Jerusalem had become like Athens in Acts 17, where Paul saw idols on every corner. But this was supposed to be the city of God, where His temple was and where He dwelt, yet idolatrous shrines stood on every street. Earlier, in Jeremiah 2:13, God names two evils: "They have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water."

What a sad illustration. They had the true God, the temple, the law, the prophets—all the outward trimmings of true religion—yet they forsook the fountain of living waters. Jesus is that fountain. In John 7:37 He cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." But these people dug broken cisterns that offered no satisfaction, gaining nothing but a heart distant from the Lord.

Bold as a Lion, Humble Before God

You can see why Jeremiah was the weeping prophet. Called from a young age—God told him, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee"—he protested that he was only a youth. God said, "Be not afraid of their faces." And he wasn't. When he stood before kings, priests, and prophets to speak words of destruction and woe, he was as bold as a lion. The righteous are bold as a lion. Yet in the same book you see his humility before God. Bold before the people, humble before the Lord—a great example for us.

Some of the most beautiful verses in the Bible are here. Even while Jeremiah was in the pit, God said, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." I remember after 9/11 ministering near Times Square when a Jewish woman came back to us in tears saying, "God has forsaken us; He doesn't love us." All I could think of was the word of God through Jeremiah: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." And when we feel He is distant, He says, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not." He alone can truly comfort us.

These people were without comfort not because God refused to reach out, but because they refused to let Him. As I look at our nation in 2008, people are looking for hope to ease their suffering—new politicians on every channel offering hope. It will not be found in such things. It is found only in the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Prince of Peace.

Thus Saith the Lord

Consider this righteous man, bold as a lion before the people yet humble before God, knowing he could do nothing in his own strength. May we never reach the point of thinking we have this whole Christianity thing figured out, for we need the Lord. Next, in Lamentations, we will see his tears as he watches the people who would not repent led into captivity—naked and ashamed—when it all could have been stopped if they had heeded the word of the Lord.

One last thing about this book: it constantly says, "Thus saith the Lord"—more than any other book in the Bible, some 312 times. This truly is the word of God spoken to His people, the cry of our Savior to those who had departed from Him: "Please return to me. I will relent if you will repent." "Stand ye in the ways, and ask for the old paths... and walk therein. But they said, We will not." It is a heavy book, but it carries vital application for us.

Closing Prayer

Lord, help us to glean application from this book. Help us see that You have called us to a life of righteousness—not righteousness we achieve by the law, for there is nothing we can do to make ourselves righteous, but righteousness that comes by faith. As Paul said in Philippians 3, "I press on that I may lay hold of that for which You laid hold of me." Lord, You have separated us and set us apart to be holy unto You and a people who are truly whole. Make us whole as we walk in faith and in the Spirit, that we would shine brightly as lights in this dark world, that people would see and know that You are true and real because of what they see in our lives. Help us to see transformation in our family members, coworkers, and friends who do not know You or have departed from following You—in Escondido, throughout California, and across the United States. We want to see You lifted up. Help us to be good examples of Your grace, mercy, and love, and ready to speak boldly Your truth—willing to say that sin is sin, but that there is One who can save. Thank You that You have saved us. Help us, Lord, to press on. In Jesus' name, amen.