Jeremiah, “Jesus our righteousness.”
Ch. 1 Jeremiah’s Call
Chs. 2-25 Twelve sermons against Judea
Intro
We come now to the second book of promises, and for the most part, people wouldn’t have liked these promises found in Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived 60 years after the days of Isaiah, and was the son of a priest who only lived two miles from Jerusalem and was called at an early age to bring a message to a nation who would hate him for it. His ministry would span 47 years during a time that would correspond to and overlap that of Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Daniel, and Ezekiel. His prophetic ministry would be towards a nation that would go through five kings, and only the first of those, “Josiah,” was a spiritual reformer. His first 22 years, the messages God had him proclaim were a series of 12 messages concerning coming judgment at the very time Judah was being threatened by Assyria and Egypt.
This was followed by 19 years where he prophesied to Judah of God’s coming discipline and captivity, while they were first threatened then besieged by Babylon.The final eight years of Jeremiah’s messages were spoken while he was in Jerusalem and Egypt, after Judah had been taken captive. His ministry was one characterized by misery and a call to have faith during times of failure. He, more than all the other prophets, is the most courageous, as he was called to speak the truth to those who didn’t want to hear it. And instead of responding to the truth and turning from the destruction that was coming to God, they chose rather to destroy the messenger because they didn’t like the message. For 47 years he spoke to the nation a message of destruction to people whom he loved, and his only response was to seek his destruction, and during those 47 years he never once saw any fruit from his message. Yet during those 47 years he didn’t become bitter and instead remained brokenhearted, and he did so alone as the Lord told him not to marry (16:2).
In his public role, he never waivers and is fearless both in his message and to whom he shares it, regardless of the consequences. But privately, he is alone and feels forsaken, rejected, and hated by all. What He says before God gives us great insight into the battles of his heart dealing with such discouragement. His life is a balancing act where, though called by God to speak the truth, he suffered tremendously because he at times failed to draw from God’s love for him. Simply put, at times Jeremiah forgot who called him and what he was called to. So God would remind him that he was called to speak God’s Word; he was not called to be popular or successful in the nation’s eyes. No, God called him faithful only to Him and to find his comfort in his relationship with the Lord.
Jeremiah’s Call:
Ch. 1 Here in this first section we see how Jeremiah became, if you will, Jeremiah the prophet. In 1:4-5, though already a young man during the reign of the youthful king Josiah, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah is concerned with such a calling at a young age, to which the Lord responds by saying in
1:7-8 “Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’ for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you,” says the Lord.“He is assured that the Lord will put His Word in Jeremiah’s mouth, but that the message will be to “root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.” Oh dear ones, sometimes God calls us to root out and pull down before we can build and plant, but as long as His Word is in our mouths by His Spirit, we can know that it will bear fruit. Why such a message? Well, we are told in 1:16, “Because they have forsaken Me, burned incense to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands.”
Twelve sermons against Judea
First Sermon, Ch. 2:1-3:5 Jeremiah speaks of Judah’s willful sins, but first he mentions His love for them and their love for Him, saying in 2:2, “I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal, when you went after Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.” Then in 2:11 God says through Jeremiah, “Has a nation changed its gods, which are not gods? But My people have changed their glory for what does not profit.” And to clarify this, He says to them in 2:13: “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Dear ones, can you hear the Lord’s loving heart towards a nation that had forsaken God’s love for that which could never satisfy the longing of the heart? God says in verse 2:19 that they had “forsaken the Lord your God, and the fear of Me is not in you.” In Chapter 3:5, God says of the nation, “You have played the harlot with many lovers; yet return to Me, says the Lord.”
Second Sermon Ch. 3:6-6:30 Here Jeremiah warns of the coming judgment if the nation won’t repent. In 3:12-13 the Lord says to them, “Return, backsliding Israel,’ says the Lord; ‘I will not cause My anger to fall on you. For I am merciful,’ says the Lord; I will not remain angry forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God and have scattered your charms to alien deities under every green tree, and you have not obeyed My voice,’ says the Lord.”
He promises in 3:15 that He will “give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.” Then in 4:3-4, God says to them, “Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts.” Then in 4:14 He says to them, “Wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?” In chapter 5:1, God asks, “If you can find a man, if there is anyone who executes judgment, who seeks truth, and I will pardon her.
“But Judah’s personal sin and failure were being aided, according to 5:13, by “the prophets that become wind, for the word is not in them.” And because of a lack of repentance, God tells them in 5:24–25 that “they do not say in their hearts, “Let us now fear the Lord our God, who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season. He reserves for us the appointed weeks of the harvest. “Your iniquities have turned these things away, and your sins have withheld good from you.”
Have you ever stopped to consider what our foolish choices have cost us? Have you wondered how you might receive more of His precious promises towards you? Well, why not try surrendering your life to Him? Listen to God’s evaluation of Judah in Jeremiah 5:30-31, where He says, “An astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power, and My people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end?”
Third Sermon, Chs. 7-10 Here Jeremiah expresses his own grief over the nation’s idolatry and sin. In 7:3 God pleads, saying, “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.” In 7:9–11, God calls the nation on the carpet for their hypocrisy because they stole, murdered, and committed adultery as they worshiped Baal and then stood before God in the temple, declaring that they were delivered from all the sins they kept on practicing.
God says that His house had been turned into a den of thieves and that He has seen it. In 7:23-24, God says that He “commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.’ Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and the dictates of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.”
Then in 9:23-24 God warns them, saying, “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord.” In Chapter 10:8, God says to them, “A wooden idol is a worthless doctrine.” But in comparison, in 10:10, He says that “the Lord is the true God; He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath, the earth will tremble, and the nations will not be able to endure His indignation.”
Fourth Sermon, Chs. 11-12 Here Jeremiah speaks of Judah’s faithlessness in breaking its covenant with God. In 11:3, God reminds them of what He had told them at Sinai: “Cursed is the man who does not obey the words of this covenant.” In 11:11, the Lord says, “Behold, I will surely bring calamity on them, which they will not be able to escape; and though they cry out to Me, I will not listen to them.” Then in 12:2, He says of Judah, “You have planted them; yes, they have taken root; they grow; yes, they bear fruit. You are near their mouth but far from their mind.” Then in 12:11 God tells them, “The whole land is made desolate, because no one takes it to heart.”
Fifth Sermon, Ch.13 Jeremiah uses a ruined sash and wineskins to symbolize God’s judgment. In 13:11 God says, “For as the sash clings to the waist of a man, so I have caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to Me,’ says the Lord, ‘that they may become My people, for renown, for praise, and for glory; but they would not hear.” Then in 13:17 God says, “But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride; My eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock has been taken captive.” In 13:23, God asks, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good to those who are accustomed to do evil.”
Sixth Sermon Chs. 14-15 Here God uses the illustration of a drought to describe His coming judgment. Yet God says in 14:14, “The prophets prophesy lies in My name. I have not sent them, commanded them, nor spoken to them; they prophesy to you a false vision, divination, a worthless thing, and the deceit of their heart.” And in 15:1, the Lord said to Jeremiah, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before Me, My mind would not be favorable toward these people. Cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth.” As Jeremiah has been faithful to say these words for God, he is being beaten and persecuted, saying in 15:15 that, “for Your sake I have suffered rebuke,” and in 15:16 Jeremiah says, “Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.” Dear ones, what comfort God’s Word affords us when, as His instrument, we are persecuted and harassed.
Seventh Sermon Chs. 16-17 Here in these chapters, Jeremiah explains why he isn’t married. As we are told in 16:2, the Lord tells him, “You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in his place.” Because judgment is coming and with it destruction, God spares Jeremiah the heartache that would be associated with this judgment if he were to marry and have a family. In 17:5, the Lord says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord.” Then in 17:9-10, God says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart; I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” But with this Jeremiah cries out, saying in 17:14, “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for You are my praise.”
Eighth Sermon Chs. 18-20 Here in this section, God compares His dealings with Judah with a Potter working with clay. Saying in 18:6, “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the Lord. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!” What a wonderful picture as God takes our broken dysfunctional life and, on His wheel, reshapes us and makes us whole and useful. Ah, but if we become hardened in a dysfunctional way, there is nothing that the potter can do for us. Are you moldable in the Potter’s hands, or do you resist His loving hands shaping you into His image? Don’t become hardened to His touch, or God forbid you may remain displeasing to the Potter.
Ninth Sermon Chs. 21-23:1-8 Jeremiah speaks against the evil kings of Judah and of a yet future king from David. There in Jeremiah 23:4-6 the Lord says, “I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking,” says the Lord. “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “that I will raise to David a branch of righteousness; a king shall reign and prosper, and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely; now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.”
Tenth Sermon, Ch. 23:9-40 Jeremiah attacks the false prophets of the nation. Saying of them in 23:16, “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; they speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord.”
Eleventh Sermon, Ch. 24 Here Jeremiah compares God’s good people who were carried away by the Babylonians (such as Daniel) with those wicked ones left in Jerusalem, calling them good and bad figs. Of the good figs God calls them in 24:7 “I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.”
Twelfth Sermon, Ch. 25 Here Jeremiah looks forward into the 70 years that Judah will be captive in Babylon. But he looks beyond the captivity to a future restoration, saying in 25:12, “Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will make it a perpetual desolation.” It is this chapter that Daniel referred to in 9:2, saying, “I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.”
It was from this understanding and repentance of Daniel that God looked forward to 1948 and a time when Israel would again repatriate the nation, and beyond this to yet a future time when, as Daniel describes it in 9:27, “Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; but in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.”
Jeremiah, “Jesus our righteousness.”
Chs. 26-29 The life of a prophet
Chs. 30-33 Promises to God’s people
Chs. 34-45 Falling on hard times
Chs. 46-52 They have fallen and can’t get up.
Intro
Jeremiah, as you will recall, lived 60 years after the days of Isaiah and was the son of a priest who only lived two miles from Jerusalem and was called at an early age to bring a message to a nation who would hate him for it. His ministry would span 47 years during a time that would correspond to and overlap that of Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Daniel, and Ezekiel.
- During his first 22 years, the messages God had him proclaim were a series of 12 messages concerning coming judgment at the very time Judah was being threatened by Assyria and Egypt, which we went over earlier in Vs. 1-25.
- This was followed by 19 years where he prophesied to Judah of God’s coming discipline and captivity while they were first threatened then besieged by Babylon.
- The final eight years of Jeremiah’s messages were spoken while he was in Jerusalem and Egypt after Judah had been taken captive.
His ministry was one characterized by misery and a call to have faith during times of failure. For 47 years he spoke to the nation a message of destruction to people whom he loved, and the only response was to seek his destruction, and during those 47 years he never once saw any fruit from his message. Yet he didn’t become bitter and instead remained brokenhearted.
- In his public role, he never waivers and is fearless both in his message and to whom he shares it, regardless of the consequences.
- But privately, he is alone and feels forsaken, rejected, and hated by all. What He says before God gives us great insight into the battles of his heart dealing with such discouragement.
His life is a balancing act, though called by God to speak the truth, he suffered tremendously because he at times failed to draw from God’s love for him. At times Jeremiah forgot who called him and what he was called to. So God would remind him that he was called to speak God’s word; he was not called to be popular or successful in the nation’s eyes. God had called him faithful only to Him and to find his comfort in his relationship with the Lord.
Chapters 26-29 The life of a prophet
Here in this section, because Jeremiah proclaims faithfully the message God has given him, he suffers personally for it. Suffering, my friends, is always a difficult thing for us to go through; sometimes we suffer because of something we have or have not done. Other times we suffer because of what others have or have not done. There are times when we suffer because of what God has called us to do, and these are the most difficult to endure. When I’ve suffered because of what God has called me to, I’ve wondered what purpose such suffering has for me. Paul makes a very interesting statement in Col. 1:24 when he writes, “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church.”
By such a statement, we know that Paul is not saying that something “lacked in the afflictions of Christ” personally but that God, in allowing Paul to go through a season of suffering because of what He allowed Paul to go through, was supplying a personal insight into what Jesus went through and does go through because of the failure of those that He loved so much that He laid down His life for them. Such suffering inevitably makes us more like Jesus and better servants towards those He has called us to minister His grace towards. Jeremiah suffered from the hands of his fellow countrymen as well as others who were called to a prophetic ministry. His reaction is to continue to boldly speak the truth, which leads the authorities to arrest him and pronounce the death penalty towards him.
When addressing the nation’s rage against what he had spoken as the coming judgment upon Judah, he mentions the prophecies of Micah to Hezekiah 70 years earlier, which spoke of the coming judgment upon them if they didn’t repent. Jeremiah asks the nation in 26:19, “Did Hezekiah, king of Judah, and all Judah ever put him to death? Did he not fear the Lord and seek the Lord’s favor? And the Lord relented concerning the doom which He had pronounced against them. But we are doing great evil against ourselves.” Jeremiah says, “Hey folks, you are threatening to kill the messenger because you refuse to listen and heed the message!”
Then in 27:12-15 Jeremiah “spoke to Zedekiah, king of Judah, according to all these words, saying, “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live! Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the Lord has spoken against the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? Therefore do not listen to the words of the prophets who speak to you, saying, ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylon,’ for they prophesy a lie to you; for I have not sent them,” says the Lord, “yet they prophesy a lie in My name, that I may drive you out, and that you may perish, you and the prophets who prophesy to you.” In the 28th chapter, Jeremiah addresses one of the prophets specifically, Hananiah, who said that their captivity would only last two years in Babylon, saying to him in 28:15, “Hear now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, but you make this people trust in a lie.”
In the 29th chapter, Jeremiah writes a letter to those who have already been taken captive by Babylonian men, such as Daniel, using those familiar words of 29:10–13. “For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you and cause you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
Chs. 30-33 Promises to God’s people
In these chapters, God speaks through Jeremiah concerning the future restoration of the nation. As not only will the city of Jerusalem be rebuilt, but God will make an everlasting covenant with His people, saying in Jeremiah 30:8-9 that “it shall come to pass in that day,’ says the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from your neck and will burst your bonds; foreigners shall no more enslave them. But they shall serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.” A time in which God declares in 31:2 that “the people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness—Israel, when I went to give him rest.” Then in 31:13–14, God describes this “grace,” saying that it shall be a time when “the virgin rejoices in the dance, and the young men and the old, together; for I will turn their mourning to joy, comfort them, and make them rejoice rather than sorrow.
I will satisfy the soul of the priests with abundance, and My people shall be satisfied with My goodness, says the Lord.” And in order that they would know that God will do this, He proclaims through Jeremiah in 31:31–34. “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when 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 in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord.
For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” In 32:27, God proclaims, “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me?” And just in case one may think that the only thing too hard for God is our heart, He says in 32:39–41. “I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever, for the good of them and their children after them. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me. Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will assuredly plant them in this land, with all My heart and with all My soul.” And all of this will be accomplished through a mysterious person who will be a descendant of David called the “Lord our Righteousness” (33:16–17).
Chs. 34-45 Falling on hard times
In these chapters, Jeremiah speaks to a new king, Zedekiah, who had no regard for God and allowed those his officials to pursue and arrest Jeremiah and place him in a cistern full of mud. He would be released only to again speak of Judah’s captivity and destruction. To the nation, Jeremiah speaks in 35:15, “I have also sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, ‘Turn now everyone from his evil way, amend your doings, and do not go after other gods to serve them; then you will dwell in the land which I have given you and your fathers.’ But you have not inclined your ear, nor obeyed Me.” In 36:2–3, Jeremiah was to take a scroll and write on it all the words that God had spoken against Israel, against Judah, and against all the nations: “It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the adversities which I purpose to bring upon them, that everyone may turn from his evil way, that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.”
Saints, that is a great picture of the Lord’s heart towards us in Him, who has given us countless times to listen to Him and get our hearts right. Yet the people reacted to this according to 37:15 by being “angry with Jeremiah, and they struck him and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe. For they had made that prison.” In 44:15-18 we are told that “all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to other gods, with all the women who stood by, a great multitude, and all the people who dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying: “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you! But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.
For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble. But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” There was a worship of experience based upon what they gained personally out of such worship. In the 5 verse chapter 45, Jeremiah speaks to his only friend and scribe Baruch, saying that God had added “grief to my sorrow” and that he “fainted in my sighing and found no rest.” God’s response to Jeremiah is 45:4-5. “Behold, what I have built I will break down, and what I have planted I will pluck up, that is, this whole land. And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I will bring adversity on all flesh,” says the Lord. “But I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go.”
Chs. 46-52 They have fallen and can’t get up.
In chapters 46-49, Jeremiah prophecies against many other nations, all of which will also be invaded by Babylon. Then in chapters 50-51, Jeremiah says that Babylon will also be defeated, and then in the 52nd chapter, Jeremiah speaks of the last days of Jerusalem, and as such, all that he and spoke of for the last 47 years were fulfilled. Of Babylon, Jeremiah says in 51:37-40 that it will “become a heap, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment and a hissing, without an inhabitant. They shall roar together like lions; they shall growl like lions’ whelps.
In their excitement, I will prepare their feasts; I will make them drunk, so that they may rejoice and sleep a perpetual sleep and not awake,” says the Lord. I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats.” This would come to pass in Daniel chapter 5 when King Belshazzar (Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson) sees God’s hand writing upon the wall as the Medes dammed up the river that flowed through the city and gained access under the fortified wall of Babylon.