God’s warning to humanity.

“I looked at the earth and it was formless and empty; and at the heavens, and their light was gone. I looked at the mountains and they were quaking; all the hills were swaying. I looked, and there were no people; every bird in the sky had flown away. I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert; all its towns lay in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger. This is what the LORD says: ‘The whole land will be ruined, though I will not destroy it completely. Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above grow dark, because I have spoken and will not relent, I have decided and will not turn back.’” (Jeremiah 4:23-28)

This is not an easy passage to understand but it has a message of immense significance for us today. It is essential to recognise that in the Hebrew this is poetry and it is not intended to be read as literal prophecy. It is a prophetic vision given to Jeremiah to enable him to perceive the eschatological truth embedded into God’s act of creation and his purposes for humanity.

“O Jerusalem, wash the evil from your heart and be saved”

The poem has to be seen in the context of the warnings given in this chapter of the impending destruction that will befall the whole land of Judah and Jerusalem unless the people heed the trumpet call and repent of their evil ways. Jeremiah expresses this previously in verse 14: “O Jerusalem, wash the evil from your heart and be saved”. In the next verse he spells out the physical danger facing the nation from the advance of the Babylonian army.

An Urgent Message for Jerusalem

Jeremiah describes the northernmost tribe of Dan seeing the advance of the Babylonians and sending an urgent message to Jerusalem from the hills of Ephraim, warning them that a cruel enemy is on the war-path who will overwhelm all the small nations around Judah before eventually attacking Jerusalem itself: “Tell this to the nations, proclaim concerning Jerusalem: ‘A besieging army is coming from a distant land, raising a war cry against the cities of Judah’” (Jer 4:16). Jeremiah is given a specific warning from God: “‘They surround her like men guarding a field, because she has rebelled against me,’ declares the LORD” (Jer 4:17).

At the end of chapter 4, in verses 29 to 31, Jeremiah returns to the theme of warning about a physical attack coming from an army on horseback as well as infantry and archers. He says the attack is coming upon every town, and he sees people taking flight into the countryside, hiding among the rocks, and leaving the towns deserted. But the people of Jerusalem ignore the warning signs and behave like a prostitute would; looking at herself in the mirror, admiring her beauty, putting on her scarlet dress, adorning herself with heavy make-up and jewels, unaware of the danger about to descend upon her. Then it happens! She is brutally raped. She is in great pain. She cries out, gasping for breath, but it is too late – “‘Alas! I am fainting; my life is given over to murderers’” (Jer 4:31).

In the midst of these dire warnings of an actual attack from the Babylonians, Jeremiah is given this apocalyptic poem that should not be read as predictive prophecy, but rather as divine revelation of the ultimate purposes of God the Creator of the Universe.

The Creational Purposes of God

In the biblical account of the creation of human beings, God gave them freedom of will and the ability to exercise dominion, or power, over the whole order of creation, both animal and material. In due time God revealed his teaching (Torah) through Moses to the people of Israel whom he called into a covenant relationship of servanthood and through whom he would reveal his nature and purposes to humankind. The poem we are studying today from Jeremiah 4:23-28, is prefaced by a single statement in verse 22. It is in the first person singular and comes from God himself to his covenant people: “‘My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil; they know not how to do good.’”

There comes a point in the history of the world when the wickedness of humankind becomes so intense that their evil deeds threaten the well-being of the whole of creation.

This is the tragic history of Israel. Apart from a remnant throughout the ages (Rom 11), they have never understood the creation purposes of God. They have never understood the reason why God called them into a covenant relationship with himself in order to carry out his missionary purpose of taking his salvation to all nations.

The Consequences of Rebellion

In this prophetic poem Jeremiah is shown the consequences of the rebellion of human beings and their rejection of the good purposes of God. There comes a point in the history of the world when the wickedness of humankind becomes so intense that their evil deeds threaten the well-being of the whole of creation. The poem envisions a time when the entire universe is affected; the earth returns to its original formless chaos at the beginning of Creation. The light of the sun and moon and stars are dim; the mountains are shaken, the hills sway and the birds of the air disappear. The fruitful land becomes a desert and the towns lie in ruins as God carries out his purposes of judging the nations that have grossly misused the power God gave them at the Creation.

Final Judgment

Jeremiah is the first to receive this prophetic revelation of the ultimate purposes of God. Some 70 years later, at the end of the Exile, the Prophet Haggai was given the revelation that the day would come when God would “shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land” and would “shake all nations” (Hag 2:6-7). Jesus speaks of the time coming when “there will be great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the world until now” (Matt 24:21). At that time Jesus says, he will return to earth and “all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matt 25:32).

The moral and spiritual pollution of humanity is the root cause of the damage done to the physical creation.

There are other passages in the New Testament that speak of the days when God will deal with the lawlessness and wickedness of human beings “who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness” (2 Thess 2:12). And Peter describes, in apocalyptic terms, ‘The Day of the Lord’: He says that day “will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare” (2 Pet 3:10).

These words should give us insight as to how God looks with horror at the wickedness of our civilisation and the way we have misused and polluted the whole created order, and corrupted the human nature that he gave us.

The United Nations has issued a strong warning that a great many species are threatened with extinction due to human activity¹, but what they fail to notice is the moral and spiritual pollution of humanity that is the root cause of the damage done to the physical creation. Jeremiah’s poem is a revelation from God intended to bring a severe warning to humanity of the consequences of our wickedness – and that the day will undoubtedly come when God will judge the human beings he created in his own image – a message that is desperately needed to be heard today!

The day will undoubtedly come when God will judge the human beings he created in his own image.

References

1 Planet on 'path to catastrophe' as million species threatened, warns UN report. Sky News, 6 May 2019.

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Jeremiah's insight into the Father's heart.

“I myself said, ‘How gladly would I treat you like sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of any nation’. I thought you would call me ‘Father’ and not turn away from following me. But like a woman unfaithful to her husband, so you have been unfaithful to me, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 3:19-20)

This is another lament expressing the grief in God’s heart as he reflects on the history of the people of Israel, from the time he made a covenant with Moses, drawing together the tribes of Israel into a special relationship with himself.

That special relationship was, “I will be your God and you will be my people”, and from that time they became a family created by God, with a beautiful land in which to live together with a rich inheritance. Every true family has a father to whom they look for love, protection and provision. In the same way, God expected the people of Israel, his family, to regard him as their Father, so that he could treat them like sons.

Sadly, they had turned away from the truth that he had presented to Moses for their health and security, and to enable them to follow him so that he could work out his purposes for the world through them. Israel had never been faithful: they had never fully put their trust in God and, like an adulterous marriage partner, they had been unfaithful to him, causing untold grief in God’s heart.

Idolatrous, Unfaithful Israel

This is what Jeremiah discerned in his times of entering into the council of the Lord and he broke entirely new theological ground in daring to put words into God’s mouth, “I thought you would call me ‘Father’” (v19).

None of Jeremiah’s forebears – the 8^th-Century-BC writing prophets such as Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Nahum – would have dared to make such a statement. Priests and prophets alike in pre-exilic Israel/Judah all avoided the word ‘Father’ in relation to God, because of their fear of idolatry. The Canaanites had introduced Israel to the Baals (local gods who supposedly owned the land) as the fathers of the people, who had to be worshipped in order to produce the fruits of the soil upon which the people depended for their sustenance.

Jeremiah broke new theological ground in daring to put words into God’s mouth, “I thought you would call me ‘Father’”.

Many of the local shrines, under groups of trees or on high places in the countryside, were occupied by altars to Baal. For the sake of peace and harmony, many of the priests of Israel and Judah practised at these shrines, offering thanksgiving to the God of Israel but also paying respect to the local Baal. It was against this practice that Amos was sent to protest at Bethel, where Amaziah ordered him to leave:

Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. Don’t prophesy any more at Bethel, because this is the King’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom. (Amos 7:12-13)

Jeremiah saw exactly the same thing happening in the countryside of Judah that had been denounced by Amos: the mixing of Baal worship with the worship of the God of Israel. He spelt out his complaint in one of his earliest statements: “As a thief is disgraced when he is caught, so the house of Israel is disgraced – they, their kings and their officials, their priests and their prophets. They say to wood, ‘You are my father’, and to stone, ‘you gave me birth'” (Jer 2:27).

The Abomination of Syncretism

Jeremiah continued this theme when explaining why there was a drought covering the land of Judah in the late 7^th Century BC (this has enabled us to date this pronouncement to early in Jeremiah’s ministry): “You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen” (Jer 3:3).

In the next verse he spelled out the theological error that was being encouraged by priests and prophets: “Have you not just called me: ‘My Father, my friend from my youth, will you always be angry? Will your wrath continue for ever?’ This is how you talk, but you do all the evil you can”.

In these words, you can feel the horror that Jeremiah was experiencing, perhaps reflecting his own suffering at the hands of his father, brothers and sisters, who had publicly denounced him and were even threatening his life. He saw the people, and probably some priests from his own family, officiating at the shrines on the high places where they were actually offering sacrifices to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, on an altar dedicated to Baal.

Jeremiah’s horror at what God was experiencing was reflected in his own suffering at the hands of his family.

It was the abomination of people publicly acknowledging a pagan god as the father of the nation that Jeremiah found almost beyond description. It caused him so much grief because he himself had come into such an intimate relationship with God, the Creator of the universe, who was the true Father of the nation of Israel and his own precious Heavenly Father.

Our Father in Heaven

Jeremiah was the first in the history of Israel to recognise the Fatherhood of God. None of the pre-exilic writings in the history of Israel mention it; the other references are all post-exilic, such as Isaiah 63:16 and 64:7, and Malachi 2:10.

This is why Jeremiah was such a theological giant. Not only was he the first to recognise the Fatherhood of God, he was also the first to hear God’s plan to create a new covenant relationship with the houses of Israel and Judah (Jer 31:31) that would one day be extended to people of all nations through Messiah Jesus.

This is why there is such affinity between the ministry of Jeremiah and the ministry of Jesus, who sometimes quoted Jeremiah word for word, such as when he said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest your souls” (Matthew 11:29, from Jeremiah 6:16). Much of John’s Gospel is about the Fatherhood of God, first revealed to Jeremiah, especially Jesus’ teaching at the Last Supper (John 13-17), which centres around his statement, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Jeremiah’s Personal Anguish

It may have been because of Jeremiah’s own experience of rejection by his own family, and the intense sorrow that this brought to him, that he was able to perceive the depth of suffering in God’s heart at his own ‘covenant people’ being so unfaithful to him. Jeremiah’s personal anguish came tumbling out of his mouth a number of times when, in mid-flow, he was describing the terrible consequences to the people of Israel of deliberately turning away from God and forfeiting his covering of protection.

Not only was Jeremiah the first to recognise the Fatherhood of God, he was also the first to hear God’s plan to create a new covenant with Israel, and with all nations.

A good example of this is Jeremiah 15:10 where, in the midst of describing what was going to happen to Jerusalem, he suddenly broke off and proclaimed, “Alas, my mother, that you gave me birth, a man with whom the whole land strives and contends! I have neither lent nor borrowed yet everyone curses me.” In the very next verse, Jeremiah returned to the theme of declaring God’s willingness to protect his people from disaster and drive out their enemies, if they would only repent and return to him.

It is Jeremiah’s own close relationship with God, reflected in his affliction even more than in his bold and fearless declarations of the word of God, which makes his teaching of such value for us today. He reflects to us the grief in God’s heart at those who have his truth but deliberately reject his word, thereby forfeiting the wonderful benefits of God’s loving intention to treat us as precious sons and daughters in his own special family.

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The conspiracy.

“Then the Lord said to me, there is a conspiracy among the people of Judah and those who live in Jerusalem. They have returned to the sins of their forefathers, who refused to listen to my words. They have followed other gods to serve them. Both the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken the covenant I made with their forefathers. Therefore, this is what the Lord says: I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.” (Jeremiah 11:9-11)

Strong words! Not an easy message for the young prophet from the country town of Anathoth to bring to the sophisticated city-dwellers of Jerusalem. Jeremiah was still in his late teens: it was the year 621 BC, there was great excitement in the air following the discovery of the Book of the Covenant during the repairs to the Temple initiated by King Josiah.

Two-fold Deception

Once he had read the Deuteronomic penalties for breaking the Covenant, the King had called a great assembly in Jerusalem where he renewed the Covenant on behalf of the nation and then enforced the destruction of the shrines on the high places throughout Judah. But the ‘Great Reform’ had not reached the hearts of the people, who still longed for the exciting ceremonies of the local gods at the village shrines.

They crept back secretly to these places in the countryside, while the people in the town built little shrines on the rooftops of their houses so that they could continue their idolatrous practices. They thought their ways were hidden from the King (and also from God), particularly if they only went onto the rooftop by night, when the darkness would cover them from detection.

But they did not reckon with the observant young Jeremiah, who not only kept his eyes open but had learned to get into the presence of God, where a two-part conspiracy was revealed to him. One part was designed to deceive the King and the other part was directed against Jeremiah himself – and it was coming from his own family.

Josiah’s ‘Great Reform’ had not reached the hearts of the people, who still longed for the exciting ceremonies of the local gods.

Betrayal and Treachery

Jeremiah’s own family and friends in Anathoth, his home-town, were plotting against him. He said he felt “like a lamb led to the slaughter” (Jer 11:19). His own flesh and blood were plotting to assassinate him; “Let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more” they said.

How could Jeremiah’s own family be so cruel and so treacherous? But this is what happens when men feel their livelihoods to be threatened and their whole way of life to be endangered. Jeremiah was publicly supporting Josiah’s Reform, which would effectively have put his own family out of work – certainly out of the prosperity they were presently enjoying!

They were ministering at the high places in the countryside – supposedly in the name of Yahweh, the God of Israel. But these were pagan shrines where the priests were practising a form of syncretism, mixing the worship of Yahweh on altars set up to offer worship to the local Baals, supposedly ‘gods of the land’ who required various forms of fertility rites. These practices were popular with the people in the countryside where their livelihoods depended upon the productivity of the land.

Renegade Priests

Jeremiah’s family had been regarded as renegade priests for some 300 years. They were descendants of Eli, whose sons had behaved disgracefully. During King David’s lifetime there were two chief priests, Zadok and Abiathar. Zadok backed Solomon to succeed David, but Abiathar favoured David’s eldest son, Adonijah. In order to secure the throne, Solomon assassinated his older brother and promptly dismissed Abiathar, telling him to go back to his fields in Anathoth (1 Kings 2:26) and his family line was reduced to a minor priestly role from that day.

It is very possible that Jeremiah was unhappy with the priestly activities of his family at the country shrines. In order to fulfil the prophetic calling upon his life, he distanced himself from their activities and went to Jerusalem, where he would almost certainly have been in the great assembly called by Josiah.

Josiah’s Reform required the destruction of all local shrines at the high places. It further required the centralisation of all worship at the Temple. This effectively reduced Jeremiah’s family of priests to a minor role of serving in the Temple on a rota that would give them occasional service, while cutting them off from practising at the countryside shrines on the high places. This no doubt drastically reduced their income.

Jeremiah was publicly supporting Josiah’s Reform, which would effectively have put his own family out of work.

Hated for Putting God First

Jeremiah suddenly found himself the most hated person in Judah. He had publicly backed the King and now he was speaking in the streets of Jerusalem and railing against the people burning incense to foreign gods. He said there were as many shrines in Jerusalem as there were streets in the city.

Jeremiah not only prophesied disaster upon the whole land and upon the city of Jerusalem, but he actually told the people that God had instructed him not to offer any plea or petition for the city, because God would no longer listen. God would refuse to listen to the people in the time of distress which was coming upon the land.

“The Lord Almighty”, he said, “who planted you, has decreed disaster for you, because the house of Israel and the house of Judah have done evil and provoked me to anger by burning incense to Baal” (Jer 11:17). Jeremiah’s family had been supportive of these practices and to them he must have seemed a traitor who had to be removed. They were saying “Do not prophesy in the name of the Lord or you will die by our hands” (Jer 11:21).

Jeremiah was now discovering that being a prophet was a lonely task. It is very sad when families are divided, but for Jeremiah his primary loyalty was to the Lord. Jesus recognised this principle and he even went so far as to say “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt 10:37).

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God's plans for the faithful remnant.

The Lord said to me, “Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah. Go, proclaim this message towards the North: ‘Return, faithless Israel’ declares the Lord, ‘I will frown on you no longer, for I am merciful,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will not be angry for ever. Only acknowledge your guilt – you have rebelled against the Lord your God, you have scattered your favours to foreign gods under every spreading tree, and have not obeyed me, declares the Lord.’” (Jeremiah 3:11-13)

This pronouncement is said to have been given to Jeremiah “During the reign of King Josiah” (Jer 3:6) which makes it one of the earliest words given to the Prophet, as Josiah died in 608 BC when Jeremiah was still a young man, probably in his 20s.

If we compare this word to that given in the year 587 BC, more than 20 years after Josiah’s death, we find Jeremiah still talking about a promise of restoration to Israel, the Northern Kingdom. That promise was given when Jeremiah was being held in the gatehouse of the guard (Jer 33:14) just before the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar’s army, which reveals the life-time commitment of Jeremiah to the message of restoration and to unity between the two houses of Israel, North and South.

Calling Back the Remnant

This message is all the more remarkable when we remember that Jeremiah never knew the Northern Kingdom of Israel, which had been destroyed by the Assyrians about one hundred years before he began his ministry.

The city of Samaria had been destroyed and the whole Northern Kingdom of Israel overrun by the Assyrians who carried out ethnic cleansing, deporting whole communities and resettling them in different parts of the Assyrian Empire, while replacing the Israelites with people from Babylon and other parts of their Empire (2 Kings 17:24). Historically this began the formation of the mixed-race people known as the Samaritans, who were still around at the time of Jesus.

Jeremiah had a life-time commitment to the message of restoration for both houses of Israel, North and South.

Jeremiah firmly believed that it was God’s purpose at the end of a period of exile to bring together the remnants of both peoples, those of Israel and those of Judah, who were scattered around the old Assyrian and Babylonian empires. They would be brought back to the land originally promised to their forefathers, but there would no longer be any tribal differences: they would be one people in a covenant relationship with God who declared “I will be their God and they will be my people” (Jer 31:33).

Message of Hope

This word from the Lord pronounced by Jeremiah must have come as a wonderful message of love and mercy from God to the remnant of Israel still in the land. They must have felt lost and abandoned after the disaster that had befallen Samaria and the whole Northern Kingdom. It appeared that God had deserted them and that there was no hope of redemption from the yoke of Assyria. But this beautiful word of hope from Jeremiah would have brought them great joy.

A similar word was given in Babylon to the remnant of Judah, to whom Isaiah was sent by God with a message of restoration: “‘For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger, I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,’ says the Lord your Redeemer” (Isa 54:7-8).

This is similar to the promise given in Isaiah 49:15: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will never forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hand.”

The promise of restoration given to Jeremiah was conditional upon the response of the faithful remnant. He was told to go and proclaim the message towards the North: “Return, faithless people, for I am your husband. I will choose you – one from a town and two from a clan – and bring you to Zion. Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding” (Jer 3:14-15).

The promise of restoration given to Jeremiah was conditional upon the response of the faithful remnant.

Preserving a Remnant

This promise is of great significance for us today. When a nation comes under judgment or grave misfortune that has been brought upon them by their own foolishness or falling away from the truth, everyone suffers – the righteous and the unrighteous, the guilty and the faithful. But God recognises that there is always a faithful remnant, even in times of judgment and national catastrophe.

They are the ones who provide the seed of renewal, the hope for the future – the tiny number of faithful believers who have not surrendered to foreign gods but who have remained faithful to the God of their fathers, the God of the Bible who gave his word of truth to Moses.

This promise says that God would summon “one from a town and two from a clan”: these precious individuals who had remained faithful to God, he intended to bring together into a new relationship with himself (the fulfilment of the New Covenant given first as a promise to the house of Israel and the house of Judah in Jeremiah 31 and opened to Gentiles through Jesus).

This faithful remnant would be used by God for the salvation and restoration of the whole nation – for a fresh outpouring of his cleansing, refreshing and empowering Holy Spirit that would bring resurrection life to the nation.

Sowing Life

While these promises were originally given to Israel and Judah, we can learn important principles from them that apply to us today. God loves to use small numbers for carrying out his purposes as he used Gideon’s 300 to save the whole nation. In the same way, God preserves a small number in every generation who remain faithful through the darkest days.

At the right time he turns to them and uses them as the seedbed for sowing life into the soil of the land; as the kindle for lighting the fires of revival that spread across the countryside from village to village and town to town, until all the people lift up their heads again and come to Zion, to the God of Creation, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

He is the One who has given the true faith for all time: who so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever shall believe in him will have eternal life.

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Adultery, idolatry and spiritual brinkmanship.

“‘You have lived as a prostitute with many lovers – would you now return to me?’ declares the Lord. ‘Look up to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been ravished? By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers, sat like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness. Therefore, the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame.’” (Jeremiah 3:1-3)

All the prophets used the term ‘prostitution’ to mean ‘idolatry’. They saw running after other gods as a form of spiritual adultery. The reasoning behind this was that Israel had entered into a covenant with God at the time of Moses which demanded absolute loyalty to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

It was equivalent to a marriage relationship in which a man and a woman made promises of exclusive faithfulness to each other. To forsake God and engage in intercourse with pagan gods was spiritual adultery. It was breaking the covenant vows taken by the nation.

Worldly Temptations

Jeremiah 3:1-3 is a key passage providing understanding of the situation in Judah in the late 7^th Century BC. It was by no means a new situation. Ever since the settlement of Canaan under Joshua, when the Israelite tribes set up their villages and rural settlements among the Canaanites, they had been tempted to worship the local Baals.

The Canaanites were an agricultural people, whereas the Israelites had no such skills in the use of the land beyond herding sheep and goats. They had much to learn from the Canaanites who, of course, told them that for best results they had to pay tribute to the local Baal who owned the land. Ploughing and tilling the soil were totally new to the Israelites and they were dependent upon the Philistines, who were evidently more industrialised than the Canaanites.

All the prophets used the term ‘prostitution’ to mean ‘idolatry’.

There is a revealing little piece of social history in 1 Samuel 13:19: “Not a blacksmith could be found in the whole land of Israel, because the Philistines had said, ‘Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords and spears!’ So all Israel went down to the Philistines to have their ploughshares, mattocks, axes and sickles sharpened. The price was two thirds of a shekel for sharpening ploughshares and mattocks, and one third of a shekel for sharpening forks and axes and for repointing goads.”

Idolatry a Way of Life

From the earliest days the people had been warned against the temptations to idolatry; but remaining faithful to the God of Israel could never have been easy as there was no tangible evidence of his presence.

They had no bits of wood and stone to worship and no altar upon which to present their gifts. For the first few centuries in the land there was no one common meeting-place. This would be the case until the time of King David who, first at Hebron and then in Jerusalem, set up a tent of meeting for large assemblies for offering worship to God and seeking his blessing upon the nation.

Out in the rural areas the people got used to using local shrines, which was the despair of all the prophets. In Jeremiah’s day the Temple services offered daily prayers on behalf of the nation and was open for worshippers to come from all parts of Judah. But for most people, a visit to Jerusalem was probably no more than an annual festival event and for some it would only have been a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The local shrines were handy and satisfied most people’s need for giving an expression to their spiritual concerns.

So idolatry became a way of life for most people in Judah in times of stress. Even in the city altars to other gods appeared at street corners.

Idolatry became a way of life for most people in times of stress.

Cries for Help, Not Forgiveness

Jeremiah was noting two major factors in the pronouncement we are considering today.

One was the increasing number of people coming into Jerusalem to pray at the Temple from the towns and villages across Judah, where there was increasing anxiety as rumours of the oncoming Babylonian army spread across the nation. So Jeremiah hears God saying, “Would you now return to me?” After being unfaithful for so many years, indulging in spiritual adultery with the Canaanite gods, now because you are afraid, are you coming running back to the God of Israel?

The second major factor was that the spring rains had failed. There was drought right across the land that was affecting the harvest and threatening everyone’s livelihood. Jeremiah saw this as a direct action from God in response to the nation’s spiritual prostitution.

The people were crying out for rain; but nowhere did he hear prayers of confession, people crying out for God’s forgiveness. Surely that was what should be heard right the way through all the towns and villages of Judah.

Danger of Spiritual Brinkmanship

If the people were to come humbly before the Lord in confession of their sinfulness, that would resolve both the major issues: the restoration of the spring rains and ensuring the protection of the nation against Babylonian invasion.

Jeremiah, as always, went to the heart of the spiritual problems of the nation. God had already sent them warning signs which had been ignored: “In vain I punished your people; they did not respond to correction” (Jer 2:30). How much longer, he wondered, would God continue sending warning signs and holding out his hands of forgiveness to a nation that did not respond?

Even if we are right in assuming that God is infinitely forgiving, the threat to the nation from the Babylonians was in real time and the nation was in grave danger of not responding to appeals, even at the 11^th hour.

This is the great danger of spiritual brinkmanship. The prophetic task is always to assess the danger and the time-scale. When the nation treats all warning signs with apathy, the danger of out-running the clock becomes real and the results can only be national disaster. This was what Jeremiah feared most, which made his appeals increasingly sharp.

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How easy it is to forget God.

“As a thief is disgraced when he is caught, so the house of Israel is disgraced – they, their kings and their officials, their priests and their prophets. They say to wood, ‘You are my father,’ and to stone ‘You gave me birth.’ They have turned their backs to me and not their faces; yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’” (Jeremiah 2:27)

Jeremiah always found it amazing that a nation such as Israel, with its long history of God’s provision in the desert and his loving protection over many generations, could be involved in idolatry as they were in the 6^th Century BC.

As a nation, Israel had been in a covenant relationship with God for centuries and they had benefited enormously from his faithfulness and his amazing good deeds: yet they ran after worthless idols, declaring that bits of wood and stone were their gods. It just didn’t make sense!

Forgetting God

They had as many gods as they had towns in Judah, and God had sent them many warning signs which had all been ignored; they simply did not respond to correction, which Jeremiah found utterly irrational and almost inconceivable. He said “Does a maiden forget her jewellery, a bride her wedding ornaments?” Yet God is saying “My people have forgotten me, days without number” (Jer 2:32).

It was beyond anybody’s imagination that a bride could possibly forget to put on her jewellery and ornaments in preparation for her great wedding day. But surely it was equally impossible for the people of Israel to forget the God of their fathers, who had revealed himself to former generations of their people as the God of Creation.

It was he who had flung the stars into orbit and who from the beginning of time had intended to raise up a people of promise through whom he would reveal himself and his plan of salvation to all nations.

Jeremiah always found it amazing that a nation such as Israel, with its long history of covenant relationship with God, could forget him and run after worthless idols.

Height of Hypocrisy

The greatest anomaly was that when they were in trouble, they turned back to the God of their fathers and cried out, “Come and save us!” Jeremiah saw this as the height of hypocrisy. They ignored God all the time that things were going well with them.

In times of peace and prosperity they turned their backs upon God and joined in all the exciting festivals and pagan partying of the Canaanites and their other idolatrous neighbours. They entered wholeheartedly into the orgies of self-indulgence, sexual excesses, feasts and revelries which were part of the religious practices against which Israel had been warned from the time of Moses.

Suddenly, however, there was a change of mood among the people. Rumours were running rife across the land from village to village, spread by the 6^th Century BC version of social media – the human tongue! Rumour had it that the Babylonian army was on the move. Whole towns in Syria had been sacked and the countryside raped.

The rumours lost nothing in bloodcurdling detail of what had happened to the people in the towns and villages the Babylonians overthrew. Fear began to grip the people of Judah. Widespread panic spread among all ranks of society – priests and people alike began crying out to God to come and save them!

The Prophet Jeremiah was not impressed. In fact, he was outraged! How dare the people call out to God for help when they had been running after idols for so long? Let them call upon their bits of wood and stone and see if they will help by coming to save them!

How dare the people call out to God for help when they had been running after idols for so long?

Sins of Omission

This is just the kind of thing that we all do. Even if we don’t get into the same kind of idolatry as the people of Judah did, we commit very similar sins – sins of omission rather than sins of commission. When things are going well in our lives and we are enjoying peace and prosperity we are less fervent in our prayers, less eager to seek the presence of the Lord. We don’t actually say that we don’t need God, although this must be how it seems to him.

Sadly, it is not only individuals but whole nations that have turned away from God – the one true God of Creation revealed in the Bible – in recent years. I’m old enough to remember the shock when John Robinson, Bishop of Stepney, published his book Honest to God in 1963. He said that Christians have outgrown the traditional version of Christianity.

He said: “The only way to be honest is to recognise that we have to live in the world even if God is not there. Like children outgrowing the secure religious, moral and intellectual framework of the home, in which ‘Daddy’ is always there in the background, God is teaching us that we must live as men who can get along very well without him” (pp38-39).

This began the great decline of the Church of England in Britain and it was soon followed by David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham, who said that the resurrection was “a conjuring trick with bones”. Once it became clear that the clergy and preachers no longer had confidence in the God of the Bible, faith in the nation rapidly declined. In Scotland last year, more marriages were conducted by humanists than by ministers in the Church of Scotland.¹

We worship our bits of wood and stone, yet when we are in deep trouble we cry out to God for his help. The time to call is not when disaster overtakes us, but every day, in the quiet times of reflection that we all need when we can review the past, remembering what God has done in the nation and seeing his hand in our own lives, and in humility confessing our needs. It is then that we feel his arms around us to comfort, to forgive and to love, unconditionally.

References

1 BBC Radio 4, Sunday Programme, 10 March 2019.

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Exchanging glory for worthlessness.

“‘Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all) But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror’, declares the Lord.”

This announcement expresses something of the Lord’s indignation. Justice is outraged! The most appalling thing imaginable had happened. Jeremiah said you could travel from Cyprus to the mouth of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates and never see anything like this. It had never happened before. No nation had ever changed its gods, even though they were only bits of wood and stone fashioned by human hands.

Even more incredible was the fact that the nation that had done this dreadful thing was the only nation to have known the one and only true God – the God of Creation! He was the God who had created the universe and he had chosen Israel to be a special people, his own servant through whom he would reveal himself, his nature and purposes and his teaching to all nations on earth.

Here was Israel, this special nation in a unique relationship with the one and only true God - and they had actually exchanged their ‘Glory’ for worthless idols. It was unbelievable! All the heavens were appalled and were shuddering with horror.

Altars to Foreign Gods

Idolatry in Jeremiah’s time was everywhere to be seen in the land of Judah. In the countryside under a grove of trees, or on the high places up in the hills and mountains, there were altars to pagan gods. In the villages there were Asherah poles and in the walled cities there were street-corner shrines. Even in the holy city of Jerusalem there were altars to foreign gods within sight of the Temple itself.

No nation had ever changed its gods, let alone exchange the Glory of a unique relationship with the one and only true God for worthless idols.

The people of Jerusalem worshipped openly at these urban sanctuaries, especially at the time of the spring fertility festival. They baked cakes with the image of Astarte, the Babylonian goddess known as the Queen of Heaven. They offered their worship to her because they thought that she was responsible for the power of the Babylonian Empire, whose armies were all-conquering in nation after nation. The Israelites thought that if they paid obeisance to the goddess of Babylon, she would bless them and ensure that they were safe from attack by the Babylonian army.

It seemed to them a logical thing to do, but to Jeremiah it was horrific. He could hardly believe what he was seeing:

The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger. But am I the one they are provoking? declares the Lord. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own shame? (Jer 7:18-19).

Jeremiah and Jesus

Another word tumbled from Jeremiah’s lips as he spread before God the things he was seeing on the streets of Jerusalem and he listened to the outraged indignation of the Lord: “My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (2:13).

Maybe Jesus had these words in his mind when he sat beside a well in Sychar talking to a Samaritan woman. “Whoever drinks of the water I give him will never thirst.” He said “Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). And on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus repeated that offer to all the people of Jerusalem, declaring that God would give them “streams of living water”, which John says was a promise of the Holy Spirit (John 7:38-39).

Jeremiah saw the Spirit of God as a spring of living water giving new life to all those who put their trust in God and who came into a new and intimate relationship with him.

This is one of the many parallels between the ministry of Jeremiah and that of Jesus. Jeremiah saw the Spirit of God as a spring of living water giving new life to all those who put their trust in God and who came into a new and intimate relationship with him. 500 years later, Jesus would identify this as a promise of the Counsellor – the Spirit of Truth who would be with his disciples for ever. “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said”, he promised (John 14:26).

Promise of Living Water

Springs of the Jordan at Banaias, Israel. See Photo Credits.

Fresh, running water - living water - became a symbol of life for the prophets. At the springs around Mount Hermon, a place known in Jesus’ day as Caesarea Philippi (Banaias today), pure fresh water bubbled up through the rocky ground as it does today.

These are the springs of the River Jordan, which feed the Sea of Galilee. Jesus sat there with his disciples, undoubtedly teaching them about the Father’s utterly dependable, everlasting love for them because of their love for him, and that the Father would send the Holy Spirit to be with them forever.

The Holy Spirit would be like this fresh water bubbling up through the rocks where they were sitting. Pure, clean, fresh and utterly trustworthy without any contaminates; it was constant, unceasing, dependable even in a time of drought - the spring water from Mount Hermon never ceased to flow. It was a beautiful symbol of the Holy Spirit.

The same springs were there in Jeremiah’s day and were honoured by the Psalmist who saw the dew of Mount Hermon falling upon Mount Zion (Ps 133).

Fresh, running water - living water - became a symbol of life for the prophets.

Tragic Rejection

The tragedy that Jeremiah was crying out about was that this wonderful spring of everlasting fresh water – the Spirit of the Living God – that had been given freely to the people of Israel, had been rejected wilfully by them. They had exchanged the spring of pure fresh water for stale, lukewarm, dirty, infected water in cisterns they had dug for themselves – broken cisterns that leaked and would probably run dry when they needed water most! How could they be so utterly stupid?

But is not this exactly what we have done in the Western nations that have had the Gospel for centuries, and where our entire civilisations have been built upon Judeo-Christian biblical principles and values? In a single generation we have destroyed the foundations of our society. We have exchanged the Glory of God for worthless idols of humanism and paganism!

We worship at the shrines of labour-saving gadgets, hedonistic pleasure and material wealth. We are just as stupid as the people in Jeremiah’s day who baked cakes for the goddess of fertility and rejected the word of the Living God.

God withdrew his covering of protection as Jeremiah warned that he would, and Jerusalem was destroyed along with all its great buildings, including the Temple. Is not this a warning for us today?

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Jeremiah's first public prophetic word.

The word of the Lord came to me: “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem: I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown. Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest; all who devoured her were held guilty, and disaster overtook them,” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 2:2-3)

This is the first word that Jeremiah was given to declare publicly in his ministry. Previously in his communication with God, the words he heard were for him personally. This first message to the nation was highly significant. Although Jeremiah knew that he was going to have to say some very hard things that would not be well received, this first word was a message of love which would have been easy for him to declare publicly. It was just what the young prophet needed to begin his ministry.

All the prophets of Israel constantly referred back to the history of the nation and what God had done for them. Here, Jeremiah is reminding the people of the amazing way God had cared for them, provided for them and protected them throughout their 40 years’ journey between leaving Egypt and entering the Promised Land.

Israel’s Spiritual Sojourn

For most of that period, Israel travelled through the desert. It was an exacting time for the tribal leaders and a time of enormous strain for Moses in maintaining order, discipline and unity among the tribes. But it was also a formative time when the Children of Israel became a nation.

There is nothing so powerful as shared hardship and danger in bringing unity to a disparate group of people. This is what happened to Israel in the desert. They were a group of nomadic tribes living in tents with no homeland, but the shared experience of facing the dangers and privations of the wilderness welded them together. They learned the value of community, co-operating in the gathering of manna, and caring for each other - especially the weak and the elderly.

The first word that Jeremiah was given to declare publicly was a message of love.

Above all, the sojourn in the desert was a spiritual experience that established them as a covenant people under God. They were his bride, newly brought into a sweet covenant relationship with him: a relationship of growing love and trust, as he practically demonstrated his love and his power in one miracle after another.

The first miracle was in persuading Pharaoh to let the people go. The deliverance from slavery was followed by the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea and the disaster that overtook the Egyptian army who were closely following with the intention of once again reducing them to slavery. But God had amazingly delivered Israel and thereby demonstrated his love and his power to protect his soon-to-be covenant people in fulfilment of his promises.

This love and power was demonstrated numerous times by the Lord’s provision of food and water in the desert. Many times the Israelites would have starved or died of thirst if he had not provided for them. But the desert was not only a time for the people of Israel to learn about the very nature of God, it was a time for sealing their bond with God and learning to trust him completely.

Separation unto God

The desert was not a place of separation from God. It was a place of separation from the world and from foreign gods: for leaving behind the fleshpots of Egypt, for ridding themselves of the pariah mentality of a people in slavery. It was a time of separation unto God, where there were no worldly attractions to compete for their attention. The conditions of the covenant relationship could be fulfilled – “I will be your God and you will be my people”.

The great silence of the desert was filled with the presence of the Living God. It was here that Israel learned holiness – separation – as they learned to love and to trust the Lord. In this first message given to the young Jeremiah, God remembered the devotion of Israel, her dependence upon him and her love for him.

This was to set the scene for all the dramatic warnings of danger that Jeremiah later had to pronounce – none of which were intended to be declarations of judgment so much as loving calls to recognise the folly of breaking the covenant with God by running after false gods. Israel’s worshipping of bits of wood and stone had tragically put them outside the protection of Almighty God and at the mercy of cruel enemy armies.

Israel’s sojourn in the desert was a profoundly spiritual experience that established them as a covenant people under God.

God’s Suffering

This first message reminding the people of God’s great love and care for their fathers in the desert was followed by a plea that was full of pathos:

This is what the Lord says, “What fault did your fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. They did not ask ‘Where is the LORD, who brought us up out of Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness, through a land of deserts and rifts, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no-one travels and no-one lives?’

I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable. The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ Those who deal with the law did not know me; the leaders rebelled against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal following worthless idols.”

God’s question, “What fault did your fathers find in me?” shows the pathos in God’s heart when his people are faithless and turn away from him. It is as though God was saying, ‘After all I have done for you, how could you possibly deny me and turn your back upon me?’

It is almost inconceivable in human relationships that someone would turn against you if you had spent your whole life caring for them. And yet, it does happen! The sense of rejection and personal suffering is intense in such circumstances. But this should enable us to understand the suffering in God’s heart when those whom he has loved and cared for turn against him and no longer trust him.

Foundational Teaching

This is the truth about the nature of God that was revealed to the prophets of Israel, that laid the foundation for the revelation of God as our Father which was at the heart of the ministry of Jesus. The Gospel Jesus gave to his disciples to take to all nations can never be fully understood and embraced without the foundation laid by the prophets of Israel.

God’s question, “What fault did your fathers find in me?” shows the pathos in God’s heart when his people are faithless and turn away from him.

Sadly, this is missing in so many churches today, where the preachers do not bother to preach the whole word of God – because they rarely study the life and teaching of the prophets of Israel.

If we do not learn from the history of Israel, that disaster struck them when they departed from the word of the Lord, we will make the same mistake again!

Surely, the preachers in Britain and all the Western nations should be declaring with all the energy and power of the Holy Spirit that, like the people of Israel in Jeremiah’s day, we too have turned our backs upon truth and embraced powers of darkness that are leading us to destruction.

We too worship bits of wood and stone in our consumerist society where we compete with one another to show off our possessions which are worthless. In so doing we make ourselves worthless to God in working out his purposes of communicating his love, his faithfulness and his good purposes to the nations. We become, like Israel in Jeremiah’s day, useless servants!

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Jeremiah begins his prophetic ministry.

“Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, now I have put my words in your mouth. ‘See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant’” (Jer 1:9-10).

This was Jeremiah’s ordination: it was God’s act of initiating him into the ministry that he was to fulfil. His calling to ministry had been from pre-birth, when the Spirit of God began preparing him for ministry in his mother’s womb. Now, the moment had arrived when God spoke to him directly about the kind of ministry he was to fulfil.

Six Verbs, One Ministry

The six verbs in this sentence, four negative and two positive, indicate the direction Jeremiah’s ministry was to take. God was warning about the corrupt moral and spiritual state of the nation. This was so severe that much had to be torn down and removed from the nation’s life before there could be a positive outpouring of God’s blessing which would bring prosperity upon the land and its people.

These six verbs outline the whole of the ministry that Jeremiah was to fulfil over a 40-year period in Jerusalem. It would be a time of great turmoil and suffering. The uprooting and tearing down was to get rid of the greed, injustice, immorality and idolatry at the heart of the nation. Jeremiah eloquently describes this in his famous Temple Sermon in chapter 7. Corruption, greed and injustice were everywhere among the people and the leadership - both political and religious, from the King to the Chief Priest.

As Jeremiah said in one of his earliest declarations “From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, Peace’, they say, when there is no peace” (6:13-14).

The corrupt moral and spiritual state of the nation was so severe that much had to be torn down before there could be a positive outpouring of God’s blessing.

An Almond Tree and a Boiling Pot

Jeremiah’s ordination was immediately followed by a question from God: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” “I see the branch of an almond tree,” he replied. He probably spoke out loud saying the word ‘almond’ in Hebrew (shaqed), which sounded like the word ‘watching’ (shaqad). The pun was not lost on Jeremiah and the Lord immediately responded “You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled.”

This was just the kind of confirmation that the young man needed. It was his first test, showing that he was correctly interpreting the word of the Lord, which indicated that he was ready to receive a revelation of the task that lay ahead. A second question prepared the way for a major revelation: “What do you see?” asked the Lord; “I see a boiling pot, tilting away from the North,” Jeremiah answered.

Some biblical scholars believe that Jeremiah received some kind of picture or ecstatic vision in responding to each of these two questions. But this is unlikely – Jeremiah was not an ecstatic visionary like Ezekiel or Habakkuk. Jeremiah broadly stood in the same type of ministry as Amos, Micah and Hosea, who did not see pictures but heard God speaking his word to them. They were watchmen observing what was happening around them. They then spread it before God to give them understanding, while listening for his word in response. They were then able to declare with authority, “Thus says the Lord!”

At the beginning of Jeremiah’s ministry, seeing an almond tree simply confirmed his calling: that he was now ready to interpret rightly the things that God brought to his attention (later on, for example, he was told to go to the potter’s shop and watch the potter at work through which God would speak to him). In this first revelation he probably saw a housewife pouring out a pot. He noted each detail – even the direction in which the pot was pouring, and from this God gave him the warning that judgment was going to come from the ‘Land of the North’ which was the popular term for Babylon, whose army always skirted around the Golan Heights to the Sea of Galilee and entered Judah from the North.

Jeremiah, like Amos, Micah and Hosea, did not see visions but heard God’s word by observing what was happening around them, spreading it before God and listening for his response.

Judgment and Warning

From that moment, Jeremiah knew that disaster was on the horizon for the nation, as God was warning that he would not protect an unrighteous city filled with the blood of the innocent, with violence and murder on its streets as well as immorality and greed among the priests, and idolatry even practised in the Temple.

Jeremiah knew that his ministry was to uproot and tear down these abominable practices by telling both leaders and the people that God was deeply offended by their lifestyles. Jeremiah’s task was to call for repentance with the promise of forgiveness, while at the same time warning about the consequence of failing to listen.

Jeremiah had to declare that God was a covenant-keeping God who would undoubtedly protect his people and ensure their survival. But he was also a God of righteousness who would withdraw his protective covering over the land and the people, for a time, if they did not heed the words of warning that he was giving through his spokesman.

From this first direct encounter with God at the beginning of his ministry, Jeremiah knew the end from the beginning. Judgment and disaster would inevitably fall upon the land, the people and the city of Jerusalem. Even the Temple would be destroyed, although everyone believed it was inviolable as the dwelling-place of God.

From the beginning of his ministry, Jeremiah knew that he was going to meet bitter opposition. The word came to him, “Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them.” He received an assurance that God would give him extraordinary strength in the face of extraordinary opposition. Right from the beginning, he received a promise that was to strengthen and sustain him throughout his long and turbulent ministry: “They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declared the Lord (1:17-19).

Jeremiah was to declare that God was a covenant-keeping God who would not forsake his people, but he was also a God of righteousness.

Seeking the Lord’s Heart

It is this kind of ministry that we attempt to fulfil in Prophecy Today and Issachar Ministries: watching what is happening around us on the national domestic scene and observing the wider picture of what is happening among the nations in Europe and around the world, then spreading all this before the Lord and spending time listening for his response, so that we can know the word of the Lord for our times.

This is what the elders of the Tribe of Issachar did who came to King David at the time of his ordination, offering their services as watchmen and intercessors.

Of course, we don’t claim to be unique in this kind of ministry. We believe that all God’s people should be desiring to understand the times, and we are always open to hear from others who are seeking similarly to hear the word of the Lord.

But as Jeremiah was constantly troubled by false teachers and false prophets who gave words out of their own imaginations, promising peace and prosperity when God was calling for repentance and warning that disaster lay ahead, in the same way today there are many false teachers proclaiming another Gospel, and false prophets promising revival and glad tidings of peace and prosperity, when God is actually calling for repentance and turning.

This is why in recent weeks we have warned about the false teachings and false prophecies of the ‘New Apostolic Reformation’ (NAR). Of course, their messages are popular with the people, as were the false prophets in Jeremiah’s day. But those who know the whole word of God in the Bible and who genuinely seek for truth will surely recognise the true word of the Lord.

As Jeremiah declared in the letter he sent to the exiles in Babylon, the solemn promise of God is: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord (29:13-14).

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The Prophet's message for our times.

The first in a new series looking at the lives and ministries of the Old Testament prophets, particularly in light of our situation in Britain today.

Jeremiah lived in a time of great turbulence, on both the international and the domestic scenes. Internationally, three great empires, Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, were vying for dominance, while on the domestic front Jeremiah saw the reigns of five kings, bitter political rivalries and moral and spiritual decay.

In the 22 years from the death of Josiah in 608 BC to the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC, four kings reigned in Jerusalem, none of whom were godly men. Two of the four, Jehoiahaz and Jehoiachin each only reigned three months, while Jehoiakim and Zedekiah each reigned 11 years. The two short reigns were each the result of military conquest.

From One Tragedy to the Next

Josiah was killed in battle at Megiddo when the Egyptian army was passing through the territory of Judah en route to face the Assyrians. Josiah foolishly decided to oppose them, despite the fact that the Egyptians had said that they had no quarrel with Judah.

He lost his life in an entirely unnecessary battle and was succeeded by Jehoiahaz who, only three months later, was taken in captivity to Egypt. This was following the surrender of Jerusalem and the payment of crippling amounts of gold and silver, none of which would have happened if Josiah had not intervened in a dispute between the two empires.

The history of Judah, from that moment, went from one tragedy to the next until the final decimation of all its towns and cities and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian army in 586 BC. Jeremiah was in Jerusalem throughout this time, witnessing each stage of the national tragedy. This is reflected in the account of his ministry recorded in the book that bears his name in the Bible.

Jeremiah lived in a time of great turbulence, on both the international and the domestic scenes.

Vassal Kingdom

Following Jehoiahaz’s short reign, Jehoiakim was appointed by the Egyptians, whose power was greatly weakened later on in the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC. This had involved all three empires, with Babylon emerging as the strongest power. Judah was seen as a vassal of Egypt, which drew the wrath of Babylon. As their army approached Jerusalem in 598 BC, Jehoiakim died (or was assassinated).

He was succeeded by his 18-year-old son Jehoiachin, who reigned just three months until Jerusalem surrendered to Babylon in the spring of 597 BC. He was taken captive to Babylon, together with many thousands of the leading citizens of the land plus most of Judah’s army and the most valuable articles from the temple (2 Kings 24).

Terrible Destruction Foretold

Then, Zedekiah was put on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah was a weak and foolish man who sought to enter into a conspiracy with the surrounding nations of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon – fiercely opposed by Jeremiah in chapter 27.

It was this act of treachery by Zedekiah, who had sworn allegiance to Babylon in the name of Yahweh, God of Israel, that enraged Nebuchadnezzar and caused him to come back ten years after the surrender of Jerusalem and this time decimate the whole land. He destroyed towns and villages, raped the countryside and laid siege to Jerusalem causing great suffering to the people, until the city fell in July 587 BC.

Most of the remaining citizens and many from the land were taken to Babylon in the second Exile. The great walls of Jerusalem were torn down; the Temple and the Palace and most of the great buildings were destroyed. Zedekiah’s family were murdered in front of him, then his eyes were gouged out and he was taken to Babylon as the prize exhibit in Nebuchadnezzar’s victory parade.

Jeremiah had foretold all these terrible events, more than once telling Zedekiah what his personal fate would be. But none of these things would have happened if the word of the Lord had been obeyed.

None of the terrible events foretold by Jeremiah would have happened if the word of the Lord had been obeyed.

Similarities with Today

If king and people had been willing to humble themselves and to put their trust in the Lord, they would have been preserved from destruction. God would have found a way of working out his purposes among the nations while preserving and protecting his own covenant people, among whom he had established his name and through whom it was his intention to reveal himself to the pagan nations.

It was God’s intention to use Babylon as part of his purposes so that for 70 years they would dominate the region. After that time, God would deal with the Babylonians themselves for their cruelty and arrogance, as Jeremiah records in 25:11-12. The Exile lasted until Cyrus the Persian overthrew the Babylonian Empire and took Babylon in 538 BC, when the people of Judah were released to return to their land and rebuild Jerusalem.

But the Exile would never have happened if the word of the Lord through Jeremiah had been heeded.

Forewarning

Jeremiah claimed that God had revealed to him the threat from Babylon and he gave clear warning of what would happen: “This is what the Lord says: Look, an army is coming from the land of the north [Babylon]; a great nation is being stirred up from the ends of the earth. They are armed with bow and spear; they are cruel and show no mercy. They sound like the roaring sea as they ride on their horses; they come like men in battle formation to attack you, O Daughter of Zion” (Jer 6:22-23).

Jeremiah also knew that it was no use relying on either Egypt or Assyria to protect them from Babylon. He said “Now why go to Egypt to drink water from the Shihor? And why go to Assyria to drink water from the River? Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realise how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me, declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty” (Jer 2:18-19).

Sadly, the politicians, the religious leaders and the people ignored the prophet among them, continuing in idolatry and turning their backs upon the word of the Lord. In one sentence Jeremiah describes the spiritual condition of the nation: “Long ago you broke off your yoke and tore off your bonds; you said, ‘I will not serve you!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every spreading tree you lay down as a prostitute” (Jer 2:20). Jeremiah knew that by turning their backs upon God, both leaders and people had put themselves outside the Lord’s protection.

Jeremiah knew that by turning their backs upon God, both leaders and people had put themselves outside the Lord’s protection.

Nevertheless, Jeremiah continued throughout his 40 years’ ministry in Jerusalem to call for repentance and returning to God as the only way, both to national safety and to salvation. He was still calling for repentance when the Babylonian army was surrounding the walls of Jerusalem, because he knew that repentance would immediately bring the forgiveness, restoration and protection of God. He knew that God had the power to send a plague through the enemy army overnight, as he had done in the time of Hezekiah (2 Kings 19:35). But Jeremiah’s warnings were not heard or heeded.

This is the tragedy that history records - and this is why the Book of Jeremiah has great significance for the Western nations in the world today. They, like Israel, have had biblical truth for many generations and, like Zedekiah, have conspired with one another to reject the truth and follow other gods and philosophies and cultures, to their own harm.

In studying the Book of Jeremiah, we can see many similarities with modern history. This is why we are undertaking this study on Prophecy Today UK.

Next week we will begin our study of the ministry of Jeremiah by looking at his calling and some of his early words.

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