Chris Hill reviews ‘How to Enjoy the Psalms’ by Neil Turner (ProjectZone, 2019)

We review the first book by Simon Pease, a member of our own review team.

From the stump of Jesse, a righteous Branch has come

A fearful message.

The cure for anxiety.

Paul Luckraft reviews ‘Living Fully for the Fulfilment of Isaiah 19’ by Tom Craig (2014, Drawbaugh Publishing Group).

Simon Pease reviews ‘Revelations of Jesus Christ from the Book of Revelation’ by Philip Wren (Christian Publications International, 2019)

Deception in the house of God.

“Beware of your friends; do not trust your brothers. For every brother is a deceiver, and every friend a slanderer. Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sending. You live in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me,” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 9:4-6)

Jeremiah’s whole life was spent coping with opposition. From the time of his call to ministry, when he was probably still in his late teens, he was warned by God of the problems ahead: “They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you, declares the Lord” (Jer 1:19).

Cost of Faithfulness

He was born into a family of priests in the rural area of Anathoth and his family were regarded as much lower down the scale of public esteem than the priests who lived in Jerusalem and were responsible for the Temple.

To have a prophet as outspoken as Jeremiah in a family of priests was a tragedy! No doubt when they came into Jerusalem to take their turn of serving in the Temple, his brothers and other family members would have been greatly embarrassed to hear what the Temple priests were saying of their relative. But Jeremiah did not soften his words to please his family or to spare their discomfort; he declared the word of the Lord fearlessly.

But there was a cost and many times he feared for his own life – even on one occasion at the hands of his own brothers, who were plotting against him saying, “Let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.” Jeremiah describes himself as “like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter” (Jer 11:19). He says in today’s reading, “Do not trust your brothers. For every brother is a deceiver”. Probably he had been invited to some family gathering but God had warned him not to go by revealing their plot to deceive him.

Jeremiah did not soften his words to please his family or to spare their discomfort; he declared the word of the Lord fearlessly.

Idolatry in the Temple

Jeremiah’s main target was not the ordinary people, nor the political leaders – it was the religious leaders, the priests and prophets who were the great deceivers of the nation. They were the educated elite who were able to read the Hebrew scrolls and to know the teaching of the Lord that was given to Moses. There was no excuse for them. The ordinary people did not know the requirements of the Lord, but the priests and prophets had full access to the word of God. They were the arch-deceivers because they misused this power and authority: “The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority” (Jer 5:31).

As we have said before in this series, the most serious act of deception by the Royal Temple priesthood was that they perpetuated the myth of the Temple’s inviolability, saying that God would never allow any enemy to destroy it and therefore Jerusalem was safe from attack, because God would always defend the city. Jeremiah knew this to be a terrible lie because God is a God of righteousness who demands faithfulness and loyalty from his people.

Yet the people of Jerusalem were worshipping other gods – especially Astarte, the goddess of the Babylonians, who they thought might help them by keeping the Babylonians away from the land of Judah. Once again, it was not only the people who were practising idolatry; there were even secret altars to foreign gods in the Temple itself. “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” (Jer 6:13-4).

It was not only the people who were practising idolatry; there were even secret altars to foreign gods in the Temple itself.

Deceiving in God’s Name

God hates deception, especially in spiritual matters. When people declare something in the name of God that deceives others – that is particularly abhorrent! But that is what the prophets were doing in Jeremiah’s lifetime: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you”, he said. “They fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The Lord says you will have peace’” (Jer 23:16-17).

These were wicked lies and deception that would have disastrous consequences because the people did not change their ways. They carried on in idolatry and God eventually removed his cover of protection from over Jerusalem, allowing the Babylonians to destroy the city.

In Western nations today, we are surrounded by deception in the media, in politics and in the world of commerce and advertising. But the most dangerous deception by far is coming from the Church. When the word of God is not faithfully taught and prophetically declared by the religious leaders of a nation, God holds those leaders responsible for the fate of that nation.

This is a sobering biblical truth that ought to be constantly in the minds of church leaders today – even if it means they have to pay the price that Jeremiah had to pay.

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Click here to read previous instalments.

Beware of easy prophecies of unconditional revival.

The Prophet’s appeal to common sense.

Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: “When men fall down, do they not get up? When a man turns away, does he not return? Why then have these people turned away? Why does Jerusalem always turn away? They cling to deceit; they refuse to return. I have listened attentively, but they do not say what is right.

No-one repents of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Each pursues his own course like a horse charging into battle. Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the Lord.”’ (Jeremiah 8:4-7)

In this passage Jeremiah makes an appeal to common sense. He says: when someone stumbles and falls over, if they are a normal, healthy human being, they don’t stay lying on the ground bemoaning their plight - they get up. In the same way, if someone finds he is going in the wrong direction, he doesn’t just increase his speed hoping that he will get to the right place in the end! He recognises that he has to turn around and go in the right direction – it’s plain common sense!

Jeremiah then makes an appeal to nature, saying that even the birds in the air know the times and seasons, observing their times of migration so that they are not caught in the wrong place in wintertime. When they see the signs of winter approaching, they fly away to warmer places. If they did not observe the signs of approaching danger, they would not live to survive the winter storms.

The citizens of Jerusalem and the general population of Judah were so stupid, they were not even exercising ordinary common sense and recognising the danger that was plainly to be seen, if only they would open their eyes. If the birds were able to see the signs of approaching winter, the people of Israel and Judah ought to have had no difficulty in perceiving the signs of danger on the international horizon. There was plenty of news from travelling merchants that the Babylonian army was actually on the move and heading towards the land of Judah.

Jeremiah appeals to the people of Jerusalem and Judah to exercise plain common sense and open their eyes to the obvious danger ahead.

God’s Conditional Promises

Of course, Jeremiah knew that the major responsibility for this national blindness lay firmly with the priests and prophets. They proclaimed publicly that the Temple was a holy place where the Lord God of Israel had his presence. God would divinely protect the building that Solomon had created and dedicated - he would never allow it to fall into enemy hands.

But Jeremiah knew that when Solomon had prayed at the opening of the Temple, he had recognised that God’s presence and blessings were conditional upon the obedience of the nation, that they should have no other God than Yahweh the God of Israel.

Idolatry was everywhere to be seen: not only at countryside shrines and high places up in the hills, but even in the streets of Jerusalem, where the people baked cakes to Astarte, the goddess of the Assyrian Empire who was also worshipped by the Babylonians. She had obviously blessed the Babylonians greatly, so the people of Judah thought that she might do the same for them.

Common Sense Ignored

Jeremiah was horrified at the extent of spiritual idolatry right across the nation and while he primarily blamed the priests and prophets, there was really no excuse for the people, because from infancy each one was taught the Shema:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up… (Deut 6:4-7)

The first of the Ten Commandments was “You shall have no other gods before me.” Everyone in Judah should have known this, so there was really no excuse for spiritual ignorance. If the people simply exercised basic common sense, they should have known that God would not protect an unrighteous city and a land full of idolatry. They should have known the basic ‘requirements of the Lord’.

It was the responsibility of the priests to teach the people the terms of the covenant between God and the people of Israel that had been agreed by Moses when he called the assembly at Mount Sinai. But it was the responsibility of the prophets to look for signs of danger to the nation, including on the international scene. Both priests and prophets were failing in their duty, which is the reason why the people did not know the requirements of the Lord.

Jeremiah blamed the priests and prophets for the idolatry in the nation – but there was no excuse for the people either.

Disaster Ahead

Jeremiah was a lone voice on the streets of Jerusalem; banned from the Temple and even threatened by his own family. “Beware of your friends: do not trust your brothers,” he was warned. “Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie” (Jer 9:4-5).

Jeremiah wept much for the people of Jerusalem because he could see what was going to happen to them: “Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people” (Jer 9:1).

If there was no excuse for not knowing the requirements of the Lord in Jeremiah’s time, there is surely even less excuse for us today. We not only have the teaching given to Moses by God; we also have the Gospel in the New Testament and the revelation of truth in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus our Messiah. Our generation has rejected truth and does not even have the common sense to recognise that we are heading for disaster. Will we stop and turn around before we reach the edge of the precipice?

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Click here to read previous instalments.