Jeremiah Continued To Call Out God's Judgment

INTRO

Chapters 6—8 took place as Judah was going into Assyrian captivity. Jeremiah was addressing the kingdom of Judah in these chapters during the reign of the kings Josiah, Jehoahaz, and Jehoiakim. Jeremiah’s prophecy teaches that no nation can defy or despise God’s law and not suffer for it.

Constable states, “No prophet in the Old Testament was personally more like our Lord Jesus Christ than Jeremiah. He faithfully represented the true King of Israel, Yahweh, when the Judahites rejected His authority and neglected His grace. He was God’s representative on the earth when people were acting like there was no Sovereign in heaven. God knew him and chose him before his birth, and He equipped him by giving him His word.”¹ Both Christ and Jeremiah had a message for Israel and the world, both used nature to illustrate their teachings, both came from high traditions, both were conscious of their call from God, both condemned commercialism to the temple, both were charged with political treason, both experienced trials and imprisonment, both foretold of the temple’s destruction, both wept over Jerusalem, both condemned the priests of the day, both were rejected by members of their family, both were identified as suffering servants, both loved Israel, both were lonely, and both enjoyed an intimate fellowship with God.

According to Constable, “Jeremiah’s hometown was Anathoth, a Levitical town in the territory of Benjamin three miles northeast of Jerusalem. Jeremiah’s father, Hilkiah, was evidently a descendant of Abiathar, a descendant of Eli (1 Samuel 14:3). Thus, Jeremiah had ancestral connections to Shiloh, where the tabernacle stood during the Judges Period of Israel’s history. Jeremiah referred to Shiloh in his Temple Sermon (Jeremiah 7:12, 14; 26:6). Abiathar was the sole survivor of King Saul’s massacre of the priests at Nob, also only a few miles northeast of Jerusalem (1 Samuel 22:20).”² The history of Jeremiah’s life and family becomes important as we read through his prophecy.

TEACHING

Chapter 6 provides the closing of one of Jeremiah’s many sermons. This sermon focused on the coming invasion of the Babylonian army and the devastation the army would bring to Judah. The Jews used three primary ways to communicate military information: watchmen on the wall, trumpets, and signal fires. Jeremiah referred to all three of these methods as a signal that there was about to be some military action.

Jeremiah 6:1–5: Jeremiah began his warning to Judah by saying something to his hometown of Anathoth in Benjamin. He warned his neighbors to get out of Jerusalem. Jeremiah compared Jerusalem to a beautiful woman who became a widow. God communicated to the Babylonians His strategy. Verses 6–15 give the account of how God directed the attack against Jerusalem. Not only did God tell the Babylonians what to do, He told them why He was doing it. God’s plan required precision and thoroughness in how He led the Babylonians against Jerusalem. Israel and her leaders were so deep in their sin and had turned from God so significantly, they no longer had any shame or remorse.

Jeremiah 6:16–23: God delivered His verdict. The people were guilty and deserved punishment. Even in their guilt, the people continued to worship God while living hypocritical lives. In Amos 5, God stated He would not accept their offerings: their grain offerings, their burnt offerings, or their peace offerings. The heart of worship was supposed to bring out the fullness of life through Christ.

Jeremiah 6:24–26: These verses describe the consequences. Wiersbe explains, “The prophet described the responses of the people as they heard the news—nothing but anguish, fear and weakness, like a woman in hard labor (Jeremiah 6:24–26). Sometimes suffering brings out the best in people, but that would not happen in the siege of Jerusalem. When God turned on the furnace, it would reveal the people as rejected silver, nothing but dross to be thrown away. He wasn’t purifying them; He was punishing them. They weren’t being refined; they were being rejected. They were too cheap to preserve.”³

Jeremiah 7:1—8:3: Chapter 7 addresses worship and the temple in Jerusalem. Jeremiah stood at an entrance to the courts where he preached as people passed by. Wiersbe suggests, “If there had been a newspaper published in Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s day, successive editions in the year 609 B.C. might have carried headlines like these: KING JOSIAH WOUNDED IN BATTLE! Brave monarch brought to Jerusalem to recover; THE KING IS DEAD! Jehoahaz succeeds father on throne; EGYPT DETHRONES JEHOAHAZ, Monarch reigned only three months; ELIAKIM IS NEW REGENT, Renamed ‘Jehoiakim’ by Pharaoh.”⁴ These headlines describe the events that led to the collapse of Judah. The reason this series of changes was important was because Josiah was the king who was attempting to lead the people back to God. His sons and those who followed him did not have that same concern. There was an arrogance about the Jews. They felt they were the chosen and protected people of God, so no harm could come to them.

Wiersbe points out, “God, however, had a quite different view of the matter. He commanded Jeremiah to go up to the temple and proclaim His message to the hypocritical people gathered there. In this courageous sermon, the prophet exposed the nation’s false worship (Jeremiah 7:1—8:3), their false prophets (8:4–22), their false confidence in the covenant they were disobeying (9:1–26), and the false gods they were worshipping (10:1–25). In other words, Jeremiah dealt with their sinful mistreatment of the temple, the law, the covenant, and the Lord Himself.”⁵ It is believed that Jeremiah was delivering his message at one of the three occasions in a year when all men were required to go to the temple.

As Jeremiah preached, he told those present, “They were guilty of breaking at least five of the Ten Commandments, but the false prophets assured them that the presence of God’s temple in Jerusalem guaranteed the nation God’s blessing.”⁶ God called the people to repentance while the false prophets instructed the people to continue what they had been doing.

In verse 16, God instructed Jeremiah to not even pray for the people. By verse 21, God told the people their sacrifices were no good.

In verses 7:27 and following, “God told Jeremiah to lament for the dead nation because they would not repent.”⁷ God’s attempt to correct the actions and attitudes of the people did no good. By the eighth chapter of Jeremiah, God was mourning for the people.

CLOSING

Any theology that minimizes God’s holiness is false. The fullness of Christ leads us all to righteousness and holiness. Even in the difficult times, God’s heart is always for His people.