The Book of Jeremiah

God’s patience in justice:

• The Lord has been so patient with you and me, but the cup of justice is coming, and everyone must drink. No Exceptions! Don’t think because you call yourself a Christian, you won’t have to drink from this cup of divine justice. Do not confuse God’s patience with inaction as if the cup isn’t coming. God’s kindness in patience is meant to lead you to repentance

God’s agents of justice:

• God has raised up wrathful agents of justice for demonstrating his righteous judgment against sin which justice demands AND for displaying the riches of his glory for those who are to receive mercy. God used such vessels of wrath to bring about the ultimate display of justice and mercy in a single sweep at the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God’s Cup of Justice:

• Where those who deserved to drink from the cup of God’s wrath sought to refuse the cup, Jesus, the only truly innocent One, drank freely. Jesus willingly took the cup of wrath reserved for the nations so that those from the nations might be spared God’s just wrath. Jesus drank the cup in our place.

FINAL APPLICATION: 

• Each of us has a decision to make. The Cup is coming around. Jesus hasn’t removed the cup. But He has emptied it. You can either take the cup yourself and see how you fare in light of God’s justice. Or you can receive the cup after it has passed through Jesus’ hands, after He has drained it to the dregs. The scent is still there, the aroma of life and death — our life found in His death. But not an ounce of God’s judgment against you remains if you allow Jesus to drink that cup in your place. The pardon is absolute and complete.

ADVENT: 

• Advent is the story of the fierce Lion leaving His lair. Jesus left his throne of judgment in heaven and came down as meek and mild Lamb. But that Lamb offers a protection that the Lion did not. Because of our sin, we were prey. What we need is One to defend us from this righteous Lion who will devour the wicked. This Lion is the only One to fear, not the king of Babylon, not those hostile to you at work, not Satan, not disease, not even the natural disasters of this world wrought by floods, earthquakes, or hurricanes.
• We need protection from the Lion, and that’s exactly why the Lion of the Tribe of Judah came as a Lamb.
• Verse 33 — Those slain by the Lord shall extend from one end of the earth to the other. On the day of final judgment, such will indeed be the case. But for those under the protection of the Lamb — the One who stretched out the heavens — stretched out his mighty arms of protection on the cross to be slain in our place. As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions — and thus His cup of wrath — from us.

 Throughout redemptive history, God has always spared a remnant. Time and again, when it seems impossible for the Lord to uphold His promises a remnant is always spared. Yahweh declares that this remnant shall be fruitful and multiply. But it’s not enough to be fruitful and multiply if they are simply to continue going astray just to be exiled again, but such has been the story line since Genesis 3.   There’s a sense that the Bible tells the most hopeless story the world has ever known, except for God’s gracious intervention in His Story. And that’s part of the point. It’s not so much about us, but about this Great Merciful and Mighty God who saves! This cycle of apostacy shall not continue forever, for the Lord will set good shepherds who will care for the flock, and none shall be missing. Every sheep that God has set his eyes on for good will be accounted for. The only way these people whom the Lord regards as good will ever be righteous is if they are led by a King who is righteous. Hence, the only king righteous enough to lead the Lord’s people into righteousness is the Lord himself. Jesus is none other than Yahweh in the flesh. The people who remained in the land considered themselves to be the Lord’s chosen people. But God had set before them the way of life and death. Surrender and you will live. But remain in this city and you shall endure my wrath!  King Jeconiah, who was by no means a righteous king, surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar. When he heard the Word, “Surrender and you will live.” Jeconiah gave himself up, which may have been the only righteous thing he ever did — the only act of obedience — trusting that the Lord would be good to His Word, which the Lord always is. Exile, if anything, certainly didn’t scream, “God is for you” And of course, the Lord is disciplining His people — His disobedient people. But remember, the Lord disciplines those He loves.  It was those who surrendered even to the unfavorable choice of exile whom Yahweh was looking upon with favor; not those who failed as of yet to lose their house, their land, and all their possessions. But they had a worse fate coming! Those who surrendered to exile would be brought back, built up, and planted. But what good does it do to build up and plant a rebellious people who will soon rebel again? The answer is that the Lord will give them a heart to know him. While our greatest need is reconciliation with God — a huge aspect of that is — Knowing God — and it’s something we are unable to make happen — God must initiate by giving us a heart to know Him.   Many don’t like this aspect of election. They feel God must give everyone equal opportunity to know Him, or God is somehow unjust. But that’s like the false prophets making up their own ideals of God rather than standing in the Lord’s council under His Word. Now, in one sense, God does give everyone equal opportunity to know Him. That’s the point of Romans 1. Creation cries out who this God is. But here’s the problem: every single one of us equally reject this equal opportunity to know God. And if God left it there none of us would know Him. But God has graciously initiated our knowing Him despite our rejection of Him, giving us a new heart with a right knowledge of who Yahweh is! This knowledge of God leads to repentance, a return to the Lord with all our heart. The evidence of knowing God is that former rebels return to Him. Outside of Christ you didn’t have a heart to know God. But one day, something changes, and your heart wants to know Him. You no longer find yourself fleeing, running away, hiding behind fig leaves. Instead, you find yourself turning to Him. That’s the word for repent; it’s the only word for repent; the Hebrew simply means TURN. For Jeconiah, surrender surely must have appeared weak and cowardly, and more than a few people likely called him a traitor for giving himself up to this foreign king. But the Lord isn’t done with Jeconiah. At the end of the he’s released. He’s shown favor. He puts off his prison garments and dines at the king’s table. If you surrender to Christ, this foreign King so lowly that his first bed was a feeding trough, the world will likely view you as weak and cowardly. But despite your sin, whatever your past, you will be regarded as good. Christ releases you from the bonds of sin, puts off your prison garments and clothes you in his royal robe of righteousness. But you won’t just be regarded as good. He will give you a knew heart to know him intimately. That word “know” in verse 7 is the same word used to describe Adam and Eve’s marital consummation. Adam knew Eve.  That’s why Jesus donned flesh. The Son of God came in our likeness that we might know God, no longer from afar, but intimately, as a Bride knows her husband, and a Husband knows his Bride. That’s how intimately we’ll know Him, no more fig leaves, no more shame, always dining with our glorious Bridegroom at the King of Kings’ table. 

 What does repentance look like for those who have continued to rebel against the Lord? It takes the shape of surrender. Repentance has always taken the shape of surrender, surrendering to God's rule, God's righteousness, what God deems as good and evil. Surrender and you will live; it's really that simple.  But we aren't simply called to surrender to just any king. We are called to surrender to the one King who surrendered everything in order to die for you. He surrendered His majesty and dignity, that he might clothe you in glory… Surrendered His throne in heaven, that he might invite you to sit with him on it… Surrendered His home to provide a home for in heaven... Surrendered His comforts that you might have peace... Surrendered the place to lay His head that you might rest... The King of the universe surrendered to earthly authorities that you might be set free... Surrendered His breath as he cried out “Father, forgive them..." Surrendered His blood — which is the only thing able to cleanse you... He surrendered His life that you might live... Choose life — Choose life — Surrender to this humble King and live. 

 One of the dominant chords in the first half of the book of Jeremiah is that of Jeremiah's personal struggle as the Lord's messenger, the bearer of the unpopular message of judgment. In these verses, Jeremiah pours out his heart to the Lord, praising Yahweh in one breath and cursing the day of his birth in the next. But Jeremiah's emotional turmoil isn't so much to be analyzed as it is to be felt. We are called to feel Jeremiah's burden, his pain, the agony of his soul.

Jesus, too, was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, who bore reproach and suffering on our behalf, sweating out drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane as he prayed for his Father to take the cup of suffering away, "yet not as I will, but your will be done." Jesus was born into our curse... born even to be cursed... born to take away our curse. 

Perhaps, if Jeremiah was to write a verse to Mary, Did You know, it would go something like this: 

Mary did you know that your baby boy would live a life of sorrows 

Mary did you know that your baby boy would take a tomb that's borrowed 

Did you know that your baby boy to whom you've given birth 

This most precious of babies was born to bear your curse. 

Israel’s very image has been marred beyond recognition; she has become foreign to God’s decreed purpose for her, filling herself with ungodly practices. Now she is in grave danger of being emptied and shattered beyond repair because she refuses to mend her ways. Those who become foreign to God’s design and purpose for them by filling their lives with idolatry and ungodly practices will be emptied of life and crushed beyond repair. Turn to Jesus who took on foreign flesh, emptied himself, and was crushed in your place. 

  The Sabbath was to be a day engraved into Israel’s memory — an engraved reminder of the Lord’s good provision — But instead, the only engraving taking place seemed to be the engraving of sin with a tool of iron on the hardened hearts of men — and at the altars where we worshiped and bowed down at every green tree on every high hill.

It would take a tool of iron to cancel out such sin — An iron tool chased by hammer — as those iron spikes engraved the palms of our Savior’s hands and feet — upon the tree on the hill of Calvary — The Cross of Christ — may it be the only altar in which you and I trust.

Jeremiah, his life and ministry were but a shadow of the True Prophet to come, namely Jesus, whose life here on earth in our fallen world would be an even fuller embodiment of the message he proclaimed. Like Jeremiah, Jesus wouldn’t take a bride or raise up a family of his own, at least not before he gave his life as a ransom, as a double payment sufficient to cover their sin. But O the Bride Jesus is preparing, and O how many are his children. While Jeremiah was commanded not to mourn, we know Jeremiah best as who? The Weeping Prophet, the prophet who wept over Jerusalem, who wept over the brokenness in the land, who wept over the coming judgment. Well, those are the very things Jesus wept over, but his tears were the very tears of God. While Jeremiah was commanded not to rejoice because of the judgment of his day, Jesus was able to both mourn and rejoice because along with the judgment which Jesus himself would absorb, Jesus also brought the good news of salvation. His people would be saved from the very things he wept over. A greater Exodus was being set in motion, an Exodus that would include the nations — you and me — an Exodus that would bring about a true knowledge of God. But first, Jesus would absorb the plagues that preceded the Exodus, the death of the firstborn Son, even the Son of the King who sits on the throne, the Son of God himself.  You and I await a final Exodus because our Passover Lamb has satisfied God’s justice in our place. O to know this God! O to know Jesus! 

 The book of Jeremiah is a hard book with a hard message. It's a hard message for us; it was a hard message for the people of Jeremiah's day; and it was a hard message for especially Jeremiah, the Lord's prophet. Can you imagine what it must have been like for Jeremiah and his ministry? In these chapters, we get a snapshot of Jeremiah's hardships as a prophet who is not only rejected by his people, but whose prayers seem to be rejected by his God. This passage can be divided into the 3 rejected prayers of Jeremiah, and the prayers' concerns: a concern for Yahweh's competency; a concern for Yahweh's covenant faithfulness; and a concern for Yahweh's sufficiency as the fount of living water. The Lord's responses to Jeremiah aren't what Jeremiah had in mind, but they were what Jeremiah needed to hear, ultimately revealing Jeremiah's own need to repent and be restored. The Lord is not respecter of persons, and he is no respecter of prophet either. In Christ alone, we see the competency of God to truly save his people. In Christ alone, we find the faithfulness of God to fulfill every covenant promise ever made. In Christ alone, we enjoy the sufficiency of God to satisfy our every need. In Christ, God is doing something. He is acting, even now, by setting you free from the penalty and power of sin for the good of the people that you might be a witness, a proclaimer of gospel truth while the rest of the world's prophets herald lies. In Christ, God has pleaded for you against the enemy that your faith might not fail and your witness might be preserved. In Christ, though you are but a brittle jar of clay, the Lord will sustain you as if you were bronze, through whatever trials may come. In Christ Jesus, sitting at the Father's right hand, we have an intercessor whose prayers are 100% effective, a prayer that the Father will never reject. The answer to all your prayers are in him.

1. Curses of the Covenant (11:1-17) 

A Cursed Reminder / A Cursed Tree

2. Curses of the Prophet (11:18 - 12:4)

 A Plot Revealed / A Prophet’s Appeal

3. Cursed Relationships (12:5-17)

You’ve Seen Nothing Yet / You Don’t See Through My Eyes 

4. Cursed Gifts (13:1-27)      

Soiled Undergarments / Filled Wine Jars / Darkened Mountain /  Displaced Crown / Shamed Bride 

 The purifying fire of the Word of the Lord continues in Jeremiah 7-10. Today's refining will cause us to look at the idolatry in our lives, not just what it is, but its harms. We'll wrap up by comparing idolatry to the incomparable God and how God has ultimately dealt with our idolatry.

1) Idolatry Diminishes True Worship to Mere Trappings (Jeremiah 7:1-8:3) 

2) Idolatry Distorts the Way of Wisdom (Jeremiah 8:4-9:26) 

3) Idolatry Versus the Incomparable God (Jeremiah 10:1-25)

How does the fire of God's Word refine? It brings to light the extent of our sin. There's no healing without removing the impurities in our heart, but sadly, like the people of Jeremiah's day, we have listened to false prophet after false prophet telling us everything's going to be just fine, that God isn't a God of judgement. And thus we fail to realize the dilemma of our sin - and the infinitely high cost needed to cover your our sin - the death of the true firstborn Son of God in our place. Our only hope depends on the finding of one righteous individual to spare the many. One couldn't be found. So, God sent one - his beloved Son, and his name is Jesus.

Why a series on a book where the dominant theme is that of judgment? 1) It’s God’s Word and therefore profitable. 2) God’s grace shines most brightly against the background of the judgment we deserve. 3) Most of Israel and Judah failed to receive mercy and grace because they refused to heed the warnings of God’s prophets. 4) You and I, and our entire culture is a lot like those to whom these words of warning came.

•  The Call and Commission of Yahweh’s Prophet 
• The Case and Charges against Yahweh’s People