Jeremiah 11:14-12:6. Today’s reading seems a little difficult to me. The first part of the reading continues the harsh words God has for the unfaithful people of Judah. The end of chapter 11 then moves to a more personal conversation between God and Jeremiah about a threat to his life. Chapter 12 begins with a question Jeremiah has that probably came to mind as he thought about his own situation.
In yesterday’s reading we saw that the people of Judah were going to suffer consequences for being unfaithful to God. We also saw that God had been very patient with them. Part of God’s patience involved repeated warnings through his servants; the prophets (like Jeremiah). In verse 14 God tells Jeremiah not to pray for the people any longer. God also tells Jeremiah that he won’t listen to the prayers of the people either. The next two verses are very interesting. In verse 15 God calls the people of Judah “my beloved” and in verse 16 he compares the people of Judah to a “green” olive tree. The idea behind the word “green” is fresh and healthy, this can bee seen in the rest of the description about the tree being both physically pretty as well as fruitful. Both of these descriptions of the people of Judah show me that God loves them. Even though God loves them though they are in for trouble.
In verse 15 “God’s beloved” gets kicked out of the house. In this case the reference is to the temple where the people were supposed to come and honor God. In that temple they were supposed to offer animal sacrifices. It seems kind of barbaric to us to kill animals in “church” and we often associate that sort of thing with satanic rituals. The first time we see an animal sacrificed or killed in the Bible is in Genesis 3:21 (at least I assume an animal had to die for the god to use skins for clothing for Adam and Eve). This is the story about Adam and Eve disobeying God; the first sin. God had warned them that the very day they sinned that they would die. The idea behind death is the idea of separation. When God asked them where they were I think that was his way of showing them that they were separated from him in their relationship to him; that was spiritual death. Eventually they would also die physically, but since God did not plan for that to be immediate I think that killing the animal to hide their nakedness was a way of showing them the ugly consequences of their disobedience and rebellion (sin). So I think that was part of the point of having animal sacrifices be a part of the Jewish religion. The sacrifices were a constant reminder of the ugly consequences of sin and of the ultimate solution (Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice who actually dealt with the death penalty we all are under (See Hebrew 9 especially verse 25, also see “The Old Testament Connection”). According to Jeremiah God’s beloved people have been so unfaithful that coming into the temple with sacrifices has no real meaning. In verse 17 we see that they also offered sacrifices to Baal, a false god. While the sacrifices to God in the temple were to be reminders of sin the sacrifices to gods like Baal were an attempt to manipulate that god; bribes. The true meaning of the sacrifices in the Temple clearly had been lost. With out a clear picture of sin and it’s consequences the people of Judah had not real hope of getting right with God. No doubt they though their sacrifices were some sort of ‘sweet talk” to God by which they could manipulate him too.
The time had come for stronger discipline and so the invasion from Babylon was set; destruction could not avoided. Putting the kids on restriction or taking away their iPads or smart phones was not going to be enough it was time for more serious correction. This can also be seen in what happens to the olive tree; God sent fire n it and it’s branches were burned off. Notice though that the people of Judah deserved what was coming they had done evil and so “evil” was coming on them. That word “evil” by the way means “bad, disagreeable, unpleasant”. We need to be careful not to say that God was doing something “evil” in the sense of “immoral”.
In the next part of our reading today (Jeremiah 11:18-23) we see a little of how personal God is. Some men are plotting against Jeremiah. When you go around telling people that God doesn’t like what they are doing it often makes them mad, sometimes the situation can get very dangerous. A prophets job was mostly doing just that though, telling people that God wasn’t happy with how they were living. In this case some of the people from Jeremiah’s hometown, Anathoth, were plotting to kill him. In verse 22 it is very clear that they don’t like the message he is giving them. The language here is very strong, they tell him never to “prophecy” aver again. If he kept it up they were clear that they were going to kill him.
In verses 18-20 we see that God showed Jeremiah what these men were up to. We also learn that Jeremiah had not been particularly harsh with them he had been like a gentle lamb, but they were intent on killing him. In response Jeremiah prays that God will “take vengeance” on them. The idea behind “vengeance” is “payback”; people getting what is coming to them or what they deserve. Some bible experts think that Jeremiah is not being a very good example here, they think that a servant of God should be showing “mercy”. The idea behind mercy is not getting what we deserve. Remember that we all deserve to be separated from God because of our disobedience and rebellion (sin). God though wants to show us mercy and usually, when it comes to punishment, that is what we want too. Verses like Romans 12:17, 1 Thessalonians 5:15, and 1 Peter 3:9 encourage us as believer not to “return evil for evil” but to “repay” evil with kindness. In Romans 12 though in the middle of telling us not to get our own revenge God tells us to leave room for him to deal with the matter; he will repay. I don’t think it was wrong for Jeremiah to ask God to deal with the people who were plotting against him; he didn’t take matters onto his own hands but left them in God’s.
In verse 22-23 we see that being in God’s hands when it comes to payback is no place to be. The men who had been threatening Jeremiah were to die by the sword and their families would starve to death. While they were threatening to totally eliminate the family name of Jeremiah (v. 19) in fact it was their family names that would be eliminated (v.23). This response by God is further evidence to me that Jeremiah was not out of line. In Proverbs 24:17-18 Solomon (the author of most of Proverbs) tells us not to gloat over trouble in our enemies lives because God might be unhappy about it and remove the trouble from their life. Also in Job 31:29-30 Job defends his good reputation with God (God said he was blameless and upright) by telling his critics that he has not been happy over death and destruction in the lives of his enemy. He goes on to say that cursing your enemy is a sin. It seems to me that God would not have destroyed Jeremiah’s enemies if Jeremiah had had an improper attitude toward them. But Jeremiah asked God to deal with the problem and was committed to letting him handle it.
This vision however seems to have created a question in Jeremiah’s mind. As he leaves his enemies in God’s hand and thinks about God’s how God always does the right thing (righteous in v. 1) he wonders about justice (this has the idea of rules and applying them fairly). So he asks God why bad people seem to get away with their bad lifestyles. In verse 2 he tells God that it seems like God has actually planted them and allowed them to grow and prosper. He doesn’t get it because he know that these people just “play” at honoring God; or should I say “pray”? They talk about God but don’t really care about him (v. 2). It’s kind of confusing what Jeremiah is saying about himself here; why he brings himself up, some experts think he is using himself as an example of how much God know. It’s like he is saying, “Hey you know all about me, how could you miss how bad these guys are?” The end of verse 3 gives Jeremiah’s opinion about what should happen to all the people who are disrespecting God, they should be taken out and destroyed. Verse 4 tells us why Jeremiah thinks this way; the land is a mess because of the evil people, while they are living in comfort the land is wasting away and even the animals and birds are suffering.
This same question comes up in the book of Job and we find a similar answer here as we do there. In Job the answer is, ‘Hey I’m God let me worry about that!” Here in Jeremiah there really is no answer to the question, instead Jeremiah is basically warned that more trouble is coming and worse too. “If you cant keep up in a foot race how will you do against horses? If you can’t walk around on nice landscaped yards how are you going to do in the wilderness?” Even Jeremiah’s family is going to turn on him, saying nice things to his face but stabbing him in the back when he isn’t listening. This reminds me of the warning Jesus gave his followers in John 15:18-20. In those verses he told his followers that they could expect to be treated badly because they were following him. Right before this warning he told them to stick together (Love one another) and right after the warning he told them he was sending a helper (the Holy Spirit). So we see the answer is that we need to leave it all in God’s hands; the situation is way beyond our ability to see, predict, or control but it is not beyond God, so we need to be on his side and following his directions. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to “trust in Yahweh (the LORD, the one true God) with all we are and not trust our own ideas, follow his instructions completely and he will keep us on the straight path.” That path may lead us through trouble (Psalm 23) but it is the path to eternity with God in his forever kingdom (Matthew 7:13-14; John 14:6).
God I am so glad that you are personally involve in our lives. You see and know about all the trouble that is out there and you have the wisest best plan figured out for all of us. Sometimes it seems like it is not going right but that is because we see and understand so little (Job 38-39). Help me trust ou and just do my part Let me be a faithful witness for you. Let my mouth honor you with what I say to others. Let my heart honor you too. Care for me God, I know you do. Let me trust and be faithful no matter how dark the valley is I pass through. Thank you for a beautiful eternity at the end of this road.