Jeremiah 15:10-21.  It’s interesting how God times things, or works with the way we screw up the schedule of things.  I try to write these posts each day.  As you can see from the reading schedule, or if you have been reading along you know that sometimes it doesn’t go that way, it should, but it doesn’t.  I was one day behind (if you have been reading along since the beginning of DFD.com you know I have had some thoughts on that as well).  But then yesterday I missed again.  Between studying and writing these posts usually take me about 2 hours each day, but they are not my only responsibilities.  I am a dad, grand-pa, husband, Youth leader, and I have a job too.  I am a partner in a construction company and most of the time I am the only worker.  My son-in-law, another partner, works sometimes but he is in paramedic school and that takes most of his time (as well as his family).  Anyway yesterday I had to start work at 5:30 in the morning and didn’t get home until 8 at night.  Then my grand-kids were at my house.  Not really any time to study and write.  This morning I got up early and looked through my emails before writing this and there was one with some information I was waiting for to help me figure out if I can do a certain very big project I am looking at.  The project is easily something I understand how to do but I am not sure I can get it done in the time that the owner wants it done in.  The information I got this morning helps me figure it out and it is still complicated, I have been worrying for several weeks trying to figure this all out.  And that is where it gets interesting, in today’s reading Jeremiah is kind of stressing out too.  Interesting timing for me.

If you have been reading along you know that Jeremiah has been telling the people that they are going to be invaded.  The invasion is coming because the people have been consistently honoring false gods.  The have been “worshipping” Yahweh, the one true God; their God, too.  The problem with this (aside from the fact that they aren’t really honoring God if they have other gods, since God’s first commandment to them was to have no other gods) is that it is confusing to the nations who are around Israel and watching them; there is no clear picture about God’s love and care since any one of the “gods” could be given credit for what happens in their lives.  So in the name of Yahweh, Jeremiah has been warning them that Yahweh is going to bring a foreign invader to conquer them.  His predictions (along with those of a few other prophets of his day) are very specific and were one way that outsiders could get the real picture of which god is the real God.  Unfortunately, except for those few (and they weren’t there all the time he was) there really weren’t many people on Jeremiah’s side.  Most of the prophets of his day were telling the kings and people just what they wanted to hear.  The priests were being unfaithful to God too, going through the motions without really honoring God with their lives.  Except for Josiah, the kings were encouraging the people to worship many false gods.  Jeremiah was pretty much alone and everyone hated his message to them.

In the Bible the word “woe” is a cry of grief or sadness.  The word is often used as a warning, “woe to you …”; like telling a person that their life is going to get really sad soon.  In verse 10 Jeremiah tells his mother that the fact that he was born is “woe”.  It’s kind of like saying to your mom, “You never should have had me!”  Moms went through a lot to have us and that is the last thing they want to hear from us.  He says he has been arguing and fighting with everyone, and that is basically true.  The second part of verse 10 is pretty interesting; Jeremiah uses the idea of lending and borrowing to explain his situation.  There’s nothing like money to get people crazy.  A couple of days ago I was getting lunch for two of my sons who were helping me at work.  While I was waiting, a bunch of high school girls came into the food place to order lunch.  I watched one girl who was going to order and pay for two of them.  It seemed like the other girl had money but didn’t want to use it for some reason or another.  Finally she gave her money to the first girl and there was some talk about getting it back or getting change.  The girl who now had the other girl’s money in her had said something like, “Well it’s not like you don’t owe me money that you never paid back!”  Jeremiah tells his mom, or us, that he hasn’t been involved in borrowing or lending but that everyone is cursing him anyway.  Clearly Jeremiah thinks his life is a ‘bummer”; “it sucks”.

In verse 11 God starts to respond to Jeremiah’s sadness.  Since we don’t really know when Jeremiah had this conversation with God it’s hard to know what it means exactly.  There were times in Jeremiah’s life when he was locked up.  This may be at that time or even a reference to it.  On the other hand Jeremiah may have felt “trapped” in his aloneness and sadness.  Whatever the situation God was encouraging Jeremiah by telling him that he would “set him free”; Jeremiah’s life had a purpose.  His purpose was to communicate for God to the people, people who were not listening.  A time was coming, though, when God would have the people come to Jeremiah looking for advice.

Verses 12-14 are a description of the coming invasion.  North of Israel in the region near the Black Sea the people were famous for making iron that was as hard as steel, steel doesn’t shatter when hit.  Bronze, which is made from copper and tin doesn’t shatter either it deforms when hit.  The point of this saying is that nothing is going to stop what is coming.  God tells Jeremiah that the invaders will easily take what ever they want (treasure…without cost).  Even the people themselves will be taken away.  God also tells why this is going to happen, God is mad about their sins (disobedience and rebellion toward him).  The fact that the sin is “within their borders” (v. 13) tells us that this was a habit not some random slip up.

In verses 15-18 Jeremiah responds to God’s assurance of the coming discipline of the people of Judah.  First he asks God to be sure and deal with the people who have been giving him so much trouble.  He asks God to remember him and to not let the people who have been bad to him “slide by”.  He doesn’t want God’s patience to let them keep on hurting him.  He reminds God that the suffering he is going through is because he is living for God.

In verses 16-17 Jeremiah reminds God of how it was in the beginning; he remembers the beginning of being a prophet for God.  He tells God how he could not get enough, gorging himself on God’s word.  Remember that Jeremiah started giving messages in the “thirteenth year of Josiah”.  In the eighth year of Josiah’s reign Josiah started to seek God personally as well as getting rid of the idols in the land.  In the 18^th year of his reign they discovered a copy of the Old Testament while repairing the Temple.  After hearing the word of the Lord Josiah began additional reforms in the kingdom.  Jeremiah was probably part of these events.  Because he was so serious about God, Jeremiah didn’t participate in a lot of the partying that was going on around him.

In the end of verse 17 Jeremiah seems to start feeling sorry for himself.  Because of the influence of God in his life he was offended by parts of the culture around him and instead sat by himself.  In verse 18 he asks God why he has had constant pain in his life.  Then implies that God has tricked him; not taken care of him.  It is interesting that he tells us that God’s Word gave him joy and delight but then later he claims he has had nothing but pain in his life.  It’s easy for us to forget the good times when we are mad or hurting.  We do this in human relationships too; as we fight we say things like “you always …” or “you never …”, neither of which is usually true.

Verses 19-21 give us God’s response to Jeremiah complaint.  First God tells Jeremiah that if Jeremiah comes back to him, that God will take him back in; the relationship can be like it was before.  God then tells Jeremiah to find the good in the evil that is around him; look for the little victories.  God says that if Jeremiah keeps representing God that some people may turn back to God, but he warns Jeremiah not to follow their ways.  In these words we see that life is not “always” good or bad but that there is a mixture of good times and bad in life.  The people have been bad as a group but some may come to God.  Some may join Jeremiah in following God but he must not join them in idolatry or whatever evil things they are doing.

In verse 20 we see that if Jeremiah can believe and trust in God; have a relationship with God (stand before God, v. 19) while understanding that life is a mixture of good and bad, that he will be a strong influence in the lives of the people of Judah.  It’s kind of like when Job said, “The LORD (Yahweh) gave and the LORD has taken away, may the LORD be honored”.  Job also told his wife, “You are a foolish woman when you tell me to curse God [for the trouble in his life] shall we take only good from God and not accept the trouble that comes in our lives too?” (Job 1:21; 2:10).  Jeremiah needed to accept that life is filled with good and bad and not forget the good and blame God for the bad.

The next important fact in God’s response is that God will care for us.  But, as we just saw, we need to realize that there will be trouble in our lives.  Notice that some of the verbs here are future tense.  God is with us (now) to save us.  But the enemy will fight with us (now) but they will not win (in the end).  Eventually God will deliver us and save us from those who want to harm us.  In 2 Thessalonians 1:4 Paul tells the believers in Thessalonica (a city in Greece back in his day) that he was proud of their trust in God and how they stuck by God as they were suffering for following God.  In vv. 6-7 he tells them that it is right that God will pay back those who were hurting them but that it will not come until Jesus returns to rule the earth and judge those who never trusted in him.

So God is wisely working a plan that will allow the greatest number of people to be a part of his forever kingdom.  In the mean time we live in a world that we messed up.  In God’s wise planning we can still see goodness in this broken world filled with disobedient (sinful) people, but we will feel the effects of the brokenness and sin.  Life’s a mess but if we turn to God he will make us a refuge to those around us, a bus station on the route to heaven, with free tickets to all who will hear and see our message of a God who loved them enough to die for them.  Don’t be discouraged by the difficulties of life.  Don’t focus on the bad that comes your way and forget how good it is to know God.  Remember the wonder of his love and hang onto that through the storms of life until you reach the calm warm shore of Heaven.

Lord help me always remember how good it is to know you.  To know you love me and want me with you for eternity.  Help me remember that you love others too and that the trouble in life is because of your patience and love.  God help me be glad that your patience has given even my enemies a chance to turn to you.  Let me trust that you will take care of the evil of life at the right time.  Let me remember the joy of the first days of knowing you and let me look forward to the forever with you.  By the way give me wisdom (not worry) about the big job.  Let me make the right decisions and accept the outcome even if it looks bad to me.

Jeremiah 14:17-15:9.  You will want to remember that this “book” of Jeremiah is a collection of messages, sermons, or talks, (whatever you want to call them) to the people of Judah over the course of his life. Of course when he collected them together and wrote them down he added to them in a way that would bring them together.  At least part of today’s reading is either a continuation of yesterday message or Jeremiah brought some similar messages together to help us see some of the how and why of what God does.

Yesterday’s reading started out with the mention of a drought and we talked about how sometimes God uses “natural” disasters to get peoples attention.  We also looked at why God would do such a thing; at how serious turning away from God can be; it can leave you on the outside for eternity.  In today’s reading drought is still part of the picture in verse 22 when the person talking is admitting to God that fake gods have no power to control the weather.

Today’s reading starts with God commanding Jeremiah to talk to the people.  Verses 17-22 are the message Jeremiah was to give the people.  Sometimes a message given by a prophet communicates the actual words of God but in this case it seem like the words express the feelings of Jeremiah.  As a prophet though it’s not so easy to separate Jeremiah’s feelings from God.  In Philippians 2:5 Paul told the believers in Philippi to have the same sort of unselfish attitude that Jesus had.  Prophets spent so much time hearing from and speaking for God that, at least some of the time, their attitudes and feelings reflected those of God.  So in verse 17 I think it is Jeremiah who was sad and feeling like crying.  Why?  Because of the destruction coming on the people of Judah.  Death either was or was going to be all around him.  Interestingly in verse 18 Jeremiah links the coming disaster with the activities of the prophets and priests in Judah.  Remember at the end of yesterday’s reading we saw that the people had been listening to false prophets.  We also know that idolatry (honoring false, manmade gods) was a problem through out much of Jeremiah’s lifetime, especially in the later years near the time of the Babylonian invasion.  The “land” that these priests and prophets were wandering into wasn’t a literal land, he is talking about them wandering away from God toward the false gods of the different countries around them.  They were “wandering” in the “land of idols and false worship”, you might say.

In verse 19 Jeremiah returns to his concern for the people.  In verses 19-22 Jeremiah seems to be speaking for the people to God.  His words must have expressed the feelings of some of the people but probably not most.  As we saw yesterday, many of the people felt this way toward God but they were not exclusive with God, they looked to idols too.  So the words of verse 22 cannot express the feelings of most of the people of Judah.  By the way “Zion” in verse 19 is the name of the mountain on which Jerusalem was built.  As the capital of Judah, Jerusalem would represent Judah, and Zion is sometimes used as another name for Jerusalem.  It’s like when people talk about “Washington” (D.C.) and mean the whole United States.  What we have here is a repetition, the two questions in verse 19 are parallel; the same idea said two ways.  That is very common in Hebrew literature.

So verses 17-22 are a continuation of the discussion between God and Jeremiah about false religious leaders in Judah that started earlier in chapter 14.  It seems like Jeremiah wants God to go a little easier on the people because they have been misled.  The sad thing is that the very arguments he is making about the lack of power of the idols shows that the people should have known that they were not following the real God.  Although Jeremiah doesn’t like what is coming he is still respectful toward God.  At the end of verse 22 he honors God as the one with real power and places his hope in God.

Unfortunately, in God’s wisdom, it was time to let the people see what it was like on the outside.  Moses and Samuel were both highly respected leaders from Israel’s past and both had prayed for the people at times when God was going to punish them and seen God back off.  Now we see that God is not going to “back off” it was time that Israel see what life without God would be like.    It’s kind of funny that it’s not God who leaves though, he tells Jeremiah to send the people away.  Maybe the point is that this is God’s world, God’s land, God’s city and if the people don’t want him as their God then they need to leave.  When the people ask where they are to go the answer is honest and real:  To Destruction.  The picture isn’t very pretty either, be hacked to death with swords or ripped apart by dogs, birds, or wild animals.  It’s an ugly picture but it is real.  Existence without God now and in eternity is ugly too.  With respect to eternity without God, Jesus told his followers that it was “outer darkness where there is weeping and grinding of the teeth” (Matthew 8:12).  He also tells his followers that the final place of those who reject God is an unquenchable fire where they are constantly consumed by worms.  Hell is an awful reality and God uses awful earthly realities to teach us that if he needs to.  Verse 4 explains another part of why God needed to bring this level of trouble into the lives of the people of Judah.  The Israelites were supposed to be an example to the nations around them; they were supposed to be a people that the nations could look to to learn the truth about the one true God.  By mixing other gods (idols) into their lives they destroyed the possibility for the nations around them to see who God is and what he can do.  So God made an example of them showing the nations around them what happens when you serve other so called gods.  Manasseh was the king of Judah about the time Jeremiah was born.  He was a very evil king who brought man false gods back into the lives of the people of Judah.  In verse 6 we learn that he was not alone in accepting these false gods.  In that verse God tells the people of Judah that they are going backwards.  If this was written later in Jeremiah’s life it might have been after Manasseh’s grandson,  Josiah, became king and stopped the idol worship in Jerusalem.  After Josiah’s death idol worship was resumed in Judah and Jerusalem; Spiritually the people were going backward.  This failure to honor God resulted in the suffering see in verses all of theses verses 2-9.

It may be just wishful thinking (like Jeremiah’s prayer for the people in Jeremiah 14:19-22) but is see just a small ray of light in verses 6-7.  First of all we see that God will “relent”, at least he had in the past.  God is not an all out rage machine.  God loves us and wants a relationship with us.  He works hard at not punishing us, as hard as becoming a man and dying on a cross for us.  But it is about love and love involves the free will of the individuals involved, he will not force us into a relationship, but he is serious about showing us the consequences of walking away from him.  Also in verse 7 God uses the example of a “winnowing fork”.  Wheat is like a giant piece of grass.  As it grows it gets a “head” on it that is full of seeds.  The seeds are the useful part of the plant that we use for food.  After the wheat has grown up it is cut and left in the fields to dry out for a while.  Eventually (in those days anyway) it is brought to a large “floor” where it is stepped on to get the seeds to fall out of the little “leaf” shell they are in.  The seeds are what is wanted but they are mixed in with pieces of leaves and stems on the floor.  The leafs and stems are called “chaff”.  A “winnowing fork” was a tool used to pick up the mess on the floor and throw it into the air.  The seeds, being heavier and smaller, would fall through the “fork” back to the floor as the chaff would blow away in the wind.  At the end only the useful seeds would be left.  I guess I like it that God uses a winnowing fork and not a shovel.  It tells me that there is hope that some will not be “blown away”.  Finally in verse 7 God mentions ‘repentance”, that word means to “turn back” or “return”.  The fact that repentance is an issue means that repentance is an option; there is hope that some can turn back to God.  That is encouraging.

I don’t really like the destruction part but that is reality, God has standards and there are consequences for abandoning Him.  The consequences are fair though, if you want out God will let you out, but outside is a bad, bad place.  So before he lets someone go forever God wants us to get a taste of “life on the outside”.  So I’m glad for the bad stuff in that sense, but it’s still awful.  What I do like is that there seems to be a lot of hope, even in the middle of all the destruction.  We still see the idea of God allowing us to return and the fact that the trouble (at least for now) can stop if we do.  It’s just encouraging to see that God doesn’t want to just destroy but that he wants us with him.  That is very encouraging.

God thank you for forgiving me.  Thank you for giving me an opportunity to come to you.  Before I turned to you I lived an evil selfish life, but you made me anyway.  Then you brought people and situations into my life to show me my lost-ness and how to return to you, amazing love God, amazing.  Thank you for loving me, let me be a channel of your love to others.  Let me be a true messenger of you to those around me.  Thank you for your love and patience.