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.

Jeremiah 11:1-13.  Remember that in the book of Jeremiah we have a collection of messages that he gave to the people of the southern kingdom of Judah (See “Intro to Jeremiah”).  Jeremiah started to minister (serve) in the 13^th year of the good king Josiah.  Josiah had begun to get rid of the idolatry set up by his father and grand-father.  The people went along with what he was doing spiritually but evidently not with their whole heart (See Deuteronomy 6:4-5).  We do not know when in his career that God gave this message to Jeremiah, it could have been during the time of Josiah or later, but it is clearly a warning of the consequences of being unfaithful to God.

Four times in these thirteen verses God mentions a “covenant”.  A covenant is like a contract, treaty, or promise.  These are agreements between people and usually involve conditions.  Although it wasn’t a written contract, my daughter, Heather, had a bad batter in her car and needed a new one put in.  It was late and I was all cleaned up but I agreed to put it in if she went and got a new one.  She did and I did.  My word was like a promise but it had conditions, she needed to go get the new battery.  If she hadn’t I would have been free from my promise.  In verse 3 God tells the people of Judah that they are cursed if they do not keep their part of a particular contract.  In verse 4 we find out that the contract was originally given to the Israelites about 800 years earlier when God brought them out of Egypt.  The first mention of this contract seems to be in Exodus 19.  In Exodus 19 Moses and the descendants of Israel (See “What’s in a Name”) have escaped Egypt and are at the foot of the mountain where Moses was commanded by God to go rescue the people.  In Exodus 19-23 Moses goes up the mountain and receives the “contract” from him.  It is interesting that really this is an amendment or addition to an earlier contract between God and Abraham.  The original contract was a promise by God to give certain land to Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 15:8).  In Genesis 17:7 God also explained that the contract was forever.   There were no particular conditions to the original contract.  Later in Exodus 19-23 God added more to the contract, including responsibilities or conditions for the Israelites.  The Ten Commandments were the beginning of these conditions but not all of them.  In Exodus 24:3 the descendants of Israel accepted the terms of the agreement.  Basically the new agreement said that the people would live in promised land protected by God but that they would have to be faithful to God.  If they were not faithful God would remove them from the land or make them live there in bondage to outsiders.  In the history of Israel we know that this happened many times.  The original contract of “forever” ownership though, remains with no conditions.  Eventually Jesus will rule over that land and establish a forever kingdom in which descendants of Israel will be a part.  Throughout the Old Testament the people of Israel were warned about the conditions and consequences of the contract between them and God.  One extended section is Deuteronomy 27-29 which I mentioned yesterday.

In Jeremiah’s life the situation had become very serious and it was time for God to remove the people of Judah from the land for a time.  In verse 4 God sums up the situation when he reminds Jeremiah that he brought the Israelite family out of a harsh situation of slavery in Egypt and was going to give them a good and productive land (the description reminds me of those milk commercials a few years back).  The people’s part of the deal was to obey God.  Notice the language God uses; they would be his people and he would be their God, it’s the language of a relationship.  But they had violated the very first condition of the contract and the relationship.  The first of the first ten commandments was that they people would have no other gods.  But here they were in Jeremiah’s day with other gods (see v. 13).  In verse 6 God tells Jeremiah to remind the people once again about the contract and it’s requirements.  In verse 7 we find out that God not only put the warnings in the original contract but had regularly reminded the people of the agreement down through the generations.  According to verse 8 it wasn’t that the Israelites didn’t know the details but that they willingly chose to break the agreement.   By living in the land and accepting the goodness of it (“a land flowing with milk and honey, to this day”) the people were implying that they accepted the terms of the contract; they could not say that the agreement was just between their ancestors and God.  There fore god was going to bring the consequences into play.

In verse 10 we learn that it wasn’t just the generation alive in Jeremiah’s day that was guilty but they were copying the actions of their ancestors. The fact that the people of Judah were living in the land really tells me that God is patient, he had put up with the unfaithfulness of several generations, but now it was time to act.  It is interesting that God mentions the “house of Israel” and the “house of Judah” in verse 10.  After the rule of Solomon  the nation of Israel was split into two kingdoms.  The Northern Kingdom is commonly called Israel in the Bible and the Southern Kingdom is commonly called Judah.  The Northern Kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BC (about 90 years before this message was given) and the people were scattered throughout the Assyrian Empire.  By mentioning both “houses” in the same sentence God is warning the people of Judah that they better look out.  In verse 11 the hint in verse 10 is made very clear when God tells them that he is bringing disaster and that they will not be able to escape.

Remember that if the people would listen to God that he would protect them but they were not obeying him.  In verse 11 we see that the people would try get God to help but he was not going to listen to them.  Instead of leaving their prayers at God’s feet though they would then prove their unfaithfulness and turn to the fake gods that they had been secretly cheating with.  Of course man made gods of rock and wood have no power to help as the people would learn as disaster overtook them.

For me I see both the purity and patience of God in this part of the story.  We see that God has standards, he is not going to share our hearts with lies.  But God clearly put up with a lot of cheating by the Israelites before he actually kicked them out.  Eventually he would bring them back too.  And in the ultimate end there would be a forever kingdom.  It is interesting that in the last book of the Bible, the Revelation, we see the events that lead to that kingdom.  Those events include a second (or gazillionth) chance for the Israelites to lead people around them to God.  During that last seven year long opportunity God shows the world just how serious he is about disobedience and rebellion.  There are many many severe event in response to the Satan led rebellion on the earth.  At least twice in that book the action pauses and someone comments that “they [the people on the earth] still did not turn back to God”.  Clearly God is a patient God who wants people to spend eternity with him; but those who reject his offer of eternity will spend it on the outside where there is no “milk and honey” but an eternity of “weeping and gnashing of teeth”.

One last thing.  Although the original “contract” was made with an individual, Abraham, but was extended to an entire tribe, people group, or nation, the Israelites.  But each individual is responsible for keeping the terms of the contract.  In verse 8 we learn that each person stubbornly turned away from God.  God was about the punish the entire Southern Kingdom and Jeremiah would suffer consequences with them but the ultimate reward, eternity in God’s forever kingdom, depends on our individual response.  In Hebrews 11 we learn that Abraham and the prophets among others were living for that eternal kingdom, suffering sometimes in this life, as they lived to help us find that eternal life.  Don’t waste their sacrifice, turn back to God today.

God thank you for being patient.  Thank you for letting enough time pass so that I could exist and learn about you.  Thank you for waiting for me to turn to you.  thank yo for enduring all that evil so I could be a part of your forever kingdom.. Help me be faithful.  Help me share your love with others.  Help me lead other out of the darkness into your marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).