Jeremiah 5:1-13.  In this section God challenges someone to search in the streets of Jerusalem and see if there is one person who acts properly toward others (does justice) and looks for truth.  The word for “truth” also deals with being faithful or consistent, so I think the idea is look for the truth in order to honor God with their lives; learning what God expects and then living in a way that is consistent with that truth.  If one such person can be found them God will back off on the punishment he is sending toward Jerusalem.  Verse two tells us that he is looking for a person who really loves him though and not just some one who is pretending.  According to God the people of Jerusalem were taking a very serious oath, basically swearing on a “stack of Holy Bibles” about their actions but they were lying.

In verse 3 Jeremiah takes up the challenge and begins to check out Jerusalem.  The first people he encounters didn’t respond well to the trouble God had brought into their lives.  God brought pain but they didn’t react to it, he brought emptiness but they didn’t learn from it.  Instead they became very stubborn and refused to turn back to God.  Who was this group?  According to verse 4 they were the “poor”, people who had not had an opportunity to learn how to honor God.  In some ways this might have been true, remember that Jeremiah started to represent God in 627 BC, a year before Josiah, the king, started making religious reforms and five years before the scroll of the Law was found in the temple.  So it is possible that the people in the streets weren’t that familiar with God’s expectations.  On the other hand Paul teaches us we all have a conscience that points us toward God and helps us know right from wrong even when we don’t have God’s rules right in front of us (Romans 1:18-2:15).

Next Jeremiah went to the rich and powerful.  According to Jeremiah these people did indeed have the Law of God, so this may have been after the discovery of the scroll.  Josiah did resume celebrating the Passover and did show all the people the scroll but they may have not known all it’s contents.  But Josiah and the rest of the leaders did have access to scroll.  The response to God that Jeremiah finds in the rich and powerful is rebellion.  The leaders are like an ox who has broken it’s yoke.  A yoke is the thing a farmer puts around an ox’ neck to attach a plow or cart to so the ox can pull it.  It represents control by the master.  The rich and powerful of Jerusalem had rejected God as their master.

In both cases the people were rejection the presence of the one true God, Yahweh, in their lives.  If they wouldn’t turn and go God’s way, if they wanted to be their own bosses God would teach them.  Verse 6 tells us that they will be destroyed.  God uses three different predatory animals to describe the destruction that is coming a lion, a wolf, and a leopard.  All are ferocious hunters.  Judah will go where they do not want to go and will be mastered.  The lion, wolf, and leopard probably are not literal; they are probably being used to describe the Babylonian invasion that is coming.

In verses 7-13 we find God supporting his decision to allow trouble in the lives of the people of Judah.  In verses 7-9 we see that God had cared very well for the people of Israel and yet they had honored false gods instead.  Not only did they give credit to false gods, after their stomachs were full they went out and did things that their true God disapproved of.  The reference to the prostitutes house may actually be a reference to the places of worship of the false gods.  In ancient times temples were built to so called gods and often there were prostitutes who lived in them and brought money into them.  God’s response is, “How could I not deal with such a disrespectful and rebellious people.”  But notice that in verse 10 that the destruction is not complete, only the part tht does not belong to God is destroyed.

In verses 11-13 we see more of the attitude of the people of Judah.  They either are denying God’s existence all together (“He is not”) or denying that God would ever do anything to them for their faithlessness (“Not him”).  In the end it’s all the same, the people feel immune to God if he exists at all.  Ironically by mentioning the “house of Israel” as well as the “house of Judah” Jeremiah is reminding the people of what happened to the other half of the nation a century before, they were destroyed for their disobedience and disrespect for God too.  Unfortunately Jeremiah’s warnings were falling on deaf ears, the people were claiming that the prophets were full of hot air and not really speaking for God (god?).

I’m sure there might have been some confusion among the people of Judah.  The place had been a real mixture of religion for at least 50 years.  Manasseh shared rule of the kingdom with Hezekiah his father from 697-686 BC.  His wicked influence certainly could have been felt shortly after Hezekiah’s death and maybe before.  His two sons continued in his footsteps and not until Josiah did religious reform come, but even that was not right away (remember Josiah was 8 when he became king and did not personally turn to God until he was sixteen (632 BC, see “Intro to Jeremiah”).  There was false worship and false gods everywhere in the kingdom.  There were also false prophets everywhere.  Not only were there the priests and other representatives of the false gods , those who claimed that they served Yahweh didn’t speak the truth either.  But there were also true prophets.  In their immediate time there was Nahum, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah.  And there had been other in the recent past.  And then there is the conscience and the testimony of the creation as Paul taught.  So really the people of Jeremiah’s day were without excuse.  People talk about our world today as being a “post Christian” era.  That means we are after or beyond the influence of Christianity in our world.  In some ways I think that is true, our nation and much of western civilization was heavily influenced if not purposely founded on the ideas found in the Old and New Testament.  But that “Christian tradition” has been worn away over the years, and other ideas and philosophies have shared the stage of our lives with it.  Christianity has become only a part of how we live our lives, as Americans (in the little United States sense and the bigger two continent sense as well) and as Europeans.  But Christianity is the true story of the true God (Yahweh) making peace with a disobedient and rebellious world.  Since it represents the truth about life I think the influence is always there, if we take the time to listen to it.  Clearly the people of Judah in and around 640 BC were not listening and many of us are not listening either.  And that is too bad because the reality is that sin (disobedience and rebellion against the true God) does have consequences.  There are here and now consequences as god tries to get our attention and encourage us to turn back to him and there are forever consequences related to whether we turn back to God or not.  There can be an eternity with God and all the goodness that brings or an eternity without him that will be clearly miserable.  You can ignore God but reality will catch up to you some day.  I hope you instead choose to accept God’s offer of peace and give your life to Jesus today and forever.

God thank you that you do not destroy completely.  Thank you that there is hope.  Help me not deny you in my life.  Help the people around me see you in their world.  Let me be a part of that revelation.   Let them all come to be one of your “branches” and enjoy the nourishment that comes from being connected into you.  Again thank you for your willingness to forgive.

Jeremiah 4:19-31.  In yesterday’s reading the people were warned that death and destruction were coming.  The people were encouraged to “clean up their act” (v. 14) but from history we know that they didn’t and the destruction eventually came.  In today’s reading Jeremiah first shares with us how upset he is over what is coming and why.

In verse 19 we see that Jeremiah is very upset.  Prophets must have had a pretty hard life, going around pointing out what people wee doing wrong.  People don’t usually respond very well to criticism and that was often the case with the prophets.  In Hebrews 11 we see a description of people who had been faithful to God in their lives from the history of Israel.  We see in that chapter that these people were serving all of mankind by bringing God’s message to them.  Sometimes those people had great victories in life (after all the world needed to see that God has the power to win) but we also see that many of them suffered a great deal for serving God (Hebrews 11:32-40).  But Jeremiah isn’t upset over his won losses but because of what is going to happen to his people.  In verses 19-21 Jeremiah describes the destruction brought on by a sudden invasion.  He hears the invaders trumpets calling their army into battle and he sees homes destroyed (tents is probably a reference to homes).  Although it sounds like he is talking about his own loss he is really identifying with the losses of his people.  Jeremiah probably had a home but I doubt he had more than one so I think the plural “tents” shows us he was thinking beyond himself.

In verse 22 the speaker changes from Jeremiah to God, or does it?  It is certainly God speaking in this verse as he refers “My people” and the fact that they “do not know me”.  Certainly the people knew Jeremiah.  We need to remember that prophets are spokespersons for God; they speak for God.  So when Jeremiah was sharing his persona hurt he was also sharing God’s hurt, when God speaks of “my people” we need to understand that Jeremiah feels the same way about the people.  This is generally true of prophets but not always.  Remember that prophets are people too with personal feelings that can interfere with how they represent God.  Jonah is a good example of a prophet who’s personal feeling side tracked him.  And even Jesus had personal feelings, but he didn’t let them stop his from fulfilling the job God the Father asked him to do (Luke 22:39-42).  It can be very difficult to separate what a prophet is saying from God sometimes, and we probably shouldn’t try to most of the time.

Verses 23-26 describe the coming destruction.  Verse 23 uses the exact same words found in Genesis 1:2 where the Earth is described as empty and without form before God creates everything.  So Jeremiah is sort of saying that because of the evil (v. 22) that the people were so good at it was like God had never been there at all; all their evil (v. 22) kind of erased all the “good” that God had done in creation (see Genesis 1:9-31).  The earth and the heavens had no structure to them, the light was gone, the firm and steady mountains had become like Jello, the birds were not singing their sweet songs, and the land was completely a waste land again with no place to live.

Although Jeremiah was certainly talking to the people about the soon coming invasion by the Babylonians (we don’t know exactly when in his life Jeremiah wrote this particular prediction but remember he started speaking for God around 627 BC and Jerusalem was invaded several times starting in 605 BC and ending in 586 BC) this description of destruction goes beyond that event and also describes the ultimate destruction during Israel’s final years before God take absolute control of the earth (Daniel 9:24-27).  In our modern world we like to refer to that final time of disaster as “the tribulation”.  Some people refer to it by the name of a particular battle during that time “Armegeddon” (Revelation 16:12-16; 19:11-21).  Interestingly in between these two sets of verses that describe this battle there is additional information given; additional action happening.  Part of what we “see” as Jesus (the guy on the white horse) is coming to this battle is the downfall of man’s rival system of government and life, that system is referred to as Babylon the Great.  So God’s dealing with unfaithful Israel (Judah) in Jeremiah’s day parallels his dealing with unfaithful mankind during this time of “the great tribulation (trouble)”.  It is common in prophetic writings for there to be duel or multiple fulfillments of a prediction.  Remember that prophets were trying to get people to listen and respond to God in their own time but Biblical prophets are also writing for our benefit too (Hebrews 11:40).

In Jeremiah 4:27-31 we see more description of the destruction that is to come (both in Jeremiah’s day and in the time of the Tribulation).  There are a couple of interesting things I noticed in these verses.  First in verse 27 we see the love and patience of God as well as his purity and holiness (specialness).  Because God is pure he must deal with evil, which is what these verses are describing.  But the destruction is not going to be absolute of complete, that is because God is loving and patient and doesn’t really want anyone to be destroyed (2 Peter 3:9), there will be destruction (Jeremiah 4:27, 2 Peter 3:10), but it will not be complete.

We also see that God is steady.  He has told us what he will do, mankind has been warned, and God will follow through.  We can’t just say, “Oh daddy, pleeeese!” and expect to be let off the hook for our disobedience and disrespect (sin) (Nahum 1:3 but see also Exodus 34:7).  That second verse tells us that God will forgive but not my manipulation; God won’t be “played” (Galatians 6:7).  Hebrews 12:1-2 tells us what the ultimate message of the Old Testament prophets and other witnesses was and is.   In those verses we see that Jesus is the one who wrote the book on our existence and is the one who can make it what it is supposed to be.  Depending on the translation you have we are told that Jesus is the “perfecter” of our faith (our trust and hope in God to help us).  That word “perfecter” means someone who makes things what they were designed to be.  God designed the world and the universe for his ultimate creation, mankind.  We have made it “formless and void” by our disobedience and disrespect (sin) for God.  But through Jesus the purpose of the universe will be restored and God’s plan for us to have a forever relationship with him will also be restored; the “very good of Genesis 1:31 will be restored, the universe will be perfect once more; God’s purpose will be fulfilled.

Back to the action of Jeremiah’s more immediate future though, the people will run and hide from the Babylonian invaders.  Verse 30 then asks the question, “What will you do?”  As the story played out in history (and as we will see later in the book) The people of Judah would turn to other nations looking for help, eventually to Egypt.  Jeremiah foresees this and describes the people of Judah like a prostitute.   They put on a red dress and gold jewelry and make up to impress their “lovers” but in the end these “lovers” hate them and want to kill them.  It’s kind of interesting when I read that “painting of the eyes” part I am reminded of Egyptian hieroglyphics where the women all have those eyes with some sort of makeup around them.  Seems almost like a little hint at who the “lover” might be.   To make the point very clear Jeremiah uses another picture, of a woman in labor looking for someone to hold her hand.  Instead of help and comfort her hand takes hold of someone who murders her.

This is no movie or M rated video game this is real life and this is the kind of real destruction that comes when mankind and individuals turn their backs on God.  In those sorts of games and movies it’s people who destroy people and that is what happens in real life when we don’t follow God, death and destruction.  But there is an alternative, “what will you do”.  If you read through Isaiah with us you might remember God’s words to Israel, “I have made your disobedience disappear like a cloud and your mistakes like a mist, I have paid your fine, so come back to me.”  Will you turn back to God and allow the sacrifice Jesus made take care of your disobedience and rebellion, or will you continue to sell yourself to the world and suffer the wrath of God?

Lord thank you for dying for my sins.  Thank you for taking care of my destructive ways.  Help me turn my life over to you.  Let my life we a source of healing in this broken world.  I know you are coming back someday to deal with evil and it won’t be pretty.  I also know that it doesn’t have to go that way for anyone.  God give more and more evidence so more and more people will turn back.  Let me be evidence to the nations of your love.  Let me never act in such a way that my life is an example of your wrath.  In the end though Lord let your will be done in my life.  Be honored by my existence.