That's a Wrap! (Jeremiah 52)

Jeremiah died an old man, probably in Egypt, and like the grave of Moses, his burial place is a mystery. The brave prophet has long turned to dust, but the words that he wrote are still with us, because God’s Word endures forever.He wrote a long and difficult book, and we haven’t been able to deal with everything he wrote. However, you can’t help but glean from his life and ministry some clear and important lessons that apply to all of God’s people today.

I. In difficult days, we need to hear and heed the Word of God

a. Since hindsight always has twenty-twenty vision, it’s obvious to us that the leaders of Judah did a very stupid thing by resisting what Jeremiah told them to do.

b. Judah had sinned its way into trouble and judgment, and they thought they could negotiate their way out, but it didn’t work. What they needed was faith in God’s Word and obedience to God’s will. Had they confessed their sins, turned to God, and submitted to Nebuchadnezzar, they would have saved their lives, their temple, and their city.

II. True prophets of God are usually (if not always) persecuted.

a. The civil and religious leaders of Judah preferred the pleasant messages of the false prophets to the strong words of God’s true servant, because the human heart wants to rest, not repent. It wants peace, but it wants it without having to deal with the basic cause of unrest—unbelief.

b. The people of Israel resisted God’s messengers and challenged their authority from the time of Moses to the days of the apostles. It’s difficult to name a prophet or apostle who didn’t suffer persecution. If Jeremiah showed up today at the United Nations or some senate or parliament, and spoke as he did to the leaders of Judah, he would probably be laughed at and thrown out. But it’s a dangerous thing to be a “popular preacher” who has no enemies and pleases everybody.

III. True patriotism isn’t blind to sin.

a. A true Christian patriot isn’t blind to the sins of the nation but seeks to deal with those sins compassionately and realistically. Both Jesus and Jeremiah were true patriots when it came to giving an honest diagnosis of the diseases of the “body politic” and offering the only correct solution. They didn’t heal the wounds of the people slightly and say, “Peace, peace.” They both recognized that a nation’s greatest problem is not unemployment, inflation, or lack of defense; it’s sin.

b. Imagine a patriot like Jeremiah being called a traitor! Yet many a courageous leader who has dared to expose lies and call a nation to repentance has been called a traitor and publicly abused. The nation that doesn’t deal with sin is wasting time and resources trying to solve national problems, which are only symptoms of the deeper problem, which is sin.

IV. God’s servants occasionally have their doubts and failings.

a. Jeremiah was weak before God but bold before men. He wasn’t afraid to tell God just how he felt, and he listened when God told him what he needed to do. Though he once came quite close to resigning his office, he stuck with it and continued to serve the Lord.

b. Jeremiah was a prophet of the heart. He wasn’t content to give a message that dealt with surface matters; he wanted to penetrate the inner person and see the heart changed. He boldly told the people that the days would come when they wouldn’t remember the ark or feel a need for it. Any servant of God who tries to reach and change hearts is a candidate for sorrow and a sense of failure. But God knows our hearts and sustains us.

V. The important thing isn’t success; it’s faithfulness.

a. By today’s human standards of ministry, Jeremiah was a dismal failure. He preached to the same people for over forty years, and yet few of them believed him or obeyed his message. He had few friends who stood with him and encouraged him. The nation he tried to save from ruin abandoned their God and plunged headlong into disaster. His record wouldn’t have impressed the candidate committee of most missions or the pastoral search committee of the average church.

b. Jeremiah may have thought he had failed, but God saw him as a faithful servant, and that’s all that really counts. “Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful” (1 Cor. 4:2, NKJV). He could have quit, but he didn’t.

VI. The greatest reward of ministry is to become like Jesus Christ.

a. The similarities between Jesus and Jeremiah are interesting. Their approaches to teaching and preaching were similar, using “action sermons” and a great deal of imagery from everyday life and from nature. Both spoke out against the commercial “surface” religion practiced in the temple. Both were accused of being traitors to their people, and both suffered physically, even being arrested, beaten, and confined. Both wept over Jerusalem. Both were rejected by their relatives. Both knew what it was to be misunderstood, lonely, and rejected. Both emphasized the need for faith in the heart.

b. In the furnaces of life, Jeremiah was “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son” (Rom. 8:29). Jeremiah may not have realized that this process was going on in his life, and he might have denied it if it were pointed out to him, but the transformation was going on just the same.

VII. God is King, and the nations of the world are under His sovereign control.

a. Nothing catches God by surprise. The nations that defy Him and disobey His Word eventually suffer for it. People who claim to know Him but who refuse to obey also suffer for it. In fact, the greater the light, the greater the responsibility. No nation was blessed the way God blessed the people of Israel, but that blessing brought chastening because they sinned against a flood of light.

b. It’s a solemn responsibility for a people to claim to know God and profess to do His will. It isn’t enough for a nation to put “In God We Trust” on its currency, to mention God in its pledge to the flag, or to “tip the hat to God” by quoting the Bible in political campaign speeches. It’s righteousness, not religion, that exalts a nation. What pleases the Lord is that we “do justly … love mercy … and … walk humbly with [our] God” (Micah 6:8). The same Lord who enabled Jeremiah can enable us.The same world that opposed Jeremiah will oppose us.It’s time for God’s people to be decisive.