Ripe for Judgment

Jeremiah 6:6-8 ESV

6 For thus says the Lord of hosts: “Cut down her trees; cast up a siege mound against Jerusalem. This is the city that must be punished; there is nothing but oppression within her. 7 As a well keeps its water fresh, so she keeps fresh her evil; violence and destruction are heard within her; sickness and wounds are ever before me. 8 Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I turn from you in disgust, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.”

As an adolescent, I remember that my behavior at school was pretty consistent, it was consistently bad.

Now, of course, I should have been behaving myself in school, simply because my parents told me to do so and also because it was the right thing to do. But even though I knew that my parents told me to behave and even though I knew that behaving was the right thing to so, I still seemed to have problems with obedience.

Well, in order to curb this bad behavior that I consistently exhibited in school, my parents gave me positive incentives to behave. They would tell me that if I could go a certain amount of time without getting in trouble I would be rewarded somehow. They also told me that if I improved my grades, I would be rewarded.

But when that didn’t work, they changed gears. They told me that if I continued to disobey and act up in school, I would be punished and continue to receive more and more punishments. But though I knew that punishment loomed, I just kept on disobeying, and just like they promised, punishments followed.

But even then, my bad behavior persisted. But when they threatened me with one specific punishment, I decided that it was time to start taking their commands seriously. That specific punishment that they threatened me with was military school.

They said that because I couldn’t seem to behave in regular public school, they were going to send me to military school, because there they would make sure that I behaved.

Well, because they had been faithful to punish me when they said they would before, I knew that they would be faithful to punish me in this way as well, and military school did not sound fun to me at all, so it was at that point that I decided that I wasn’t going to be a model student, but I was at least going to behave enough to where I would stop getting in so much trouble.

There was a pattern to the discipline that my parents administered to me. They offered me some positive incentives to behave, and when that didn’t work, they offered me some negative incentives to behave, and when even that didn’t work, they offered a one really negative incentive to behave, then finally after all of that, I decided that it was best for me to behave.

God kind of administered discipline in a similar way to the people of Israel. When God brought Israel out of Egypt, the people of Israel started to disobey God almost immediately. When this happened, God began to give the people positive incentives to obey Him, promising blessings untold for their obedience.

But God also warned them of curses for disobedience. And He said that if they continued in their disobedience in spite of the corrective measures that God sent to them that He would then give them the ultimate punishment, banishment from their homes and a return to slavery in a foreign land.

But even this being threatened did not stop Israel from her mad course. She was commanded to have no other gods before the God of Israel, and there were idolatrous temples on every corner. She was commanded to have nothing to do with the surrounding nations, yet she jumped at every opportunity to mix her culture with theirs. She was commanded to administer true justice throughout the land, yet the judicial system was corrupt through and through.

But worst of all, she was told to live out lives of godliness and obedience to such an extent that those of the surrounding nations would take notice and glorify the God of Israel. But her persistent disobedience and unfaithfulness to her God made Him to be mocked among the nations.

And as we saw in our reading for last week, by the time that Jeremiah begins his prophetic career, God had had enough. It was no longer a matter of if Israel was going to endure this threatened judgment of God, but when she was going to endure it.

And as we begin to exposit our reading for today, we see how God continues to let Israel know that her time for judgment has come and what she will inevitably endure.

Let’s go ahead and look at the first part of verse 6 where it says:

Jeremiah 6:6a ESV

6a For thus says the Lord of hosts: “Cut down her trees; cast up a siege mound against Jerusalem.

Now, in our reading that we went through last week, we spoke of how God would use a foreign military force to conquer Jerusalem, the city that no Israeli ever thought was conquerable.

In verse 1 of this 6th chapter of Jeremiah, the people of Benjamin who dwelt near Jerusalem were told that disaster loomed, and what this first part of verse 6 tells us is that disaster is here!

It is God Who tells this invading army to cut down the trees surrounding Jerusalem and to besiege the city’s walls with enemies all around so that none may escape.

Now, it might seem kind of strange to read of God commanding a godless people to attack another godless people. You may even think in God doing this, that maybe even God is a little godless.

But when our reading says that God tells this foreign army to besiege Jerusalem, what He is actually doing is allowing this foreign army to do what they already have it in their hearts to do in the first place.

And in God allowing this to happen, He is ordainingit to happen, which is not the same thing as making it happen. Rather, in ordaining this to happen, what God is doing is allowing this foreign army to essentially do His bidding in punishing Israel and bringing His will and His purposes to fruition.

And as we continue on in our reading, we see why Jerusalem is enduring this judgment from God. The last part of verse 6 and all of verse 7 tell us:

Jeremiah 6:6b-7 ESV

6a This is the city that must be punished; there is nothing but oppression within her. 7 As a well keeps its water fresh, so she keeps fresh her evil; violence and destruction are heard within her; sickness and wounds are ever before me.

God says that Jerusalem will be punished because she must be punished. There is no turning back at this point, God’s patience has reached its limits, the iniquity of Jerusalem was full.

When speaking of this iniquity that Jerusalem practiced, God describes it in vivid terms.

While Israel was to be a just people, showing no partiality but judging fairly and godly in all matters, the people of Jerusalem, where the seat of government was located, are described as having nothing but oppression within her. This means that the political and religious leaders in Jerusalem were cruel and unjust, the complete opposite of what God had commanded.

Then even more striking is how God describes Jerusalem’s tendency to commit evil, disobedient acts. He says in the first part of verse 7 that as a well keeps its water fresh, so do the people of Jerusalem keep their evil fresh.

God is basically saying here that acts of evil and disobedience have become so common in Jerusalem that have basically become second nature to those dwelling there. Evil is no longer viewed as evil; it had reached the point to where that’s just what people did, they committed evil, and nobody thought anything of it.

You might even say that by this point, Jerusalem had become so rebellious, so disobedient, so evil, that the city and the people dwelling there could almost be considered like a factory that was always faithful to produce fresh evil.

But worst of all, the end of verse 7 tells us that rather than peace, love, and unity being found within the city of God sounding forth to everyone around them, there was violence and destruction heard within her. And that violence and destruction sounded forth from the city and went out to all people to where Jerusalem was known as nothing more than an idolatrous city of wickedness and perversion.

God says that the city had reached the point to where to Him, it was like a sickness, a grotesque, gaping, oozing wound that had become filthy, infectious, and deadly.

God is patient beyond anything that we can comprehend, but even God had run out of patience by now. Judgment must come!

Because of this, God gives Jerusalem one last warning in verse 8 of our reading, where we read Him saying:

Jeremiah 6:8 ESV

8 Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I turn from you in disgust, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.”

God says, “This is what you have become! You must be judged! And judgment will come! Therefore, turn to Me before I utterly turn away from you in disgust!”

And look closely at what God says here in the last part of verse 8: “lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.” God says, “I am the One Who made you great. I am the One Who made you My people. And I can take all of that away in no time!”

There was none righteous in Jerusalem at that time, therefore God commanded a people to turn to Him and plead His mercy so that He would restrain from wiping the city off the map forever.

He says, “I am sending the threatened, promised judgment your way, but it can still get a lot worse, so straighten up now while you still can!”.

I hope that what God has given to me to deliver to you this morning has made you wide awake and sober. Reading the words that He spoke to Jerusalem, the city of God, should cause us to tremble at His holiness and His right to judge evil.

But I ask you, if He has done this to Jerusalem of all places, what makes you think He won’t do it to peoples and civilizations that mirror the evil that was found within Jerusalem?

God commands all people, all nations, all civilizations to be just, to practice that which is godly, to promote a godliness that inspires other nations and civilizations to follow. And like Jerusalem, God promises judgment to come upon nations and civilizations that persistently disobey.

As I said in our message last week, I believe that our nation has arrived at the point where like Jerusalem in our reading, the question is no longer if God will judge this nation, but when God will judge this nation.

Sexual perversion, moral perversion, but most of all, spiritual perversion has consistently run rampant in our nation. And rather than our leaders discouraging such behavior, they have applauded it, even encouraged that it would continue and become more and more prevalent.

Beloved, this has become the case not only in our society as a whole, but even within our churches. Hypocrisy is the norm, spiritual lethargy is expected, and many, many pulpits are being filled by men who refuse to espouse to the orthodox doctrines found within the Holy Scriptures.

Knowing this, experiencing this, witnessing this should not cause us to ask why would God judge this nation, rather, it should cause us to ask why would God not judge this nation?

Our nation meets all of the requirements for a society that is ripe to receive the judgment of God. Therefore, my friends, flee from this crooked and perverse generation! Flee from it and flee to He Who is truth!

Amen?