Jeremiah 12

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1. Jeremiah’s complaint- vs. Psalm 1. Why are the wicked planted and thriving while the righteous suffer?

Psalm 1 “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”

Jeremiah’s solution- destroy the wicked- the ones targeting Jeremiah.

2. God’s answer is fourfold. The

A. Things are going to get worse- toughen up. Even your family members have turned against you.

B. I have indeed allowed evil to flourish. I see the evil.

C. You are responsible for the evil as well

D. I will indeed destroy evil. But on my timeline, not on yours.

I said in a previous sermon that our Lord provides no real answer to Jeremiah when Jeremiah complains about evil people flourishing while the saints of God suffer. And that perhaps wasn’t entirely true, although it depends on what you mean by the word ‘answer’.

When evil flourishes in the world, or when suffering threatens to intrude itself into our lives, then the question we often ask of our God is why. WHY must this suffering be endured?

And it is true that usually that question goes unanswered in our lives. The Bible does not even attempt to provide an answer to WHY when it comes to the specifics of anyone’s suffering. However, God is not silent in the face of our questions. He has answers. He presents us with many answers when it comes to suffering, and in like manner he has 4 answers here in Jeremiah in response to Jeremiah’s question: “why does the way of the wicked prosper?” The first 3 are hard truths for us to hear, and the fourth is full of hope.

God’s first answer to Jeremiah is the opposite of what most of us would say to someone who is anxious and in distress. He says, in essence, if you think this is hard wait until you hear what else I have to say. He says, Jeremiah, you will need to be tougher in spirit for what is coming and what is now here.

Jeremiah 12:5–6 ““If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? For even your brothers and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; they are in full cry after you; do not believe them, though they speak friendly words to you.””

I would want to say to Jeremiah FIRST, it’s going to be OK. It’s not that bad. I am sure things will get better. You’re a good and faithful man of God- God is walking with you, He mourns WITH you...and so on. This is kindness. This is compassion. This is being protective.

But our passage here today reminds us that sometimes protectiveness and kindness and optimistic reassuring words are NOT what the moment calls for. This requires wisdom and discernment. But sometimes what people need to hear are truths that are hard. Truths that are difficult and are not by any means comforting- they are simply true. And sometimes the Lord will tell you- speak this Truth to this person because that IS, in this moment, what love looks like.

I remember when my mother had to tell my grandmother that she couldn’t drive anymore. Or when she had to tell her that she would need to go to a care facility. It was not my mother’s fault- in fact she had done so much. It was just hard truths and there came a point when they needed to be spoken. Age brings many hard truths with it and the hardest truth of all that we bear in our flesh every day is the truth of our finite lives. I remember realizing afresh or perhaps for the first time REALLY in my life as a young boy that I was going to die. That I was not a permanent resident of this Earth or even my own body. And that, of course, was terrifying. No one spoke to me about that. My parents never told me, that I can remember, that I was going to die. Death was something in country songs and on TV shows. But then an elderly man in our town passed away and there was a funeral. Some hard truths are shown more than spoken- and we will get to that in Jeremiah 13.

Let’s take a moment and remind ourselves what suffering it is that Jeremiah is going through. He is not sick, he is not in pain. He is not, as far as we know, impoverished or hungry. He is not suffering spiritually either, in the sense of being distant from God or conflicted about his faith. He knows the Lord and delights in God even. No, his suffering is emotional and personal. It is the suffering of betrayal that he is feeling. The people in his home town have turned against him.

I suspect very few people get through this life without knowing that kind of pain, the pain of betrayal of someone you loved and trusted.

Jeremiah did most of his preaching in Jerusalem, striving against a world and a culture that he saw was only paying lip service to the Lord, striving against a corrupt urban center where idolatry and power and money were the driving forces. And one can only imagine that when Jeremiah returned to his more rural hometown of Anathoth that that was a place of comfort, of rejuvenation, a place where he had known people his whole life and where he felt he could trust the ties that bound them together...ties of friendship and family.

I don’t think we can overstate the importance of these relationships for Jeremiah. Remember, Jeremiah was told not to marry, which was a mercy of course because of the suffering that was coming for Jerusalem- it was a mercy not to have to worry about a wife or children. But because of that one has to imagine that for Jeremiah the 2 most important and sustaining relationships outside of his relationship with God was his family of origin relationships and the friends of his youth, the young men he grew up with.

Anathoth was roughly 3 miles northeast of Jerusalem...an easy daily walk that on a beautiful day was likely a balm to his soul as he walked home on a warm evening surrounded by trees and hills and perhaps even carrying a meal with him, bread and meat purchases in Jerusalem that he will eat upon arriving at home.

This was his refuge. But Jeremiah is getting a reputation as a troublemaker and as a doom and gloom prophet with nothing positive to say, and he is known to be judgmental as well, scolding the Israelites for worshiping other gods while denying it, even though its an open secret that this is what is happening. And this negative reputation has, unbeknownst to Jeremiah, traveled back to Anathoth as well, along paths of whispers and ill intent.

Jeremiah 11:19 “But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. I did not know it was against me they devised schemes, saying, “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.””

People of faith are sometimes guilty of not looking the sinful world directly in the eye. Jeremiah describes himself here as a ‘gentle lamb’ and this is true of the people of God. We wish no harm upon anyone. We do not come with threats of violence or manipulation, we simply come with true words and invitations. But because of that we sometimes assume the best intentions of everyone else around us, and so fall prey to people who do not have the things of God in mind.

Jesus tells us to be innocent, it is true… and to be gentle and kind, but we are not to be naive.

Matthew 10:16 ““Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

And the Lord reveals to Jeremiah in chapter 11 that in fact there are men in Anathoth, people he undoubtedly knows very well, that are plotting to kill him. That there are indeed wolves surrounding Jeremiah.

And this hurts Jeremiah. It is likely that Anathoth had a population of, at most, around 300. Everyone knew everyone.

And so he is hurting. He feels betrayed, and he brings his complaint to God and says why are you letting this happen to ME? It’s one thing that the armies of Babylon will come into the land and destroy the idolatrous peoples but why can’t you protect my good name and my relationships that are so important to me in my hometown?

And God tells Jeremiah the hard truth that he needs to hear:

He says, you are going to have to toughen up, Jeremiah. You think you are suffering now, but it is much worse than you think.

Jeremiah 12:6 “For even your brothers and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you; they are in full cry after you; do not believe them, though they speak friendly words to you.””

It’s worse than you think. It is NOT just your friends and countrymen...it is your very family members who have turned against you. Jeremiah, you have no home, except in me. Jeremiah, you have no rock on which to stand, except me, Jeremiah you have no reward on Earth for your work or your words, except for my presence, my joy, my glory, that I will share with you eternally.

Life when you cannot trust the ones you love is unbearable, unlivable, but for the presence of the Lord who can sustain you.

So the first answer to Jeremiah’s suffering is that things are worse than Jeremiah thinks, and he needs to understand that his life will never get easy. There is no happy ending on Earth for Jeremiah.

The second answer is that, yes, the Lord is responsible, in a way, for suffering, for the Creator is responsible, in the end, for every created thing. Never will you find in the Bible our Lord dodging responsibility for things that have been or things that will be. The Lord is sovereign over the past, present and future.

Isaiah 45:7 “I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.”

The Lord says

Jeremiah 12:7 ““I HAVE forsaken my house; I HAVE abandoned my heritage; I HAVE given the beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies.”

The Lord is handing his people over to their sins. He is no longer protecting them as he once did, in fact, He is orchestrating a devastating event for His own people. God does not tell us in His Word that the Lord has no responsibility for suffering- that the world just somehow spun out of God’s control and He forgot that he put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden and WHOOPS! suddenly there is sin and death. No, from the outset of Creation the Lord knew what was needed, what we would do, and how it would all play out.

So, yes, all suffering is at the deepest level, a creation of God as all things are.

Do Not Take Away From Me The Hope Of God’s Sovereignty. Do NOT EVEN INFER THAT THE LORD IS NOT IN CONTROL OF ALL THINGS FOR THAT IS WHERE MY HOPE IS.

Then there is the third hard truth that the Lord gives to Jeremiah. There is a secondary layer of responsibility for He gave humans and angels agency, decision making power that we can exercise. And we are in full rebellion against God and His Kingdom and did choose such.

Jeremiah 12:8–13 “My heritage has become to me like a lion in the forest; she has lifted up her voice against me; therefore I hate her. Is my heritage to me like a hyena’s lair? Are the birds of prey against her all around? Go, assemble all the wild beasts; bring them to devour. Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard; they have trampled down my portion; they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it a desolation; desolate, it mourns to me. The whole land is made desolate, but no man lays it to heart. Upon all the bare heights in the desert destroyers have come, for the sword of the Lord devours from one end of the land to the other; no flesh has peace. They have sown wheat and have reaped thorns; they have tired themselves out but profit nothing. They shall be ashamed of their harvests because of the fierce anger of the Lord.””

So God’s third answer to Jeremiah’s complaint about his suffering is that all Israel is guilty and complicit in abandoning the Lord and that they bear responsibility for their decisions and for the curse of the Covenant coming down upon them.

Now, to Israel’s guilt. Which is, after all, our own guilt. The Lord is sovereign, and the Lord holds the future, but we do make choices. And we do bring destruction and judgment upon ourselves.

Jeremiah 12:10 “Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard; they have trampled down my portion; they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.”

The corrupt priests, the false prophets, the arrogant teachers of the Law, the idolatrous Kings, and all who were to be the Godly leaders of Israel, knowledgeable about the Mosaic law, but more importantly devoted in their hearts to YHWH and humble before Him, these had all failed and failed spectacularly.

Can there be any doubt that the same has happened in America? People are leaving the church in droves and while there are many reasons for that surely one of the primary reasons has to be corrupt and terrible pastors. There is a long list of ministers through the 70s to today who were charismatic, eloquent, intelligent and thanks to television and radio and social media reached millions of people and then the curtain would be pulled back and it would be revealed not just that they were fallible or given to temptation, but that they were in fact false, leading full on double lives and worshiping power and money with little regard for the Gospel.

I was not shocked to find out there were issues of abuse within the Catholic Church because abuse and sin are everywhere, but like everyone else I was shocked at the extent of the abuse...something like 5,300 priests in the United States alone had credible allegations of sexual abuse levied against them, most of them for children. The worst sin the world knows- in my opinion in terms of the damage it does.

Many shepherds have destroyed the vineyard, trampling down God’s portion. Will we now look to heaven and ask why is the Church struggling?

The whole land is made desolate, but no man lays it to heart (11b). No one cares. The land has become spiritually cynical, with people chasing after various Baals or Molechs or Astartes- whole families of foreign gods and no one cares. An uncaring heart is one of the hallmarks of a people pulling further and further away from God. I feel this. I feel in my soul the growing callousness of the people of my nation. We have become mercenary by nature, cold towards suffering, faithless and unethical in marriage and in work and in our dealings with one another. Trust is broken for in a godless world it is every man woman and child for themselves, each to their own gods. Where will love be found in such a land?

The third message the Lord gives to Jeremiah lands hard, and it hurts. We have brought judgment upon ourselves.

These 3 hard truths are difficult pills to swallow. For Jeremiah then, and for us today. But the Lord has a surprising third revelation for Jeremiah and it is shocking, mysterious to Jeremiah, plain to us, and full of hope.

C. I will indeed destroy evil. I will put an end to suffering, but this promise is not for you alone Jeremiah. And it is not for Judah alone. And it is not for Israel alone. It is for the whole world, all the nations.

And so the Lord tells Jeremiah, even as he told Ezekiel and Isaiah and Daniel, and many others, He tells him it will not always be so.

Jeremiah 12:14–17 “Thus says the Lord concerning all my evil neighbors who touch the heritage that I have given my people Israel to inherit: “Behold, I will pluck them up from their land, and I will pluck up the house of Judah from among them. And after I have plucked them up, I will again have compassion on them, and I will bring them again each to his heritage and each to his land. And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, ‘As the Lord lives,’ even as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they shall be built up in the midst of my people. But if any nation will not listen, then I will utterly pluck it up and destroy it, declares the Lord.””

This is an incredible passage. For centuries this must have seemed to simply be a failed prophecy and a strange one at that.

Thus says the Lord- and remember, this is in response to Jeremiah’s question why must all this suffering happen to me? - the Lord says that this present darkness, this suffering, these evil happenings are going to end in, result in, blessing, not just for Judah and the people of Israel, but for the idolatrous and evil nations that led Judah astray in the first place- IF, and only IF...they diligently learn the ways of my people.

We are going through Acts now of course and what is it that faith in Jesus is called in Acts?

Acts 9:2 “and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.”

And what is the one rule or custom or ‘way’ that the Lord says the idolatrous nations must adopt in order to be His people? They must be willing to say ‘as the Lord lives’. That seems very strange, doesn’t it? Nothing about Sabbath, or the first commandment, or loving your neighbor or loving God, the greatest commandments, nothing. Just being willing to say ‘as the Lord lives’. That is it. And it seems odd, arbitrary at the very least, unless you are God’s chosen and you know that the only ‘way’ that leads to a true shalom, a true peace with God, which has blessed all the idolatrous nations of the world, rests its entire existence upon the fact, the earth shattering truth, that Jesus Christ lives. That death had no Earthly hold upon Him. We just celebrated Easter- and we proclaimed together, “as the Lord lives” and any pagan, any atheist, any wealthy technocrat or drug addicted junkie can walk through the door of the Church at any time, be touched by the Holy Spirit and say “as the Lord lives” may it be so with me and they will be the recipients of this prophecy that the Lord gave Jeremiah 2,500 years ago, and they will be built up, strengthened, saved, in the midst of God’s people.

Summary:

Truth 1 = It is going to get worse, toughen up

Truth 2= I the Lord create calamity

Truth 3= You, my people, have guilt and have brought suffering upon yourselves

Truth 4= There is a way forward that will restore health and joy to the land and to the people, to proclaim that the Lord lives.

Jesus is in “as the Lord Lives”