Sermon Tone Analysis

Jeremiah was an Israelite priest who lived and worked in Jerusalem during the final decades of the southern kingdom of Judah.

He was called as a prophet to warn Israel of the severe consequences of breaking their covenant with God through their idolatry and injustice, and even foretold that the empire of Babylon would come as God’s servant to bring this judgment on Israel by destroying Jerusalem and taking the people into exile.

Sadly, his words became reality.

Jeremiah lived through the siege and destruction of Jerusalem and saw the exile personally.

This book came into existence in a really interesting way.

Chapter 36 tells us that after twenty year of Jeremiah’s preaching in Jerusalem, God called him to collect all of his sermons and poems and essays and commit them to writing.

Which Jeremiah did, by employing a scribe named Baruch, who wrote down and compiled all this material into a scroll.

Now Baruch also gathered lots of stories ABOUT Jeremiah and he linked all the pieces together.

This is why the book reads like an anthology, a collection of collections.

It has all been arranged to present this prophet as a messenger of God’s justice and grace.

The book begins with God calling Jeremiah to be a prophet and he’s given a dual vocation.

He will be a prophet to Israel, but he will also to the nations, and his words will both uproot and tear down, but also plant and build up.

In other words, he’s going to accuse Israel and warn them of God’s coming judgment, but he also has a message of hope for the future.

This opening perfectly summarizing the first large section, chapters 1-24, the collection of Jeremiah’s writings from before the exile.

The core idea is that Israel has broken the covenant with god and violated all the terms of the agreement they made that are written in the law of Moses, in a number of ways.

They’ve adopted the worship of Canaanite gods, building idol shrines all over the land, and Jeremiah develops the metaphor of idolatry as adultery, and uses the language of promiscuity, prostitution and unfaithfulness to describe how Israel has given their allegiance to other God’s.

Jeremiah also repeatedly accuses Israel’s leaders, the priests, kings and other prophets.

They’ve all become corrupt.

They’ve abandoned the law of Moses and the covenant, which has led to a tragic result: rampant social injustice.

The most vulnerable people in the Israelite community, the widows, the orphans and the immigrants, were all being taken advantage of, in clear violation of the law of Moses.

Israel’s leaders didn’t even seem to care.

“Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you who to worship the Lord!’ ” 3 Thus says the God of Israel: “Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

4 Do not trust in these lying words, saying, ‘The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these.’

5 “For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, 6 if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt, 7 then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.

So a classic place where all these ideas come together is in , its called Jeremiah’s temple sermon.

The Israelites are coming to worship God in their temple as if everything is just fine, but outside the temple they are worshipping other gods.

Some were even adopting the horrifying Canaanite practice of child sacrifice.

JerSo Jeremiah makes this very unpopular announcement.

The God of Israel is coming in judgment.

He will destroy his own temple and punish Israel by sending an enemy from the north.

This is an army that god would allow to conquer Jerusalem.

As you read on, you discover he is talking about the great empire of Babylon.

So Jeremiah makes this very unpopular announcement.

The God of Israel is coming in judgment.

He will destroy his own temple and punish Israel by sending an enemy from the north.

This is an army that god would allow to conquer Jerusalem.

As you read on, you discover he is talking about the great empire of Babylon.

This all leads up to a transition in chapter 25.

Israel hasn’t turned back to their God, so in the first year of Babylon’s new king, Nebuchadnezzar, God tells Jeremiah to announce that the Babylonian armies are headed for Israel and all its neighbors to conquer them and take them into exile for 70 years.

He compares Babylon to a cup of wine, filled to the brim with God’s just anger at all of Israel’s injustice and idolatry.

God will make Israel and the nations drink from this cup.

This chapter is key to the book’s design, because everything that follows is going to focus on Babylon’s coming attacks.

First on Israel, chapter 26-45, then on the other nations, in chapters 46-51.

The section about Israel first contains stories about how Jeremiah begged Israel to turn back.

How he warned them right up to the last minute, but the leaders of Israel kept rejecting him and his message.

The section concludes with a large collection of stories about how Jerusalem was under siege, and eventually destroyed by Babylon and about how Jeremiah was persecuted all through that time, and eventually kidnapped and taken against his will to Egypt by a group of Israelite rebels.

Now, here in the middle, between all these dark stories of disasters and judgment, is a collection of Jeremiah’s messages of hope for Israel’s future.

He picks up on Moses’ prediction that after Israel had broken the covenant and gone into exile, God would not abandon his people, rather He would renew his covenant with them and transform their hearts.

So he picks up on Moses’ prediction that after Israel had broken the covenant and gone into exile, God would not abandon his people, rather He would renew his covenant with them and transform their hearts.

), God would not abandon his people, rather He would renew his covenant with them and transform their hearts.

Jeremiah 31:

Jeremiah develops this promise and says that God is going to one day provide a new covenant in which he inscribes the laws of God, not on tablets, but rather on the hearts of His own people.

He’s going to heal their rebellion so that they can truly one day love and follow Him fully.

Jeremiah develops this promise and says that God is going to one day inscribe the laws of God, not on tablets, but rather on the hearts of His own people.

He’s going to heal their rebellion so that they can truly one day love and follow Him fully.

So one day, Israel will return back to the land, and the Messiah from the line David is going to come and that’s when all nations will come to recognize Israel’s God as the true God.

The messages of hope which predominate this section connect with the fleeting glimmers of hope sprinkled throughout the rest of Jeremiah’s prophecy to paint a beautiful vision of God’s intentions for their future:

Jer

One day, Israel will return back to the land,

So one day, Israel will return back to the land, and the Messiah from the line David is going to come and that’s when all nations will come to recognize Israel’s God as the true God.

One day, Israel will return back to the land, and the Messiah from the line David is going to come and that’s when all nations will come to recognize Israel’s God as the true God.

and the Messiah from the line David is going to come and that’s when all nations will come to recognize Israel’s God as the true God.

and the Messiah from the line David is going to come

Jeremiah 33:and that’s when all nations will come to recognize Israel’s God as the true God.

… Giving testimony to all nations that Israel’s God is the true God.

Jer

These chapters are showing that despite Israel’s apostasy, God is not going to let Israel’s sin get the final word, rather, His own faithfulness will bring about the fulfillment of His promises, no matter what.

These chapters are showing that despite Israel’s apostasy, God is not going to let Israel’s sin get the final word, rather, His own faithfulness will bring about the fulfillment of His promises, no matter what.

After this we find a large collection of poems about how God is going to use Babylon to judge the nations around Israel.

These judgments include Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Edom, Ammon, Damascus and Hazor.

Jeremiah But then, surprisingly, the longest poems are saved for last.

They are about God’s coming judgment on Babylon itself.

So, although God used this nation to exercise His justice, He does not endorse their violence and idolatry.

Babylon, too, will come under the standard of God’s justice.

Jeremiah denounces this nation’s pride and injustice as well.

But then, the longest poems are saved for last.

They are about God’s coming judgment on Babylon itself.

So, although God used this nation to exercise His justice, He does not endorse their violence and idolatry.

Babylon, too, will come under the standard of God’s justice.

Jeremiah denounces this nation’s pride and injustice as well.

The book concludes with a story taken from the conclusion of 2 Kings.

It tells about Babylon’s final attack on Jerusalem.

How they destroyed the city walls and burned the temple and took the people into exile.

This story shows how Jeremiah’s warning of judgment in chapters 1-24 were fulfilled.

But then, the chapter ends with a short story of how the captive Israelite king, Jehoiakim, is heir to the line for David.

The king of Babylon releases him from prison, shows him favor, and invites him to eat at the royal table for the rest of his life, and that’s how the book ends.

It’s a little glimmer of hope, recalling Jeremiah’s promises of hope from chapters 39-33.

God hasn’t abandoned his people or his promise of a future king from David’s line.

So while this book contains a huge amount of warning and judgment, the final words conclude with a note of hope for the future.

And that’s what the book of Jeremiah is all about.