Jeremiah 2 sermon
The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord,
“I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride,
how you followed me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown.
3Israel was holy to the Lord,
the firstfruits of his harvest.
All who ate of it incurred guilt;
disaster came upon them,
declares the Lord.”
4 Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel. 5Thus says the Lord:
“What wrong did your fathers find in me
that they went far from me,
and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?
6They did not say, ”Where is the Lord
who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
who led us in the wilderness,
in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness,
in a land that none passes through,
where no man dwells?’
7And I brought you into a plentiful land
to enjoy its fruits and its good things.
But when you came in, you defiled my land
and made my heritage an abomination.
8The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’
Those who handle the law did not know me;
the shepherds transgressed against me;
the prophets prophesied by Baal
and went after things that do not profit.
9“Therefore I still contend with you,
declares the Lord,
and with your children’s children I will contend.
10For cross to the coasts of Cyprus and see,
or send to Kedar and examine with care;
see if there has been such a thing.
11Has a nation changed its gods,
even though they are no gods?
But my people ihave changed their glory
for that which does not profit.
12Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord,
13for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.
14“Is Israel a slave? Is he a homeborn servant?
Why then has he become a prey?
15The lions have roared against him;
they have roared loudly.
They have made his land a waste;
his cities are in ruins, without inhabitant.
16Moreover, the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes
have shaved the crown of your head.
17Have you not brought this upon yourself
by forsaking the Lord your God,
when he led you in the way?
18And now what do you gain by going to Egypt
to drink the waters of the Nile?
Or what do you gain by going to Assyria
to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
19Your evil will chastise you,
and your apostasy will reprove you.
Know and see that it is evil and bitter
for you to forsake the Lord your God;
the fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord God of hosts.
1 The word came saying – God's word speaks
2 The word of God is not to be kept private. Nor here is it for the pagan nations threatening Jerusalem, but for God's people. We must preach to the church
Judgement is never divorced from God's love. It is the love God has for his people which makes their apostasy all the worse. If we neglect such a great salvation...
3 Israel was holy, so everyone who came against them was punished. Now that Israel is not holy... How do we set up our sermons? Perhaps a non-obvious start will grab people's attention better. I imagine when Jeremiah preached this word he initially made people very happy!
4 The word is for everyone. There is no one in Israel to whom it does not apply.
5 The answer has to be none. They strayed because they were sinful, not because God had left them. You become what you worship. Does Israel not remember these lessons? Do we forget them too? They were written for our instruction. 1 Cor 10:1-13
6 The ancestors did not question God. They did not think that he had left them. They had run off themselves. God was faithful in the most inhospitable land – the point is rammed home. No one passed through that land, yet God brought Israel through. No one lives there, yet God sustained a whole nation for years.
7 Not only did he sustain them in a dry land, but brought them into a land of plenty to enjoy its fruits. This is not a God who seeks to take away our enjoyment. Yes, Israel is the firstfruits of God's harvest for God to enjoy, yet Israel is also to enjoy the land given them. But instead they wrecked the land. What was fruitful became desolate – a picture of Israel themselves, who were firstfruits but are in danger of becoming a waste.
8 The worst thing is, this is not something which came from the common people, warned against by the leaders, but it came from the priests, the shepherds, the prophets. Do we see this at the moment in the church? It is in the leadership that wandering is most dangerous. The prophets went after things that do not profit. God is not against gain – the desperate folly of idols is that they are worthless and without profit and so utterly pointless to follow, yet we still do. God offers us everything, a good land, security, faithfulness, and yet we abandon him and go after idols instead. Sin is not just wrong, it is utterly stupid.
9-13 And so God's judgement will come against the people, both now and in the future. Sin never just affects an individual, or one generation. It travels and its effects are felt long after the initial sin has been committed. What do we suffer from now? What are the roots of the troubles we currently see in the church?
The shame of what Israel was doing is made stark in its comparison with the pagan nations around. Was there any such act done elsewhere in the world, where a nation changed its gods? What is more, we know from earlier that such gods are worthless, and yet the nations would not change their useless idols for other ones. Israel has changed their God, even their glory for that which does not profit. So it is not merely the leaders who have failed, but all the people. And it is not only the pagan nations who will be appalled, but the whole creation.
Israel have not just gone after idols, nor have they just forsaken God – they have done both. They have exchanged life for brokenness, a fountain for stagnant water, fullness for nothing.
14-17 No Israel is not a slave – he used to be though... No, he is not a servant – he used to be though... Why has he become a prey? Well, it's those pagan nations isn't it – Egypt and Assyria. They have been attacking and causing trouble. They're the ones who are making this problem. Aren't they? No – it is Israel who have brought this upon themselves. They have forsaken God and so they have lost his protection and love. When they were holy, they were untouchable – God punished all those who tried to attack them. Now they are not holy and they are paying the price.
18-19 But even now, even with this turmoil and uncertainty, they are turning to Egypt and Assyria, those who have troubled them in the past, to help them now. Are they crazy? Surely that would be the moment they realised they need to return to God? But no. There is no soft pedalling of this problem – it is evil and bitter to reject God. No good will come of it. Do we learn from the past? What do we rely on in our witness? Are we seduced by worldly techniques for success in the church?
During the reign of Josiah 640-609
Jeremiah is speaking in the reign of King Josiah. Reforms have been made. Following 57 years of evil under Manasseh and Amon, things are looking better.
The temple is being repaired
The Book of the Law is found again
God's judgement is promised, but not in Josiah's reign. 1 Kings 22:16-20
Did the people not believe that God would carry out judgement? Did they think they'd got away with it?
Jeremiah was preaching into one of the most difficult situations available for a prophet. It would have been much easier to have been around just a few decades before, when Manasseh was king and was about the worst king Judah ever had. You see, in that situation, preaching God's message of judgement is much easier – there was concrete evidence of the evil being done. All you had to do was preach and point and the message was justified. But Josiah was king now and he was about the best king Judah had since David and Solomon. He had repaired the temple. He found the Book of the Law. He reinstated the Passover. And yet the evil done in Manasseh's reign had not been punished. In 1 Kings 22 God promises that his judgement will come, but that Josiah's righteousness has ensured it will not come in his lifetime.
And into this situation, God thrusts Jeremiah. We saw last week that his message was one which majored on judgement, though not to the exclusion of hope. And yet the situation most people saw in the nation was one of optimism. But in reality, it was more like one of those old cartoons, where Elmer Fudd builds a pit to trap Bugs Bunny and covers it over and conceals it. The pit of Manasseh's evil is still there and the reforms of Josiah have simply covered it over. The problem has not been solved, nor has the crime yet been punished.
But are we not in a similar situation? We do not live in the times of King Josiah, but of King Jesus. He has not simply repaired the Temple, he has become the temple and is building his church, a living temple; he did not simply find the Book of the Law, he fulfilled it; he did not simply reinstate the Passover, but became the Passover Lamb, the perfect sacrifice for sin. We have a much greater hope to proclaim, one in which the problem has been truly dealt with and not simply covered over. And yet at the same time, we have a much graver warning to proclaim, not of mere physical exile from a land, but of eternal exile from the presence of God. How do we preach into this situation? How do we proclaim the hope of the gospel and the incomparable love of Christ while warning of the great danger of neglecting such a great salvation? Let us learn from Jeremiah.
His first proclamation affirms the past. Israel had started off as a devoted wife, trusting God to lead her through the wilderness and away from Egypt:
“I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride,
how you followed me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown.”
Israel had been a holy people and no enemy could stand against her while she remained holy. This must have been the thought of the people during the reign of Josiah – they were worshipping properly again, according to the Book of the Law, observing the Passover. They were holy to the Lord, surely? If there was going to be any message of judgement, it would be on those pagan nations around them, like Egypt and Assyria. They were threatening God's holy people. Perhaps the crowds listening to Jeremiah looked at each other in delight when they heard these words:
“Israel was holy to the Lord,
the firstfruits of his harvest.
All who ate of it incurred guilt;
disaster came upon them,
declares the Lord.”
Jeremiah takes the optimism of the age and starts there. Here we have a nation who believed they were holy to the Lord. Alright, Manasseh had been bad, but now Josiah was good and things were looking up. What is the mood of the church today? Optimistic? Pessimistic? Apathetic? Where is the church placing her hope? Are we in danger of covering up the mistakes of the past with a covering of grass in the hope that no one walks across it and falls into the pit? How will we confront the past?
Jeremiah does not have a rose-tinted view though. See what he goes on to say:
“Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the clans of the house of Israel.
Thus says the Lord:
“What wrong did your fathers find in me
that they went far from me,
and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?”
Suddenly the crowd look at each other in surprise. Why does he have to bring that up? He was doing well. Sure, no one's perfect and we know that things after the exodus didn't go well, but that's all in the past now. Why bring that up? What relevance does that have for today?
The past is very relevant. But Jeremiah does not bring up the immediate past of Manasseh's reign, as we might expect, but the further past of the Judges. The situation was very similar to that under Manasseh – worship of false gods, consultation of false prophets, corrupt leaders – and yet it is far enough away to get under the radar. Jeremiah confronts the present problems under the surface by going back to a similar situation in the past, one which is part of Israel's history and so is felt by the people, but not so keenly as to stop them listening. What can we learn from this? We must surely confront sin. We must not be those who speak peace where there is none. But at the same time, people must be listening to us. Sometimes by going to the past we can uncover the faults of the present. What is more, by going to the past we may learn the ways in which sin recurs and so be better able to see it when on the surface things may not appear too serious.
Theme: Preaching to comfortable people
Introduction
- Background of Josiah's reign
- Jeremiah's message of judgement, with hope
- Our situation similar to Jeremiah's
Point 1
- Start on common ground (v1-3)
- Confront present sin by using the past (v4-8)
Point 2
- Confront the present situation (v9)
- Show the utter shamefulness of sin, especially in the light of God's goodness (v10-12)
- Show the double folly of sin, in exchanging life for death (v13)
Point 3
- Show the ongoing results of sin (v19)
- Demonstrate the folly of sin, which makes us turn to former enemies for help (v16, 18)