Broken Beyond Repair
Book of Jeremiah • Sermon • Submitted
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· 26 viewsOnce again, Jeremiah is called to bring an illustration from the Potter's House: an illustration of God's sovereignty and judgement. Will Israel listen or is it too late?
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Introduction
Once again, Jeremiah is called to bring an illustration from the Potter’s House: an illustration of God’s sovereignty and judgment. Will Israel listen or is it too late?
Focus Passage
Jeremiah 19:1–15
Opening Passage
Jeremiah 19:1–3 (NKJV)
Thus says the Lord: “Go and get a potter’s earthen flask, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priests. And go out to the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the Potsherd Gate; and proclaim there the words that I will tell you, and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will bring such a catastrophe on this place, that whoever hears of it, his ears will tingle.
Outline
Ear Tickler (v.3)
and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will bring such a catastrophe on this place, that whoever hears of it, his ears will tingle.
God has called Jeremiah once again to bring a message to the people of Jerusalem. He calls some of the elders and priests (as representatives of the whole) to be witnesses of God’s message. The message that they hear is not a message that they want to hear. It is a message of destruction, Behold, I will bring such a catastrophe on this place.
We live in a day and age where people want their ears tickled more than than they want their heart challenged. They would rather leave happy in their sin than broken in their sin. This was the same then. It is what God said would happen before the return of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
God warns the people of Jerusalem that what he does will tickle the ears, that whoever hears of it, his ears will tingle. However, this will not be a pleasurable tickling. Within the Hebrew it gives the idea of reddening of the ears as in great shame. It is the sensation that one gets in the ear when their teeth rattle out of fear. It will be such a destruction that those that see it will literally loose their balance. This is not the tickling that Jerusalem wanted. However, it was the judgment they were going to receive.
Why was God going to judge His people? He has repeatedly told Judah why He would judge them. God was going to judge the people of Jerusalem because of their...
Open Rebellion (vv.4-5)
“Because they have forsaken Me and made this an alien place, because they have burned incense in it to other gods whom neither they, their fathers, nor the kings of Judah have known, and have filled this place with the blood of the innocents (they have also built the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into My mind),
Jeremiah does not come to this group of leadership (political and religious) and bring a new charge against them. He instead repeats what he has already told them but with more emphasis and a more urgent plea for them to realize what judgment is coming. We must understand that this is no longer a call to repentance, but a declaration of what will take place because of their hard hearts.
He reminds them that what takes place will be the result of their own rebellious acts. They had abandoned the God of creation for creation itself, Because they have forsaken Me and made this an alien place. They no longer worshiped the God of their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph, they now worshiped gods that they nor their forefathers knew, they have burned incense in it to other gods whom neither they, their fathers, nor the kings of Judah have known. As a result of their rebellion against God and worshiping false gods, they were even guilty of human sacrifice, filled this blood with the blood of the innocents (…to burn their sons with fire). All of this was against God’s order and direction, which I did not command or speak, nor did it come into My mind.
God response to their rebellion will bring Judah to a point of devastation. Judah will be...
Devastated to the point of numbness (vv.6-9)
therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “that this place shall no more be called Tophet or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hands of those who seek their lives; their corpses I will give as meat for the birds of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth. I will make this city desolate and a hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues. And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the desperation with which their enemies and those who seek their lives shall drive them to despair.” ’
The devastation of God’s judgment on Jerusalem will be so intense that the valley will forever be known as the Valley of Slaughter. The devastation of God’s judgment on Jerusalem will be so intense that it will cause those that are walking by to shun it because of sure devastation. A devastation that will cause genuine shock and numbness of the viewers, I will make this city desolate and a hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues.
God, as he begins to reveal the calamity that will fall on Jerusalem for their rebellion, seems to come out of some apocalyptic movie. He tells them I will bring upon you the unbelievable. He states that the inhabitants will be destroyed by war. Their bodies will be food for the wild birds and animals. God tells them that they will be driven to a point of desperation, shall drive them to despair. The most numbing portion of God’s declaration is their becoming so desperate they resort to cannibalism, And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend in the siege.
Before one says that sure God would not allow this; surely this is metaphorical. Let us turn to the Scripture and history itself and realize how true this can and was for the people of God during times of judgment.
Moses warned of a time such as this...
The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.
We find that when Samaria was besieged by the Syrians that this exact thing took place...
Then, as the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”
And he said, “If the Lord does not help you, where can I find help for you? From the threshing floor or from the winepress?” Then the king said to her, “What is troubling you?”
And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him’; but she has hidden her son.”
Further stated in the Holman Old Testament Commentary on the Book of Jeremiah...
Jeremiah, Lamentations D. Yahweh’s Message to Jeremiah and the Nation (19:1–15)
The Book of Lamentations attests that this same thing happened during the siege of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. Josephus wrote that the practice took place during the siege of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. D. J. Wiseman says this nauseating event was widely known in the Near East across many centuries.
May we realize their is no depth to the depravity of man in which it will not go without the interference of God.
Broken beyond repair (vv.11-13)
and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Even so I will break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, which cannot be made whole again; and they shall bury them in Tophet till there is no place to bury. Thus I will do to this place,” says the Lord, “and to its inhabitants, and make this city like Tophet. And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall be defiled like the place of Tophet, because of all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the host of heaven, and poured out drink offerings to other gods.” ’ ”
For the second time, Jeremiah has been called to bring a message from the Potter’s House. The first time he brought a message of that which was still malleable and could be used of service if it was changed. Now, he is called to bring destruction to an object that has went through the fire and is no longer malleable but can be shattered. In both of these illustrations God’s sovereignty is revealed.
God had warned His people in the first message, as the potter molds this clay, I can mold you. He warned them of destruction to come if they did not repent. Now, he reminds them that a time of repentance is no more. It is now time for judgment. God declares through Jeremiah that the judgment He brings will destroy them to such a point their will be no repair, Even so I will break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, which cannot be made whole again. In this judgment, the people of God have no one to blame but themselves. It because of their own unfaithfulness, own rebellion, own hard hearts and idol worship, that they will face God’s wrath, because of all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the host of heaven, and poured out drink offerings to other gods.
As the author of Hebrews writes...
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Guaranteed judgment (vv.14-15)
Then Jeremiah came from Tophet, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the Lord’s house and said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Behold, I will bring on this city and on all her towns all the doom that I have pronounced against it, because they have stiffened their necks that they might not hear My words.’ ”
God emphasizes that His people have brought this judgment upon themselves. How did they bring this judgment on themselves? Jeremiah has repeatedly summarized their actions in two ways: 1) They refused to repent and head the warning of God, because they have stiffened their necks; 2) They refused to listen to and apply the word of God, that they might not hear My words.
Due to their own lack of repentance, a refusal to hear the word of God and then apply the word of God, God declares guaranteed judgment. There was not a question of if this would take place, but a question of when, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring on this city and on all her towns all the doom that I have pronounced against it.
Conclusion
How does this message apply to us? What truths can we take from this text and apply to our own lives? As read the text, I see several truths that we must apply to our own lives individually and to us corporately.
Truths that must be applied...
We must grasp the truth and be warned by the truth that God is sovereign and we are not.
We must grasp the truth and be warned by the truth that God has called us to repentance and He will accept nothing less.
We must grasp the truth and be warned by the truth that God will judge our sin, our apathy, and our hardness of heart, if we do not change.
We must grasp the truth and be warned by the truth that God will eventually stop calling us to repentance and declare a guaranteed judgment.
How will you respond? How will I respond? How will we respond?