The Weight of Abandoning God

Text: Jeremiah 16:1-15

Introduction:

This past week was full of God given opportunity as we witnessed to between eight and fifteen young people each night at Vacation Bible School. Our theme for this week was based upon Ephesians 2:8-9 which we read at the start of our service this morning. “For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift -not from works, so that no one can boast.” Each night we journey through a different Bible story to see God’s provision to those who were faithful. Each of them experiences a special kind of salvation.

God sent someone special to protect Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the blazing furnaces. God sent the prophet Elisha to provide for a widow and her two sons. God provided a future for Rahab and her family when she hid the spies. When meeting secretly with Jesus at night Nicodemus learned that God had provided atonement for sin through His Son who would be lifted as the Bronze Serpent was in the desert. Finally, we learned that God has provided hope and eternal life through the Resurrection of the Son giving each of us a mission to faithfully proclaim that good news.

The common theme throughout the week was that God saves us. It is a message of hope and salvation that comes naturally to most preachers. It is the gospel at its simplest. Yet preparing for this morning’s message I was faced with an entirely different task. As we have worked through the Book of Jeremiah in our morning messages we have had to wrestle with difficult subjects, emotions, and even language. Preaching through this book is perhaps the most daunting challenge I have ever taken.

Nevertheless, we have seen time and time again the application of the Book of Jeremiah to our lives. In truth his situation is not much different then our own. We face opposition to the truth. We are entrusted with message that is counter cultural and borderline revolutionary. We have wrestled with the challenges Jeremiah faced and even his own moment of doubt. This morning we are going to pick back up in Jeremiah chapter sixteen starting at verse one.

As you turn there in your Bibles let us consider where we have just been in our series. You may recall last week that Jeremiah interrupted the Lord’s pronouncement on Judah with an anguished curse for the day he was born. Jeremiah was overwhelmed with the task of his ministry. He felt as if it would have been better for him to never have been born. Jeremiah even goes as far as to accuse God of being deceptive with his description of Jeremiah’s ministry. Jeremiah is met with a rebuke from God and the instruction to repent so that he can continue serving as the Lord’s prophet.

Chapter sixteen begins with the Word of the Lord once more coming to the prophet Jeremiah with a call for the prophet to live a prophetic example to the people of Israel. Join with me in…

Jeremiah 16:1–15 CSB

1 The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Do not marry or have sons or daughters in this place. 3 For this is what the Lord says concerning sons and daughters born in this place as well as concerning the mothers who bear them and the fathers who father them in this land: 4 They will die from deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried but will be like manure on the soil’s surface. They will be finished off by sword and famine. Their corpses will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land. 5 “For this is what the Lord says: Don’t enter a house where a mourning feast is taking place. Don’t go to lament or sympathize with them, for I have removed my peace from these people as well as my faithful love and compassion.” This is the Lord’s declaration. 6 “Both great and small will die in this land without burial. No lament will be made for them, nor will anyone cut himself or shave his head for them. 7 Food won’t be provided for the mourner to comfort him because of the dead. A consoling drink won’t be given him for the loss of his father or mother. 8 Do not enter the house where feasting is taking place to sit with them to eat and drink. 9 For this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: I am about to eliminate from this place, before your very eyes and in your time, the sound of joy and gladness, the voice of the groom and the bride. 10 “When you tell these people all these things, they will say to you, ‘Why has the Lord declared all this terrible disaster against us? What is our iniquity? What is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ 11 Then you will answer them, ‘Because your ancestors abandoned me—this is the Lord’s declaration—and followed other gods, served them, and bowed in worship to them. Indeed, they abandoned me and did not keep my instruction. 12 You did more evil than your ancestors. Look, each one of you was following the stubbornness of his evil heart, not obeying me. 13 So I will hurl you from this land into a land that you and your ancestors have not known. There you will worship other gods both day and night, for I will not grant you grace.’ 14 “However, look, the days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’ 15 but rather, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of the north and from all the other lands where he had banished them.’ For I will return them to their land that I gave to their ancestors.

I. He is forbidden from marrying or having children (vs. 1-3)

The Word of the Lordcomes to the prophet with a command to not get married or have children. If you remember back to last weeks message specifically chapter fifteen verse seventeen the prophet has already voiced lament over being lonely. Here God tells Jeremiah the cost of being the Lord’s prophet will not only include abandonment from his countrymen but also that he cannot have a family.

This command from Yahweh is countercultural. In the traditional Jewish society people did not deliberately stay single. The Old Testament teaches that God ordained marriage (Genesis 1:28; 2:24; Deuteronomy 7:14) and that sons and daughters were a blessing (Psalm 113:9; 127:3-4). The Israelites to this very seriously. In fact, children were necessary to keep inherited land in the family and to preserve the family name from extinction (Ruth 4:5).

In the culture of Jeremiah’s day, a man was expected to marry by the age of eighteen or twenty. In fact, marriage at the age of fourteen or fifteen was not uncommon. The Talmud, or large collection of Jewish literature and Scripture used by the Pharisees, pronounces a curse on any young man who did not get married by the age of twenty.

Jeremiah’s prohibition to be married served a two-fold purpose. First is a symbolic act much like the marriage of Hosea. However, where as Hosea’s marriage depicted God taking Israel back despite their adulterous ways, the lack of marriage for Jeremiah depicted the end of Yahweh’s relationship to Israel. Secondly, Jeremiah celibacy would serve as credence to his message. By being denied a home life with a wife and children, Jeremiah would undergo symbolically what the entire nation would soon experience.

God is using Jeremiah’s life as a physical example to shock Jerusalem and Judah to their senses. There was to be no comfort of marriage for Jeremiah, no children’s voices in his home. The same would soon be true of the people of Judah. There would be no comfort and no children. In fact, the children born to this city and the parents whom they were born would all soon meet their end.

Jeremiah’s life presents a vivid image of his preaching and the life that would soon be common in Judah. However, the prophet also describes in stirring language the carnage that is about to unfold. The people would be denied the dignity of a proper burial.

II. He is forbidden from mourning (Vs. 5-7)

In verse five God forbids Jeremiah from mourning or lamenting over those who have died. Jeremiah cannot even show is condolences for the families who have lost loved ones. This is to serve as an illustration of God removing his peace from the people of Judah. This command would further isolate the prophet from his people. His actions would be seen as calloused and uncaring. Jeremiah’s lack of grief for the dead was a symbolic act showing that God was withdrawing his comfort.

When the judgement by God through Babylon came there would be so many casualties there would be no time for mourning and no mourners left. There would be no one left to perform the customary pagan funeral rituals of cuttings and shaving one’s head that Israel had adopted from their pagan neighbors.

III. He is forbidden from celebrating. (Vs. 8-9)

Jeremiah was forbidden by Yahweh from joining in the festivals of celebration. His refusal to join the festivities would further alienate him from his people and add to his reputation as eccentric. But this behavior was critical to accent his message of condemnation and judgment. The coming destruction made celebration ludicrous. Normal life as Judah understood it was quickly coming to an end. Soon the sounds of joy and gladness including weddings would no longer be heard in Judah.

Jeremiah’s countercultural behavior would attract attention. His message would garner a reaction. When the people ask why he is behaving in such bizarre manners he is to give them an answer. God knows in that moment the people will want to ascertain what they did to bring such a harsh judgment.

Here we draw our connection to our modern day. As the Latin church father Jerome says in his Jeremiah comments, “When the church sins, God makes all joy and gladness cease from it.” The What was it that led to such disheartening judgment depicted by Jeremiah’s life.

IV. You Abandoned… (Vs. 10-13)

Look to verses ten through thirteen. The Lord instructed Jeremiah to be prepared for the people’s question, “Why?” It is incredible that they would even ask. Surely, they knew! But the question only demonstrates how blind they were of their sins.

Often when God removes his blessing from his church people ask, “Why?” However, like Judah we should know the answer. Judah and sadly some professing Christians today have abandoned God and His Word.

Malachi 1:6–7 CSB

6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. But if I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is your fear of me? says the Lord of Armies to you priests, who despise my name.” Yet you ask, “How have we despised your name?” 7 “By presenting defiled food on my altar.” “How have we defiled you?” you ask. When you say, “The Lord’s table is contemptible.”

Malachi 2:17 CSB

17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you ask, “How have we wearied him?” When you say, “Everyone who does what is evil is good in the Lord’s sight, and he is delighted with them, or else where is the God of justice?”

Malachi 3:7–8 CSB

7 “Since the days of your ancestors, you have turned from my statutes; you have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of Armies. Yet you ask, “How can we return?” 8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me!” “How do we rob you?” you ask. “By not making the payments of the tenth and the contributions.

Malachi 3:13 CSB

13 “Your words against me are harsh,” says the Lord. Yet you ask, “What have we spoken against you?”

The Lord patiently replied to their question with a two-fold answer. First, their ancestor had forsaken the Lord and disobeyed his law. Nevertheless, the coming judgment was not a result of what their ancestors had done but rather for their own hard heartedness. The people of Judah had become even more wicked with each passing generation. They followed the stubbornness of their own evil hearts instead of obeying God. For this reason, God was going to cast them out.

We are seeing this same series of events transpire in our own culture. Little by little churches are sacrificing traditional biblical theology for the name of relevance. Many Christians today do not even believe in the inerrancy, inspiration, and sufficiency of Scripture. Turning instead to manmade interpretations and precepts.

We must be on guard to ensure that we do not slip into temptation because it is ever present. For the people of Judah to whom Jeremiah was prophesying God promised with a sense of irony that in a foreign land away from his presence they could serve their idols to their hearts content and reap the rewards of their wickedness. I pray that this irony will never be true of us.

When followers of Christ abandon the Word of God and no longer follow after Christ, they force themselves into exile from God.

Hebrews 6:4–6 CSB

4 For it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who tasted God’s good word and the powers of the coming age, 6 and who have fallen away. This is because, to their own harm, they are recrucifying the Son of God and holding him up to contempt.

A better translation would perhaps be it is improbably. The idea is that there comes a point when the scale has tipped to far that we have not passed a point of no return. Many Christians are living in a delusion along the point of no return. I pray that they have not crossed it.

Conclusion

However, even amid God’s retribution on Judah there was still hope. Look back to verses fourteen and fifteen.