Three Inescapable Divine Promises

Introduction:

Today we find ourselves in society full of false prophets and teachers. In such a society preaching through a book like Jeremiah can be difficult and if I am honest seem a bit tedious. But Jeremiah stands against the test of time as a demonstration of the relevance and truthfulness of God’s Word even after the inspired prophet wrote nearly 2,600 years ago.

As you may remember. The prophet Jeremiah was called to a ministry of reconciliation by Yahweh to the nation of Judah. Jeremiah is often referred to as the “weeping prophet” because of the number of laments found in his prophecies. Jeremiah’s ministry by today’s standards would have been considered a complete failure because he did not attract the large following like successful ministries today. Nevertheless, by God’s standards Jeremiah was accomplishing the mission.

After a lamenting the very day of his birth Jeremiah is rebuked and told to repent. God instructs Jeremiah to give another prophecy to the people calling them to repentance. The reason for their suffering is because they have abandoned God’s Word. Yet even amid God’s promise of judgment he offers hope. Yahweh promises that he will in fact lead the people of Israel out of Babylon in a second exodus and return them to the Promised Land.

This morning we pick up in the section following that promised return. Perhaps God is anticipating an internal response by the people and through the Prophet Jeremiah is going to give some insight from above. It appears some have the idea that they will simply run from and hide from God’s plan and purpose. Let us see how God responds through the prophet Jeremiah by offering three inescapable divine promises. Turn with me to Jeremiah 16:16-21 opening our hearts to receive from Gods’ inspired, inerrant, and Holy Word.

Jeremiah 16:16–21 CSB

16 “I am about to send for many fishermen”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and they will fish for them. Then I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and out of the clefts of the rocks, 17 for my gaze takes in all their ways. They are not concealed from me, and their iniquity is not hidden from my sight. 18 I will first repay them double for their iniquity and sin because they have polluted my land. They have filled my inheritance with the carcasses of their abhorrent and detestable idols.” 19 Lord, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in a time of distress, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and they will say, “Our ancestors inherited only lies, worthless idols of no benefit at all.” 20 Can one make gods for himself? But they are not gods. 21 “Therefore, I am about to inform them, and this time I will make them know my power and my might; then they will know that my name is the Lord.”

May the Lord add his blessing to the reading and preaching of His Word.

I. God will research and find! (Vs. 16-17)

I make no secret that I did not grow up in a Christian home. In fact, outside of my Uncle John and my Grandmother (through my mom’s side) very few members if any of my family have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Growing up you were more likely to have a vast knowledge of Elvis Presley or Walker Texas Ranger. Perhaps there are some here this morning that have a working understanding of one or the other.

Ever single week the quality bonding time with my mother would be watching the weekly episode of Walker. I can still hear the song in my mind. “In the eyes of a ranger, the unsuspecting stranger, had better know the truth from wrong and right. Cause the eyes of the ranger are upon you, any wrong you do, he’s gonna see, when you’re down in Texas, look behind you. Cause that’s where the ranger’s gonna be.”

That is sort of the idea that Jeremiah is pushing to get across. You cannot hide from God. He knows exactly what you are doing, when you are doing it, and where you are doing it. Some try to play the ignorance card. I did not know that was wrong! Interestingly half of the Mosaic sacrificial code dealt with unintentional sins. So, the concept of “ignorance of the law is no excuse” IS NOT A NEW CONCEPT! The whole point was the people were going point out the fault in their brothers and sisters so that person could repent from their sin whether intentional or not. Just as in Jeremiah’s day the people lack the true and proper humility to “repent.”

Instead, when God passes his holy judgment people try to run and hide. Some within the church wish to continue to enjoy the momentary pleasure of sin but hide it in the privacy of their homes. Other’s try and void the calling of God to share the Gospel to those lost in sin because they fear opposition, they fear persecution, or perhaps even worst yet they fear that God might bring someone to earnest repentance exposing their own hypocrisy.

I reminded of the story of another prophet named Jonah. Jonah was commissioned by God to go to the town of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. This would be the nation that later took the northern ten tribes of Israel into captivity. Jonah fled in the opposite direction because he did not want to go the people of Nineveh because he knew that God was a compassionate God. So, he books passage on a cargo ship headed toward modern day Spain. However, the ship encounters a server storm and is on the verge of destruction. Jonah is determined to be the source of the peril and is promptly thrown overboard. Perhaps you know the rest of the story. Three days in the belly of a giant fish in which Jonah repents and agrees to go to Nineveh. He preaches and the people do in fact repent in hearing the Word of God.

Meanwhile Jonah waits outside the city on a hill with shade provided by God waiting for the fireworks. Yet they do not come. God removes the shade and in the dialogue that follows brings Jonah to repentance. The moral of the story being that we cannot run from or hide anything from God. Yet so many today attempt to do that exact same thing! We try to run from God’s calling or worse, yet we try to hide things from God.

Numbers 32:23 CSB

23 But if you don’t do this, you will certainly sin against the Lord; be sure your sin will catch up with you.

Galatians 6:7–9 CSB

7 Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a person sows he will also reap, 8 because the one who sows to his flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. 9 Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up.

II. God will have retribution! (Vs. 18)

Our iniquity cannot be hidden from God’s sight. No manner of incognito browsing or internet history clearing will atone for our sin. Apart from Christ every careless word we utter will be brought to judgment. In Christ we will still be judged based upon the sincerity of our relationship with Christ. While it is true that we can never be good enough to earn salvation there is nevertheless the command to be holy as our Father in Heaven is Holy.

Romans 3:21–31 CSB

21 But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. 22 The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. 26 God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By one of works? No, on the contrary, by a law of faith. 28 For we conclude that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then nullify the law through faith? Absolutely not! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Romans 6:1–14 CSB

1 What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.

1 Peter 2:1–5 CSB

1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, desire the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow up into your salvation, 3 if you have tasted that the Lord is good. 4 As you come to him, a living stone—rejected by people but chosen and honored by God— 5 you yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:9–10 CSB

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

We have been called by God out of darkness into marvelous light. Nevertheless, our lives should demonstrate the fruit of repentance being produced. Yes, we will falter and stumble in many ways but that is the beauty of the grace we receive in Christ. Yet, if we continue to live secretly in sin, we are not fooling God. Though we are covered by grace we cannot habitually live a lie.

Hebrews 10:26–31 CSB

26 For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who disregarded the law of Moses died without mercy, based on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve who has trampled on the Son of God, who has regarded as profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know the one who has said, Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, and again, The Lord will judge his people. 31 It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

In this verse there is some interesting language in the Hebrew regarding “I will first repay them double for their iniquity and sin.” A lot of attempts have been made to explain what exactly God meant through the prophet Jeremiah. It is a firm belief of mine that proper Biblical exegesis should follow the principle of simplest internal explanation is best. I.e., let the context explain with Scripture explain. Remember that Yahweh has already said the prophet that he will redeem Israel from the Babylonians. So, the “first” is an indication that this retribution must take place before they can be redeemed.

The Babylonian captivity was not only to serve as punishment for Judah’s sin but also as an atonement of sorts. Before there can be restoration there must be atonement.

The second aspect of this verse seems more difficult in English as God says he will “repay them double for their iniquity.” The wording in most English Bible’s seems to suggest that God is going to punish Judah so severely that it will amount to double the cost of their sin. If we were to put it a financial structure it would be like Judah being guilty of stealing $50,000 and God punishing them till $100,000 is repaid. However, here is an area where to be literal, ironically done by most English translations, including the NIV and CSB, loses something in translation. The Hebrew is very literal in the “double” terminology; however, it is poetic language to imply full measure.

The idea communicated here is that before Judah can be redeemed it must be punished to the full measure equated to its sin. It is showing God’s judgment and punishment are righteous and just to the crime committed. Now it should be noted that is by God’s standard, not mans! Notice that specifically the sin being punished is idolatry. This sheds a lot of insight into the nature of sin.

All the sins that plagued Judah were a result of one chief sin and that was idolatry. In fact, if you were to look through most of the Scripture you would see two sins that go hand in hand are often the cause of most of the sin within our fallen world. Idolatry, elevating someone or something to the position of God or pride, elevating ourselves to the position of God. Both sins involve placing someone or something else in Gods’ place as the center of our worship and obedience.

We have established that you cannot run or hide. We have seen that God will have his retribution for sin. Yet the greatest promise is to come.

III. God will reclaim! (Vs. 19-21)

The next part of our passage is perhaps the most beautiful thing we will see this morning. In response to God’s pronouncement of inescapable judgment Jeremiah offers a psalter. However, this is not just a song of praise but rather a prophecy of the nature of the Gospel. Jeremiah begins by praising the Lord as his strength and stronghold, a refuge in times of distress. Then immediately moves to the revelation of the Gospel.

Jeremiah proclaims, “the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and they will say, ‘Our ancestors inherited only lies, worthless idols of no benefit at all. Can one make gods for himself? But they are not god.’” The beauty of this inescapable promise is that the Gospel, the hope for salvation will be open to all people. Though Judah is being punished for its sin. Yahweh is going to open the hope of restoration, redemption, and reclamation as God’s chosen Holy People to Jew and Gentile alike. This promise is made over five hundred years before the establishment of the church!

God promises to make himself known! Look to verse twenty-one, “Therefore, I am about to inform them, and this time I will make them know my power and my might; then they will now that my name is the Lord.” This prophecy directly related to the coming of the Messiah and the institution of the Church on the day of Pentecost. God is drawing all people to his Son Jesus Christ.

Those who realize their idols are worthless and cannot save upon hearing the Gospel of Christ will turn to the Lord experiencing the transforming grace of Christ. They will see God’s power and might at work in their lives as their eyes are opened and they will know the Lord.

Conclusion