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Anglican Church Noosa
From Judgement to Hope - When Judgement Comes
Jeremiah 14:7-22
Rev’d Chris Johnson
Is it easier to perceive spiritual reality in the good times or the bad times?
You would think that it should be in the good times.
You would think that when
-people are doing well financially,
-progressing in their careers,
-investments steadily growing,
-children progressing well at school,
-enjoying holidays in 5 star resorts.
You would think that people would want to break out in thanksgiving to God that He should provide so
lavishly and abundantly.
However, more often than not, prosperity doesn't evoke the worship of God, it actually distracts people
from giving God his rightful place.
People start worshipping the
created things rather than the Creator God.
This is the definition of idolatry.
In the Old Testament people carved images out of wood and stone and
we think, how stupid, but it did have a practical intent.
People thought this would produce the good
weather they needed to have an abundant harvest and give them good luck in every area of their lives.
Today our idols are the material goodies that we think will give our life meaning.
When we buy them
they give us a good feeling for a time, but they can't give us the sense of purpose and direction in our
lives that in the end only following Christ gives.
Over time the pleasure fades, then the new model comes out and we think if only I had all those new
features on my phone or in my car or in my house then life would be exciting again.
Our hearts are like the broken cisterns that Lynda talked about last week from Chapter 2. We are
looking for living water to refresh our hearts, but our hearts go after idols thinking they will satisfy.
Our
idolatress hearts are like cracked cisterns.
The satisfaction leaks away very quickly and our souls remain
dry and patched.
John Dickson Illustration.
“If I were God I’d make Myself Clearer.”
p19
The way we think big but live small is what the Bible calls idolatry.
We know there has to be something
more; the creation all around us shouts that there has to be a Creator, but we only want the immediate
pleasures the creation can give us, so we turn our backs on the loving Creator who has provided so
abundantly.
This is the big sin Jeremiah constantly addressed - idolatry.
Let’s recap for a minute what we have learned so far in the book of Jeremiah about idolatry.
Pew Bible
p751 Ch1
The first week in Chapter one;
1
Jeremiah is called and God indicates the type of message he is called to bring to the people.
V16 “I will
pronounce my judgments on my people because of their wickedness in forsaking me, in burning incense
to other gods and in worshipping what their hands have made.”
That sounds like the sin of idolatry to me.
In our second week, Chapter 2;
the history of Israel is recalled in the terms of first love.
V2 God says, “I remember the devotion of your
youth, how as a bride you loved me.”
But then the people rebelled so in verse 5 the Lord says, “What
fault did your ancestors find in me, that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols and
became worthless themselves.”
And now in our third week we skip to Ch 14 (p769) and Jeremiah is pleading with God on behalf of the
people.
He acknowledges the sin of the people and the impotence of their idols.
V22 “Do any of the
worthless idols of the nations bring rain?
Do the skies themselves bring down showers?
No, it is you Lord
our God.
Therefore our hope is in you, for you are the one who does all this.”
What is the worst sin?
The person in the street would probably say murder but as I read the Bible and
especially the prophets the sin that is constantly talked about is idolatry.
This is the breaking of the first
two commandments.
It is the breaking of these commandments that leads to all the other sins which
are dealt with in the other commandments.
We need to have our spiritual eyes opened to see how horrific is the rejection of our Wonderful,
Almighty, Holy, Creator God!
So we come to the heart of our passage, v’s 11 & 12 and the shocking pronouncement….
READ
-Does this sound a bit harsh?
-Is this the sort of passage people are thinking about when they talk about the
strict judgmental God of the Old Testament?
-Can we now put aside this understanding of God because we have the gracious loving Jesus of the New
Testament?
-Why doesn't God allow Jeremiah to at least pray for the people that they might have another chance
to repent and avoid judgement?
The truth is of course that God has already given them many many chances.
For over a century now he
has been sending them prophets pointing them back to the covenant with Moses and calling on them
to repent and renew the covenant.
The sad and tragic truth is that the people have ignored God's call
and gone their merry way.
In the present time God has been giving them warnings.
Verses one to six of this chapter tell us there
have been droughts which were meant to be a wake up call.
V3 “They go to the cisterns but find no water.
V4 “The ground is cracked and the farmers are in dismay.”
V5 “The doe deserts her newborn fawn because there is no grass.”
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