Jeremiah, Judah, and Us

This will be set up on earth. It made me start thinking about another time in God's people's history, where a prophet talked about the same thing for 40 years. And for 40 years, he was speaking to the land of the people of Judah and talked to them about how they had turned from God and warning them about what would happen if they didn't turn back. You probably know that prophet I'm talking about, so Jeremiah. And today I want to look at Jeremiah, but I don't want to talk about the prophecies of Jeremiah. That's the subject of another sermon. I want to look at the man Jeremiah and the human characters that are in that story. Jeremiah, the people of Judah, and look at God's response to them and how God dealt with them, what his message was, and what their response back to him was. I've titled this Jeremiah, Judah, and Us, because from their lessons we can learn something about us, things that we can use to propel us going forward, and pitfalls that we might be aware of that we don't fall into the same things that the people of Judah did. Turn with me over to Jeremiah 1. We'll begin right there in verse 1. It says, The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, the priests who were in Antitoth, and the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign, that came also in the days of Jehoiachim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the carrying away of Jerusalem, captive in the fifth month. So 40 years to span. Now notice that Jeremiah began his prophecies in the time of Josiah. You probably remember King Josiah. He was a good king. Turn with me just so we can get a reference here. Back in 2 Kings, in chapter 22, let's just refresh ourselves on what King Josiah was like and what God had to say about him. In 2 Kings 22, verse 1, it says, Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. And in verse 2, it says, he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of his father David. He didn't turn aside to the right hand, nor to the left. Now he was the first king in a while that did that. The kings before him were extremely evil. In chapter 23 and in verse 25, it goes on to say this about Josiah, Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses, now or after him, did any arise like him. He was one of a kind. He was a good king. He was doing what was right, and when he saw what was wrong and they read in that book of the law, where they were wrong, he turned on a dime, and he turned that nation around, and he embraced it with all of his heart, all of his mind, all of his soul. He turned to God. In the midst of his reign, God called Jeremiah. Times were good in Judah at that point. They had a righteous king on the throne. Times were good. Prosperity was there, yet in good times, God called Jeremiah and called him out to tell him what he wanted to do. Let's take one more look at Josiah back in chapter 22, verse 11.

Well, we already talked about verse 11. Let's move over to verse 19. Because there was something about Josiah that made him respond to God the way he did. Verse 19, God says, it was because your heart, Josiah, was tender. And you humbled yourself before the Lord, when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants. Josiah didn't have a hard heart like we heard referred to in the sermonette. His heart was tender. When he heard the things that God had said when it was read to him, he didn't immediately say, we don't need to hear that. That was for the old time people. That's why the book was put back there in the archives of the temple and no one looks at it anymore. It touched him. And when it touched him, he listened to it and he made the changes that he was responsible for making. Go back with me to Jeremiah.

So as I said, it was in the midst of the reign of this king, who was about the same age as Jeremiah, that Jeremiah was called. An unlikely time for God to begin Jeremiah's prophecies against the nation in the time that things were going good. But in verse 4, it says, the word of the Lord came to me, Jeremiah, saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you. I ordained you a prophet to the nations.

Now, to a young man of 18, 19, or 20, which is what the age somewhere in that range that Jeremiah was, you can imagine the impact of those words on him. To have God tell you, before you were ever formed, I had my mission in mind for you. I've known you before you were ever born. I knew what you were like. I know what you were going to do, or what I was going to give you the opportunity to do. Had to have an enormous impact on him.

We could think back in our careers or in school, and when someone told us, a teacher took us aside or a boss took us aside and said, you know what? I have my eyes on you. You do good work. If you keep this up, you're going to go places in this corporation. Or as a teacher, you can do very well in this class. You write very well. You think very well. You put your thoughts together very well.

Those times had enormous impacts on us, didn't they? They made us feel special. They made us want to perform more for that person. And I can't help but think, as Jeremiah heard this, he wanted to know God. He wanted to do what God had him to do. We're in the same boat as Jeremiah.

God predestined that each one of us would be called. He knew that at some point in our life, he was going to reach down, point to us, and say, I want you to know what my purpose for you is. I'm going to open your mind, and you're going to see what the truth is, and there's a plan I have for you if you choose to follow it. He tells us that in Romans, that we're prejudiced to know. We all have a choice on whether we accept that call or not, though.

We can say no, as many people have, or we can say yes, as those of us sitting in the room have said. Otherwise, we wouldn't be sitting here today. We need to remind ourselves about the thrill when we first had our minds open, when God began to show us what truth is, when it excited us, when it motivated us, and the times were new, because it was special and the most important thing in our lives. And our children need to know that as well, that no matter what they do when they become adults, it was determined that they would know the truth. They may say no, they may choose to go another way, but forever they were destined to know and be called of God.

They can choose, or they can reject, just like we can, and just as we see Jeremiah could as well. Going on, in verse 6, Jeremiah responded to God, Oh, Lord God, behold, I can't speak, for I am just a youth. I can't do what you're telling me to do. I can't be a prophet to the nations. I'm only 18, 19, or 20. I'm not that way. I can't go out and make speeches in front of people. I can't do what you're asking me to do. It tells us something about the man, Jeremiah. He wasn't full of himself, was he? If he was, he could have responded, I've been waiting, God, I've been waiting for you to call wondering when you were going to ask me to do this. No, that wasn't him at all. He was more reserved. He wasn't at all confident in himself. He knew that if God, well, he knew of himself, he wasn't going to be able to do anything. God doesn't have to have just the personality, like a Paul, that's out there speaking to people that you have to hold back more than you have to push forward. God can deal with any personality. Our personalities and what we're born with, he knew. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and he knew exactly what Jeremiah was like. It didn't surprise him when Jeremiah said this because he saw him growing up. He knew what type of person he was, and he knew that Jeremiah would probably have reservations about what he was capable of doing. Our personalities and what we perceive our strengths and weaknesses to be never limit God. They only limit us. And if we yield to God, he can overcome all those weaknesses and give us what we need to serve him and to serve others. And he can take those perceived strengths that we might have and make them even stronger. It's all about what God does to us and for us, and Jeremiah was about to learn that. In verse 7, God told him, don't say, I'm a youth, for you shall go to all whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. I'll give you the words, Jeremiah. You don't have to spend hours preparing these things. You don't have to come up with it on your own. Simply say what I tell you to say. Let my spirit be in you. Let it guide you. Let it lead you. And I'll give you the words to speak. In verse 8, he tells him, don't be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord. Don't be afraid. Major words for all of us to remember, because fear never propels us forward, does it? Fear always holds us back. Fear always keeps us from doing something.

God says, don't fear, Jeremiah. Don't be afraid, because if you let that fear grip you, then you're not going to be able to perform what I ask you to do.

God has not given us the spirit of fear, it says in 2 Timothy, but he's given us the power, the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. Jeremiah had yet to learn that, but God is cautioning him, don't be afraid. I'll be with you. I'm the one who ordained for you to do this. Trust in me and you'll be able to accomplish what I'm looking for you to accomplish. Verse 9, the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, Jeremiah, behold, I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant. Encouraging words. No doubt in God's voice of what he told him, this is what you will do, Jeremiah. Just go do it and trust in me. Down in verse 17, after God works with him through a few visions to help him understand what the message is going to be, God tells him to do what he does. God tells him, therefore, prepare yourself. Get up, Jeremiah. Get ready.

Therefore, prepare yourself and arise and speak to them all that I command you. Don't be dismayed before their faces. Don't be afraid. They'll throw you curves. They'll throw things at you that you are going to just be absolutely amazed could be happening. But don't let them see you be dismayed. When I read those verses, I have to think of Christ.

In that last day, all the things that happened to him, and if those that happened to us, and we had seen the series of events where we were arrested, beaten, brought before kings, unspeakable things done, he never let those people see him dismayed.

Because his trust wasn't in himself. His trust was in God. And had he ever shown fear, the people would have won, and he would have been defeated. God's telling Jeremiah, no matter what they throw at you, don't be dismayed. Lest I dismay you before them. Keep your focus on me, Jeremiah, no matter what hard times come, no matter what these people say, no matter what they put you through, and Jeremiah went through a lot in his lifetime. Don't let them see you dismayed. Keep your trust. Keep your faith. Keep your eyes on me, and everything will be okay. For behold, verse 18, I have made you this day a fortified city and an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests, and against the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord. I am with you, and will deliver you. Words that we need to remember, words that need to be written in our hearts and in our minds, especially as times progress.

Maybe we don't have in our lives many things that dismay us now because of our beliefs, but in the future we'll have those things happen to us.

God knew at that point in time Jeremiah probably didn't know what he was talking about, but later on in life, later on through those 40 years when Jeremiah found himself in front of major people, when he found himself thrown in cisterns, beaten, people wanting him dead, those words he recalled. And he knew what God was talking about at that time because his was not a popular message. It wasn't something that people wanted to hear as he learned out, as he learned, but it was what his commission was. It was what he was called to do, and he had no choice. I'll take that back. He did have a choice whether he was going to do it. Jeremiah chose to do it. And his was a difficult life. He didn't have it easy. Well, we compare our lives today to what Jeremiah had to go through.

It's difficult. Turn with me over to chapter 5.

Verse 1, Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem. See now and know, and seek in our open places if you can find a man, if you can find one man, if there's anyone who executes judgment, who seeks the truth, and I will pardon her. God says, Go Jeremiah, go through the streets of this place. If you can find just one person who's obeying me, one whose heart is right with me, I will pardon this place. Jeremiah had a tough mission on his hands. At this point, after Josiah died, he was the one. He was the one in Jerusalem that was upholding God's laws.

A pretty alone feeling. Sometimes, through the week, I feel like we're alone. We have one other family that lives in the city that we live in, and apart from them, we go 25 to 30 miles before there's anyone else around us. Sometimes, I think, Wow, we live out here in an island. It's us and them and all these people around us. But, you know, every week I can come to church. Every week you can come to church. I can pick up a phone or I can email and have instantaneous contact with someone else who believes the way we believe and knows what we know. Jeremiah didn't have that. There was no one else in Jerusalem that he could just kind of sit down with and chat, talk about what his day was like, the pressures that he was faced with. But he had the most important contact of all, and that was God. He could throw his cares and concerns on him, and there is no one better to do that with. And Jeremiah was able to go and continue in his way, using the strength of God. Over in Jeremiah 16, he was alone in that way, as far as being called of God and knowing God's truth. But God told him even further how much alone he was going to be. Chapter 16, verse 1, the Word of the Lord came to me saying, You shall not take a wife, Jeremiah, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place.

And God says, I don't want them to go through what this nation is going to go through. I don't want your attention on them, Jeremiah. Your attention is going to be on me. So, as most of us here in this room are married, have family, have children, Jeremiah knew that wasn't going to be in the lot for him. That wasn't something God was going to allow him to do. He was alone in Jerusalem in his beliefs. He was alone without wife, without children. In verse 8 of the same chapter, God goes on to tell him even more, Also, Jeremiah, you shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them to eat and drink.

I don't want you socializing with these people. Don't sit down and have a good time and make merry with them. They're not the people that you need to be sitting with. What's going to come on this nation is not good, and they don't want them to see you as part of making merry with them.

You're alone, Jeremiah. It's you and me, and you have a mission.

I have to wonder if God had told me all this back 30 years ago, 35 years ago. What would I have done? I would hope that I would have done exactly as Jeremiah did, but it was a tough road to hold, knowing that as you go into it. Knowing that everywhere you go, there's not the camaraderie, there's not anything, as we'll see in a few minutes, except an adversarial relationship between you and everyone that you come in contact with. They don't want to hear what you have to say. They don't like what you stand for, and you're not supposed to give in and become friends with them.

You know, as we go through this description of Jeremiah's life, we can draw some comparisons to ourselves, because in many cases, we can look in the Old Testament and see similar themes that God asks of us. Jeremiah was born in a time that was good, and all of us were called in a time that is good. Over the course of the 40 years of Jeremiah's preaching and his prophecies, the nation decayed. It departed from God, morality disappeared, and the people developed a hardened heart against God and didn't want to hear anything he had to say. And over the last 40 years of our lives, we can kind of see the same thing in the communities and in the nations that we live in.

40 years ago, maybe more than 40 years ago, the nation was never right with God as in the kept all of God's laws, but it certainly was a more moral place than it was today, wasn't it? We didn't have the obvious disregard for sexual morals. That is just rampant in the country today. We didn't have the rampant disregard for selflessness. We didn't have greed that was posted on every door post in America and in corporations. We didn't have selfishness, and we didn't have everything that defines or is beginning to define our country today. And yet, 50 years ago, as this person told me, God called Mr. Armstrong at a time that was relatively good, a time after World War II, where things were peaceful, and the nation seemed to be moral and things going good, a message began to go out warning of destruction that was going to come if the nation departed from God. Jeremiah went through the exact same scenario in his life, the exact same scenario. And as time went on, and as his message that he got from God was exactly the same, the response was far different. In Josiah's days, people flocked to the temple. Everyone was there to keep the Sabbath. Everyone was keeping God's laws. Josiah made sure that there was no trappings of idolatry and paganism in that land. And they all followed, and they were there. But as they began, as he died, and as they began to look at the nations around them, all these ideas, all these practices crept back in.

And the nation didn't listen anymore. They simply resisted everything that Jeremiah had to say. And as we go through our lives, and as we watch a message that goes out, we see people that don't want to hear it anymore. It doesn't touch a tender heart in most people anymore, because they say, you've been saying it for 50 years, and I haven't seen it happen yet. So I'm simply, the inference being, I'm not listening to it anymore. Jeremiah followed or experienced the very same thing.

And as Jeremiah lived his life apart, and God tells us in 2 Corinthians 6, be separate from the world around you. He doesn't ask us to not ever socialize with him. He doesn't ask us not to be married. He tells us, be separate. Keep your ideas and keep your identity among you, and don't lose it as you are in the world. And Jeremiah, as he did that, he had times where it overwhelmed him a little bit, as it would us. Back in chapter 15 of Jeremiah, I'm sorry, back in chapter 11, and in verse 18, Jeremiah was going about doing his job, but God began to reveal to him, and he began to see just what his situation was like. Jeremiah 11, verse 18, the Lord gave me knowledge of it, and I know it, for you showed me their doings. I was like a docile lamb brought to the slaughter, and I didn't know that they had devised schemes against me, saying, Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, and let us cast him off the land of the living that his name may remember no more. He began to realize it wasn't that they were just resisting him. They hated him. They wanted nothing to do with him, and they began to devise plots to get rid of him, just to cut his message off. Chapter 12, verse 6, Even your brothers, the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you, yes, they've called the multitude after you. Don't believe them, Jeremiah, even though they speak smooth words to you. Even your family, Jeremiah, doesn't want you around. Even your family wants you gone. Tough. And as I said, Jeremiah had to endure an awfully lot in his life. He was thrown into cisterns. He was put in stocks. He was ridiculed. He was mocked. All those things happened to him because he was delivering a message that God wanted him to deliver.

Over in chapter 20, we see Jeremiah opening up to God, beginning to wear on him a little bit all these things that are happening to him. And after one of the events with Passchore, he says in chapter 20, verse 7, Oh, Lord, you induced me, and I was persuaded. You called me, God. You convinced me to do this, and I did it. You're stronger than I and have prevailed, but I am in derision daily. Everyone mocks me. For when I spoke, I cried out. I shouted, violence and plunder, because the word of the Lord was made to me a reproach and a derision daily. And I said, as I watched what was happening, I won't even make mention of him anymore. I won't talk about God anymore. It was wearing on a very human Jeremiah. If this is the response I get, I'm just going to take a break and not talk about God anymore. But in the middle of verse 9, he says, but his word was in my heart like a burning fire. Shut up in my bones. I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.

Jeremiah wanted to stop at that point. In a very natural human time, he was tired of being the lone wolf. He was tired of having everyone hate him. It's a natural human tendency to want to be liked, want to be wanted, want to be part of the crowd. And it was beginning to affect him. And he said, I just want to take a break. And he did. But it didn't last long. Back in chapter 15 and verse 10, we find another time that Jeremiah was feeling down. He says, Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife and a man of contention in the whole earth. I've neither lent for interest nor have men lent to me for interest. Every one of them purses me. They don't even want to borrow my money. They don't want anything to do with me. I haven't had any part in this society. What kind of life, Jeremiah wonders, am I living? Chapter 15. Oh, Lord, you know. Remember me and visit me and take vengeance for me on my persecutors. In your enduring patience, don't take me away. If we're honest with ourselves, we know that there's been times in our lives when we've said, you know, the way just seems too hard. I'm just overwhelmed with what's going on around me, and it would be so easy, as I heard some people say back in the 1990s, so easy to just give in and be part of the world and be part of what society is like and not have to carry this torch or have to always be seen as the one who needs time off for the fall of holy days, can't work on Sabbath, doesn't do the social activities and the holidays of the world. It would be so easy. Somewhere in our life, hopefully not recently, but somewhere in our lives, we've had that. Jeremiah had it as well. But he tells God, be patient with me. And God, above all, is patient with all of us. He was patient with Jeremiah when he had these times. And God isn't interested in people failing. He's not interested in cutting people off. He's patient with us. And he was with Jeremiah.

Going on to verse 15, Jeremiah says, Know that for your sake I've suffered rebuke. Your words were found and I ate them. And your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.

When Jeremiah was hurting, he took it to God. And as he laid out his feelings toward God at the end of his prayers, and you see the same thing in chapter 20, he comes back to the point that this truth and God and his way was part of him. He ate those words when he read them back in the days of Josiah. When he ate them, they became part of his mind, part of his soul, part of his heart. And even though he wanted to, and he could have at that point said, God, I'm not doing this anymore. You called me? I responded, but I quit. I choose not to be a prophet anymore. He could have done it, but Jeremiah reached down and he looked into himself and said, it's part of me. I can't deny it. I can't let it go. I can't sit back and just become part of the world because when I ate those words, they became me. And that motivated him. And he turned around and he came back to God. And in verse 19 of chapter 15, God reassures him. Therefore, though says the Lord, if you return, Jeremiah, he knew Jeremiah could make a choice. If you return, I'll bring you back. You will stand before me. If you take out the precious from the vial, if you'll take out what you learned, the strength that you've derived, separate the dross from the silver. If you keep your whole, your mind on that, and if you take that out and throw the other stuff away that you learned is no good. If you take out the precious from the vial, you will be as my mouth. Let them return to you, Jeremiah. But you must not return to them. You keep saying what I've told you to say. You let them come to you. You don't alter your message. You don't alter your way of life. You let them come back to you. You don't compromise. You don't turn. You don't try to soften things up so that you turn to them. There's one way. There's one way with no compromises.

God told Jeremiah, you hang on to that way. You don't worry about what their response is. You worry about what you're doing and the fact that I asked you to do it. And Jeremiah did it for 40 years. For 40 years, he never gave up. He had his moments, but he never gave up, and he endured to the end. And you know, as you read through the book of Jeremiah, there's no evidence at all that there was even a small group of people, maybe not even one person, who changed the way they thought because of Jeremiah's preaching.

They all just kept thinking the same way. He kept saying it. They kept rejecting it. They kept making excuses for the waves of warning that would come in, and yet they kept going the same way. But Jeremiah didn't alter his message. He just kept going. In the eyes of the world, they would say, was Jeremiah a success? Did he waste those 40 years? No one? He didn't even have a small group following him after all that? The world would say he probably wasn't a success because the numbers weren't there. But in God's eyes, Jeremiah was a tremendous success because he followed what he said. He said what God wanted him to say. He planted the seed. He watered it, and he knew that it was up to God to produce the growth and the numbers. And if God chose not to, that was God's will. The lesson for us is we don't have to worry about the growth. We have to worry that we're standing straight. We're standing tall. We're keeping the message that God gave us, and we continually say it. We continually live it in our lives. We continually preach it to the world, and we let God decide the growth because the success isn't based on numbers. Jeremiah lived that life perfectly, and he's an example for all of us. Well, let's drop back and look at the people of Judah because they're the other human players in this drama in Jeremiah. Let's go back to Jeremiah 2 because the people of Judah were God's people as well. They were his people that God had made a covenant with back centuries before, and they were living there.

In chapter 2 of Jeremiah, God says this, Go, and cry in the hearing of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says the Lord, I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal, when you went after me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. Israel was holiness to the Lord. The first fruits of his increase, all that devour him will offend. Disaster will come upon them, says the Lord. He's remembering back to the time when he called Israel out of Egypt, when they were walking hand in hand through the wilderness and through the desert. God made a covenant with them, and when he proposed what he would do, Israel said, if you remember in Exodus, we accept it. I will follow you. What you ask me to do, I will do.

I'd say at least half of us in this room are married.

And sometimes when we get the pictures out, or just think back to the times when we were engaged or the time when we were married, they're very pleasant thoughts, aren't they? No. It's very nice to remember back and to remember that your wife said, I do, when you propose to her. Or for you wives that your husband said, yes, I'll fulfill my responsibilities. And yes, the wife will fulfill her responsibilities. And God looked at this as a marriage between him and Israel. When he proposed, they said, I do. And he perfectly kept his end of the bargain. He provided for them. He protected them. He watched out for them. He led them. And they didn't have anything to worry about.

God's remembering back to that time. In that time, a first love Israel built a tabernacle of meeting. Everything that God said to do, they were willing to do at that time. And it was a beautiful time in their history. But things changed. It didn't always stay that way. Verse 4, hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Jeremiah was talking to Judah. And yet it says, all the house of Jacob, all the families of the house of Israel. Maybe Jeremiah thought he was only speaking to Judah at that time. We know God is talking to all his people. Back in the ancient time, and here in the 21st century as well. Because those human reactions that these people of Judah had can be the same ones that we have if we're not forewarned. Thus says the Lord, verse 5, What injustice have your fathers found in me that they have gone far from me? What did I do to them? What end of the bargain that I made with them and what end of the covenant that you accepted did I not keep? God is saying. What caused them to follow idols? And what did I do that would allow them to become idolaters? What did I do? The answer is nothing. God did everything exactly right. He did everything exactly the way he said he would. The problem was with Judah. The problem was with the people. They strayed. They no longer stayed the way they should.

Over in verse 10, Pass beyond the coasts of Cyprus and sea. Send to Kadar and consider diligently and see if there's been such a thing. Has another nation changed its gods, which are not gods? But my people have changed their glory for what doesn't profit. Be astonished.

O heavens at this, and be horribly afraid. Be very desolate, says the Lord, for my people have committed two evils. They forsaken me the fountain of living waters and hewn themselves sisters, broken sisters, that can hold no water.

For some reason, they just threw it all away. What God was doing for them wasn't enough. It was too interesting to look at the nations around them, to look at the world around us and say, boy, I kind of like that. We could just incorporate that into our lives a little bit. And does God really care if we do just this, as long as we're doing all the other things that we're supposed to be? That's how it started with Judah. A little bit here and a little bit there, and pretty soon they were immersed in another culture. Pretty soon they had left their God behind. They had broken their covenant.

Do we see how God feels in this?

Maybe you know someone in the past, or maybe you've seen it in movies. Husband and wife get married. Husband or wife. One of them has a career path that requires college, and the other one agrees they're going to work during all that time and put husband through college so he can become a doctor or a lawyer or some such thing. And then when they're done, when the career is on the way, and when the blessings have begun, what happens sometimes? The spouse that received all that education now is ready to move on. What you did makes no difference. You kept your end of the bargain. You kept me going through college. You kept me through all this. But now I've got what I want, and I want to live my own life. It's an ugly situation, isn't it? It's something that when we see it, we think, how ungrateful can you be? How could you not have kept up your end of the bargain?

And yet that's exactly what Judah did to God. Exactly what they did. So when he looks at them, and when we see what they've done, it's not a pretty picture.

We, too, enter the covenant with God, and we have a bargain to keep with God as well. Over in chapter 3 and in verse 6, God keeps warning Judah and all the houses of Israel about what's going on. The Lord said to me in the days of Josiah the king. We talked about Josiah. These were good times, remember? These were times when everyone was going to the temple every Sabbath. They were showing up for every holy day. They were tithing. They were keeping the laws of God. Josiah had gotten rid of everything that was pagan in the land. In this time, when all the people were following God, God says to Jeremiah, have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She's gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there she's played the harlot. Your sister, part of the covenant people as well, that also accepted the covenant I propose to them. Are you looking at what they're doing? By this time, Israel had already been gone, had already been taken into captivity. And I said, after she had done all these things, return to me. Come back, God said. I'll take you. But she didn't return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. You saw the example of what Israel was doing. You saw what I did to them. And verse 8, I saw that for all the clauses for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce. She broke her covenant, so I divorced her, and the blessings were taken away. Yet, God says, her treacherous sister Judah didn't fear, but went and played the harlot also. Didn't learn a clear lesson. Didn't watch what was going on, but went and did the same thing. So it came to pass through her casual harlotry that she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. She took the stones and turned them into idols. She took the trees and carved them into idols. And yet, for all of this, her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart.

Now, remember, at the time this prophecy came, they were going to the temple, every Sabbath. They were keeping all the holy days that Josiah had restored in the land. They were showing up. They were tithing. The land on the face of it looked like it was in sync with God.

But God just wasn't looking at what they were doing and where they were going. Notice the next few words. Judah has not turned to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, says the Lord. They're showing up. They're doing all the things that the law says to do, but they're not doing it with their heart. They're doing it for another reason.

Remember, Jeremiah ate those words. They became part of him. And even when he might have wanted to turn and go a different way, he couldn't, because they were part of him, just like every part of his physical being.

Judah was just playing a game. Judah was following a king. They were following a man.

Josiah did it. The king wanted it done, so we'll do it the way the king does it.

God knew. God knew what was going on, and he knew what would happen after Josiah left.

The implication is, or the warning for us would be, that we could do the same thing.

We could come to church every single Sabbath. We can show up at every single holy day. We can pay our tithes right on time every week, every month, however often we do it.

But God isn't looking at us doing it in pretense. Why are we doing it? He wants to know that it's in our heart. He knew that this people, Judah, wasn't doing it for that reason. I won't turn there, but in Jeremiah 17 verse 9, God says the heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it? And he says, because of that, I test the heart. I search. I will see what you're about. As we've entered into a covenant, God wants us to be walking with Him with our heart, and not just to please a person or a group of people. He wants us to eat the words that we have, and Judah never did it. Chapter 5 and in verse 3, we read verses 1 and 2 before. We'll continue on in that chapter.

O Lord, aren't your eyes on the truth? You have stricken them, but they haven't breathed.

You've consumed them, but they refuse to receive correction. They've made their faces harder than rock. They have refused to return.

They're not listening. Their heart was hardened.

It wasn't touching anything in that heart when they heard those words. Remember Josiah? When he heard those words, he had a tender heart. When he read those words for the first time, even though he had never seen them, exemplified or acted out in his life, he knew what his responsibility was, and he took immediate action to clean up Judah. Dis-people, even though God said, return to me, come back. They simply weren't listening.

A calloused, hard heart that was not going to listen to God. Verse 12, the same chapter. We'll pick it up in verse 11. The house of Israel and the house of Judah, both of them, not just Judah, the house of Israel and the house of Judah had dwelt very treasureously with me, says the Lord. They have lied about the Lord and said, it's not he. Neither will evil come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine. We don't have to worry about this. Come on, we've been hearing about this forever. God isn't doing what you say he's doing, prophets. You're just, as it says in verse 13, empty wind. God's not going to send, and we're not going to find war. We're not going to have any kind of upset at all. We'll have some momentary blitzes here, just like Judah did when Nebuchadnezzar came in a couple times and took some captives away, Ezekiel and Daniel among them. But you know what? Those waves passed. Things went back to normal, and their hearing became dull again. It's not God. These things just happen. We're not going to suffer sword. We're not going to suffer famine. The prophets become as wind, and the word is not in them. We're not going to listen to what they have to say. You've been saying it for 50 years. Why would we start listening now, some people would say? They said the same thing back in Judah. Verse 31, the same chapter, verse 30. An astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely. The prophets the people listen to, the economists, the government, all the people out there that are predicting everything is going to be okay. They predict falsely, and the priests rule by their own power. They're doing it by their own set of rules. They're doing it by what they want, not by what God wants, not by what the covenant they agreed to was, but by their set of rules. The prophets prophesy falsely, the priests rule by their own power, and my people love to have it so, God says. Judah loved to hear what they wanted to hear. Our nations today love to hear what the prophets had to say. Everything will be okay. We don't have to worry. This is another blip in history that we will recover from.

We'll just keep going on, and things will be okay.

Chapter 7. The people of Judah believed God wouldn't touch them because there was something in their midst that they believed was more important to him than what they did. Chapter 7, verse 1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Stand in the gate of the Lord's house. Proclaim there this word and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you of Judah, who enter in at these gates to worship the Lord. Go to the temple. When the people are marching in, stand there and say, Listen. Thus says the Lord of Hosts.

In verse 3, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Verse 4. Don't trust in these lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. You remember when the temple was built by Solomon and dedicated in 2 Chronicles 7. And God said, I will dwell in that temple. When you have problems, look to the temple and I'll be there. When you acknowledge your ways, when you turn from those ways and you go the way of God. And the people of Israel became very comfortable with God's dwelling in their midst.

That temple was a sign that God was with them. And they took comfort in that. And that was what God wanted them to take comfort in. But over the years, that had become a perverse thing in Israel.

Because they looked at the temple and thought God was there. And as we go on, we'll see how they misused this blessing that God had given them. Verse 5. If you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you don't oppress the stranger, the fatherless and the widow. And if you don't shed innocent blood in this place or walk after other gods to your hurt, then I will cause you to dwell in this place in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.

If you will do what I ask you to do, then this temple will have the meaning. Then I will dwell there. Then you can dwell in this place as well. But that isn't what Judah was doing at that time. They were taking comfort and saying, I'm in the church. I'm going to the temple. I have this affiliation, and therefore everything is okay. Verse 8. Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.

Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you don't know? Will you do all these things every day of your life? Will you be compromising in everything I say and all these things that we can do in the world that people don't see but that God clearly saw what they were doing? And then, walk in here, verse 10, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name and say, we are delivered to do all these abominations.

If you're going to come into this house, if you're going to expect the benefits of the covenant, you've got to live by what that covenant is and do your part as well. God isn't interested in people just coming without making a part of their heart. Verse 11, has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says the Lord.

But go now to my place, which was in Shiloh, where I sent my name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because you've done all these works, says the Lord, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn't hear.

You simply hardened your heart and didn't pay attention. And I called you, but you didn't answer. Therefore I will do to the house, which is called by my name, in which you trust. And to this place, which I gave to you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh, and I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, the whole posterity of Ephraim. Because they disused that temple, because they trusted in it and used it as a replacement for God, God allowed it to be destroyed. He allowed it to be taken away because it no longer had the symbolism that He had hoped it would, that the people would be part of that temple, part of that church, use His name because they wanted a change of heart, because they wanted to eat the words that He had given them.

Instead, they used it as an excuse and thought everything was okay because they showed up there and the temple was in the midst. And they could point and say, there it is, right there in our midst, God hasn't abandoned us.

For 40 years, they heard, Jeremiah kept telling him it was going to happen, and for 40 years, they said, really? Really? Is anything really going to happen? They mistook the patience of God, that He was slack and that He really wouldn't do what He said that He would do. But over in lamentations, we find He did just that. 40 years, they heard it. 40 years, they put it out of their mind. 40 years, they denied that it would have happened, but in one day, destruction came, and what Jeremiah had been prophesying for years came. And they were caught unawares, just as it says, some of the virgins in Matthew 25 will be caught unaware, not ready when that day comes after 40 or 50 years of hearing it. Lamentations 2 and verse 1, how the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger. He cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel and didn't remember His footstool in the day of His anger. The Lord has swallowed up and has not pitied all the dwelling places of Jacob. He has thrown down in His wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He's brought them down to the ground. He has profaned the kingdom and its princes. He has cut off in fierce anger every horn of Israel. He's drawn back His right hand from before the enemy. He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire devouring all around. For 40 years, they thought it wouldn't happen. For 40 years, they thought God's not going to do that. He wouldn't do that to His people. But He did. In verse 8, the Lord has purpose to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He stretched out a line. He has not withdrawn His hand from destroying. Therefore, He caused the rampart and wall to lament. They languished together. Her gates have sunk into the ground. He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations. The law is no more, and her prophets find no vision from the Lord. Everything was gone. Everything they were used to seeing, everything they were used to hearing, it was all gone. The Babylonians came in, and they no longer had a temple to look at. They no longer heard Jeremiah speaking to them. The law that they might have taken comfort in was no more to be heard.

God had exacted His judgment, and He had made it all happen. And He destroyed the temple along with it. Something Judah never thought would happen. Jeremiah the man, in verse 11, we find out something about him. After all those years of prophesying it, you might think that he took some pleasure in finally being vindicated and justified in what he was saying. But he wasn't all happy with what happened. My eyes fail with tears. My heart is troubled. My bile is poured on the ground because of the destruction of the daughter of my people. Because the children and the infants faint in the streets of the city. He's not happy. He's very upset that this happened. He wanted the people to turn. He wanted the people to come back to God, just the way God wanted them to. It didn't happen, and they had to pay the price. And God had to get their attention to let them know you can't keep going the way that you're going.

For 40 years, they heard. Some today might say, for 50 years, we've been hearing the same thing.

But they don't realize one day it will come. God is just being patient with all of us, and all who have ever heard, hoping that they will turn and come back to Him. Because when they do, He's ready to welcome them. Lamentations 3, verse 22.

Through the Lord's mercies, we are not consumed. Because His compassion fails not, they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. Verse 31.

For the Lord will not cast off forever, though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For He doesn't afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men. He's not interested in us hurting, except what hurting will do for us. That it will turn, and it will give us life. That it will restore us and help us to eat what He has to say. And that those words and His law will be written on our hearts. That no matter what comes our way, we won't compromise. We won't be dismayed. We won't fear. We won't do as Judah did and ignore what we see happening before us. We won't have hard hearts, but we'll have tender hearts. That when we hear things, we can look into ourselves and make the changes we need to make. So that in the end, when Jeremiah, when God looks at us, and we have the choices that we make, those choices before us, we can be like Jeremiah. We can choose to follow God. And we can choose to have those things be in us. And even though our lives may not be in this world what we would want them to be, we know that God is God and we follow Him. Not looking for the numbers, the wealth, or anything of substance today except that God will provide, but we just keep doing what God told us to do. Or we can be like Judah and we can say, we could do a little bit here. We can compromise a little bit and be like the world and make our lives a little better. And little by little, finding ourselves with a calloused heart, not listening to God anymore. For many, many years, all of us have been hearing. For many years, just like this person I talked to, they know. They knew then and they still know what it is, but they choose to put it out of their minds. Never, never let that happen. As you go through life, remember the lessons of Jeremiah, Judah, and us.