Lessons From Jeremiah – Part 18 – Judah Is Stubborn And Treacherous – Caught By The Deceitfulness Of Sin Series

LESSONS FROM JEREMIAH – PART 18 – JUDAH IS STUBBORN AND TREACHEROUS – CAUGHT BY THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN

PART 18 - Jeremiah 5:3-9

CHAPTER 5

[A]. JEREMIAH RECALLS GOD’S WORKINGS WITH JUDAH AND MAN’S REFUSAL TO REPENT

{{Jeremiah 5:3 “O LORD, do not Your eyes look for truth? You have smitten them, but they did not weaken. You have consumed them, but THEY REFUSED TO TAKE CORRECTION. They have made their faces harder than rock. THEY HAVE REFUSED TO REPENT.”}}

Jeremiah’s assessment begins with truth, the very quality God seeks among His people, and then he lists the conditions of the nation. God disciplined the people many times in the past, and the purpose of discipline was to turn the people back to the right way, but they determined they would do the opposite. In sinful resolve, they would not give way but hardened their hearts. The prophet speaks of consuming them and that happened as they were killed by enemies and plague and famine.

God ate away at them in the hope they would repent but they refused any correction and dug their heels in, with their faces harder than rock, meaning irresolute and implacable, stubborn, and determined not to hand over to God. To sum it up, they refused to repent, but the truth is, once a man hardens his heart and becomes stubborn to God, then he becomes even harder and more inflexible. In the end nothing remains except rejection, and God rejected His people of Jeremiah’s time and would hand them over to the Babylonians.

WHAT CAUSES STUBBORNNESS? Why does man not change his ways in spite of knowing the consequences? Take a man who is a heavy smoker and the doctor has diagnosed a bad cancer and tells the man unless he quits he will likely die within two years. The man knows the facts but refuses to quit. He may say as many do, “You only live once,” but it is more than addiction at work. There is a deep stubbornness and rebellion in the hearts of men and women.

God will not force repentance from anyone but it must come voluntarily. The Lord may discipline to wake the person up from the insensitivity to sin, but He never forces repentance. In Judah’s case God appealed over and over and sent correction to them in the form of foreign invasion, famine, climatic influences but all to no avail. It is the hardness of man’s souls; the power sin has over a person’s thinking and life and decision-making.

In the Tribulation, just in Chapter 6 of Revelation, God has allowed world-wide wars, pestilences, famine, plus much more, and in the next few chapters, great interventions including demonic creatures who sting, 200 million of them. The most terrible things happen, with over 40% of mankind killed already, but then you read this – {{Revelation 9:20-21 “The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues, DID NOT REPENT of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood which can neither see nor hear nor walk, and THEY DID NOT REPENT of their murders, nor of their sorceries [this word is drugs], nor of their immorality, nor of their thefts.”}}

Great calamities such as the world has never seen before: 200 million horrific demons with the most terrifying stings in their tails, a great star Wormwood falling to earth, the sun and moon darkened, hail mixed with blood pounding the earth, and other supernatural judgements, make no difference to stubborn, unrepentant hearts.

[B]. JEREMIAH REASONS WHAT TO DO BUT KNOWS THE OUTCOME

{{Jeremiah 5:4 Then I said, “They are only the poor. They are foolish, for they do not know the way of the LORD or the ordinance of their God. Jeremiah 5:5 I will go to the great and will speak to them, for they know the way of the LORD, and the ordinance of their God,” but with one accord, they too have broken the yoke and burst the bonds. Jeremiah 5:6 Therefore a lion from the forest shall slay them, a wolf of the deserts shall destroy them, a leopard is watching their cities. Everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces because their transgressions are many. Their apostasies are numerous.”}}

We have Jeremiah reasoning with himself, or maybe, this is part of a plea with God, one that collapsed, because the enormity of sin squashed any plea at this time. In verse 4 the prophet raises four points as part of a defence for his people (it would seem these who are spoken of are just the average, ordinary people). Those points are, the people are poor, foolish (senseless), do not know the Lord’s way, and do not know the ORDINANCE of God (ESV = justice; NIV = requirements).