Lessons From Jeremiah – Part 25 – Do Not Keep Sinning For Judgment Comes – Worthless Offerings Are Unacceptable Series

LESSONS FROM JEREMIAH – PART 25 – DO NOT KEEP SINNING FOR JUDGMENT COMES – WORTHLESS OFFERINGS ARE UNACCEPTABLE

PART 25 - Jeremiah 6:20-30

CHAPTER 6

[A]. THE WILFUL REJECTION OF THE PEOPLE TO GOD’S CALLING IN THEIR LIVES

(a). VERSE 20 - WORTHLESS AND INSINCERE OFFERINGS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE

{{Jeremiah 6:20 “For what purpose does frankincense come to Me from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a distant land? YOUR BURNT OFFERINGS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE, and your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me.” Jeremiah 6:21 Therefore, thus says the LORD, “Behold, I am laying stumbling blocks before this people, and they will stumble against them, fathers and sons together; neighbour and friend WILL PERISH.”}}

It does not matter how difficult it is to obtain the materials for sacrifice, or how costly they may be; the acceptance of the nation’s sacrifices is not how man views the matter, or the monetary value of the sacrifice, but how God sees the heart. Frankincense from Sheba is man’s effort. Sweet cane for distant lands is man’s effort. God will reject man’s efforts in acceptance and salvation when his heart is not right.

That lesson was learned long ago with the sacrifice brought by Cain. It was his effort and daily toil that produced wonderful crops no doubt, in that time before insects and diseases are what we endure today, crops from a cursed earth, but all his efforts were unacceptable. Some dispute God’s rejection of Cain, but those who do so, do it because of the lack of understanding of the holiness of God. The efforts of sinful man to obtain his own acceptance with God is no more than sin wanting to shake hands with holiness and to say, “We are the same, just a bit different in appearance.”

All self-effort in the name of religion will bring about acceptance for the doer, but in his eyes only. Acceptance before God is the result of 100% reliance on God’s declared path. Abel knew that, for God had taught his parents what the place of sacrifice was to be for sinful man. The coats of the sheep provided the covering for Adam and Eve. The pitch provided the covering for Noah and his family. Abel brought a lamb from the flock for he knew the shedding of blood provided the means of sacrificial acceptance, an atonement for his sin. His sins were atoned for when God accepted that sacrifice. Noah covered the ark with pitch inside and out. Pitch is the same word for atonement, so in the ark, Noah was resting under the atonement as he looked to the ceiling of the ark, and God saw the atonement from heaven when he looked with acceptance of Noah, for the pitch on the outside sheltered Noah.

Some people get annoyed when they hear that Christ is the only way to salvation, and to the Father, calling Christianity a narrow-minded religion. Liberal theology likes to think there are a multitude of ways to God, be it self effort, or living a good life, or being a faithful follower of Islam or Buddhism, etc. The PEW organisation in its survey of American churches found that 60% of those claiming to be evangelical Christians, say that Jesus is not the only way to God.

There is one narrow path, one declared will, one path of obedience, one way (one Way), one Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, one Mediator between God and man. All the sweet cane and all the frankincense will never bring about man’s acceptance before God. It is OBEDIENCE that results in man offering to God in the manner He has revealed for sacrifice. Not even Saul understood that. It matters not if one makes animal sacrifices even, for what is done without obedience and faith has no delight to God. The fat of rams means nothing when offered with a corrupt heart in self-effort.

God told Judah that their burnt offerings were not acceptable; nor were their sacrifices pleasing. It is not the thing offered which counts in the first instance, but the state of the person offering it. The nation was corrupt and no one offered on behalf of his sin with a contrite heart, a broken heart because of his sin. The priests and people offered to God but retained all the foul sin in their lives and shed the blood of injustice and lived in corruption as the Minor Prophets convey so frequently. It is man who looks on the outward appearance but God who looks at the true state of the heart. He looked at Judah and all he saw was a corrupt, polluted fountain of idolatry, pollution, immorality and corruption. Hypocrites. They were all hypocrites.

(b). VERSE 21 - THE INSINCERE PEOPLE WILL STUMBLE AND PERISH

Verse 21 begins with a “therefore” and is the judgement proceeding from verse 20. The end of the verse is the final result of God’s exhausted patience. Father, son, neighbour and friend will all perish. God’s day of retribution is coming but He gave them warning after warning, prophet after prophet, but all were rejected, for the nation wallowed in the slimy mud of its corruption, and loved it. They were reprobate and unchangeable. Death and expulsion met them head on in a Chaldean fury.