Jeremiah 17:1-7 12/5/21 a.m.
I really like WILL ROGERS. He was a great actor. (If you’ve never watched Judge Priest it’s a great film) But he was also a great comedian. He didn’t care if you were a Republican or a Democrat, he would make jokes about both parties. One of his famous lines was, “I don’t belong to any organized political party... I’m a Democrat.” He was known for his laughter, but he also knew how to weep. One day he was entertaining at the Milton H. Berry Institute in Los Angeles, a hospital that specialized in rehabilitating polio victims and people with broken backs and other extreme physical handicaps. Of course, Rogers had everybody laughing, even patients in really bad condition; but then he suddenly left the platform and went to the rest room. Milton Berry followed him to give him a towel; and when he opened the door, he saw Will Rogers leaning against the wall, sobbing like a child. He closed the door, and in a few minutes, Rogers appeared back on the platform, as jovial as before. But to see so much misery had BROKEN his HEART.
If you want to see what’s in a person’s heart just look to see what makes them ANGRY, what they LAUGH at, and what makes them CRY.
Let’s go ahead and turn in our Bibles to Jeremiah 17. We’re going to read Verses 1-10.
“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars;
2 Whilst their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills.
3 O my mountain in the field, I will give thy substance and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin, throughout all thy borders.
4 And thou, even thyself, shalt discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever.
5 Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.
6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.
8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
10 I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings”
This passage of scripture begins with a conversation about the HEART and we quit reading in Verse 10 still talking about the HEART. This morning I want us to take a look at what God does with the HEART. You know, the thing inside of our chest that PUMPS BLOOD throughout the body. With an average life span of 70 years or so, a person’s HEART BEATS around 2 BILLION TIMES and pumps around 1 MILLION BARRELS of BLOOD. That’s enough BLOOD to fill up 3 SUPERTANKERS.
But the PHYSICAL HEART is NOT what I want to talk about today.
In this time that we live, we tend to see people as having two separate parts, one part is the emotions, which we refer to as the heart, then a brain, which houses the mind.
But when God speaks in both the Old and New Testaments about the heart, it never means just your EMOTIONS.
The Biblical word “HEART” is talking about three PARTS.
It’s the MENTAL PROCESS. It’s where we ACT and REACT to things around us.
It’s EMOTIONS. Love and Hatred. Joy and Sadness. Peace and Fear. It’s what ENRICHES our lives.
And then it’s WILL. The WILL of a PERSON is where decisions are made between RIGHT and WRONG. It’s where we RATIONALLY THINK. Proverbs 4:23 tells us,
“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
EVERY PART of our LIFE comes from the HEART. And so this morning I want to speak about the HEART. But before I do, let’s go to the Lord in Prayer.
Brother ______, would you lead us?
In Verse 1 of this passage, Jeremiah begins by telling us THREE things about Judah. He tells us WHAT was WRITTEN. HOW it was written and WHERE it was written.
I. Well, first of all, it’s pretty clear WHERE it was written. It’s what we’re talking about today. It tells us that it was written on the TABLE of their HEART. So what does that mean? To WRITE SOMETHING down on the TABLE of the heart.
Well, as we read earlier, Proverbs 4:23 tells us, the very ISSUES OF LIFE are from the HEART. When people LOOK AT ME, WATCH ME, when they EXAMINE MY LIFE they are seeing MY HEART.
And the same goes for you. You might say, “People don’t see my heart.” Oh yes they do!!! You can put on a show for a while but eventually your HEART will come through.
Paul told the Church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians 3:1-3,
“Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.”
Paul was making a statement here but he first asks a question. Do I need a letter of recommendation? He answers, “NO, you folks are my letter of recommendation. YOU PEOPLE are that letter and look what it says there. “KNOWN and READ of ALL MEN.”
And then Paul goes on to clarify it in Verse 3, that HE is NOT the ONE who wrote on the TABLES of their HEART, it was the Spirit of God who did the writing. Paul was just the MESSENGER.
The Old Saying, “You’re the only Bible some will ever read is TRUE” It’s Biblical. Right here.
People are watching how you TREAT your wife and kids.
They see what you BUY at the store.
What you WEAR out in public.
What you LISTEN to.
They LISTEN to what comes out of your mouth.
Whether you lose your TEMPER or stay in control.
Every part of your life SHOWS your HEART.
God is going to WRITE something on your HEART. What’s it gonna be? And HOW is He gonna write it?
II. So it’s clear WHERE it was written but now WHAT was written on the hearts of the people of Judah?
The first line of Chapter 17. “The sin of Judah is written.”
If GOD was going to WRITE something about me, I sure would hate to think it’s ALL ABOUT MY SIN. But as we look throughout these 10 Verses we see some of the SIN that would be written down for future generations to see. Let’s look again at Verses 2 and 3.
“Whilst their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills.
3 O my mountain in the field, I will give thy substance and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin, throughout all thy borders.”
A. ILLUS: Let me look close here. Let me EXAMINE IT. I believe I can read it. I...D...O...L...A...T...R...Y. Idolatry.
The people of Judah were worshipping idols. They had gods that they had put in front of the True and Living God.
Even their children had been brought into this idolatry. They were worshipping the idols of Asherah and Baal.
They knew the commandment “Thou shalt have no other god before me.” They just didn’t care.
They had heard the preaching of Jeremiah, but they just turned a DEAF EAR.
And so God says here that He’s going to write it DOWN.
And God tells them in Verse 3 and 4, that ALL of His blessings, All of the Good Things in Life, even their FREEDOM was about to slip away. Now that is SO SAD. What did these people gain by REBELLING and DISOBEYING GOD? Nothing.
B. Let me look again. What else do I see written down besides besides IDOLATRY, what other SIN was God going to WRITE DOWN? Let me see, T...R...U...S...T...I...N...G TRUSTING, Oh good, their TRUSTING but in what? M...A...N
Verse 5 tells us,
“Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.”
They were NOT just trusting in IDOLS, they were TRUSTING in themselves. Their own strength. Their own wisdom. Their own intelligence. And God says they will be CURSED!!! And look what it says. Their HEART DEPARTETH from the Lord. God writes SIN across their heart as they DEPART from Him. And Jeremiah tells us here that they become like a HEATH or you might say an old DRIED UP BUSH trying to survive out there in the DRY DESERT. Barely surviving.
I know some folks today that God is having to WRITE SIN across their hearts. And I believe this breaks HIS HEART!!!
You see, they have put other things before Him. Things in life have become more important than serving Him.
Their alcohol is more important than Him.
Their drugs, more important than Him.
Entertainment, more important than Him.
Their job is more important than Him.
Family is more important than Him.
Friends are more important than Him.
You see, the old devil doesn’t have to get you to fall off into DEEP DARK SIN, all he has to do, is get something in your life to become more important than God. You know what, he’s right.
One thing he’ll do is get you to RATIONALIZE SIN. JUSTIFY SIN. Figure things out for yourself. Proverbs 3:5,
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”
There’s that HEART AGAIN. Here’s Old Mitch’s version of Proverbs 3:5.
“Trust in the Lord with EVERYTHING and don’t try to figure it all out for yourself!!!”
You know when the OLD DEVIL came to Adam and EVE there in the Garden, he didn’t start right off with trying to get them to eat of the fruit. No, he first got them to doubt God. “Oh Eve, you’re not gonna die. Your eyes will be opened and you’ll become as gods knowing GOOD and EVIL.”
TRUST YOURSELF. In today’s lingo he might have said, “Just trust your heart. It won’t lead you astray.”
That’s real popular now-a-days. Just trust your heart.
NO!!! that’s not what God says. Verse 9
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
Don’t trust your HEART or ANYTHING but God.
And so we see what God wrote ... SIN.
III. So we see WHERE it was written. WHAT was written. Now let’s look at HOW it was written.
“With a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond:”
Do you see what Jeremiah is telling us here. God is taking a CHISEL, a DIAMOND POINTED CHISEL, and CARVING this out as if the heart was as HARD AS STONE.
ILLUS: 22 or 23 years ago I along with my dad and some friends built a cellar. I dug out the side of the hill and built it with a door you just walked up to and went inside. It’s still there but above the door was a big old sand stone. And I wanted to chisel the date in that rock. Mind you now, it was a sand stone. That shouldn’t be too hard right? WRONG. I finally went and got a GRINDER and GROUND the date into that rock. I can’t even imagine trying to chisel something into granite or marble.
And that’s what God is saying here. These people’s hearts had become SO HARD it was going to take a CHISEL to make a MARK. Here’s the deal. They had a choice just like each one of us has a choice today. We have a choice in WHAT God will write on our HEARTS and HOW He will write on our HEARTS.
It’s amazing to me that Jeremiah is prophesying to the people of Judah just before they go into their 70 years of captivity and the Prophet Zechariah is prophesying to the people right after they come home from their 70 years of Babylonian captivity. In Zechariah 7:9-12, he tells the people of Judah,
“Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother:
10 And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.
11 But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.
12 Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts.”
Did these people not learn anything? An ADAMANT STONE is a very hard stone. Some say it is referring back to a DIAMOND and others say it is a FLINT. It doesn’t really matter because the meaning is clear. It took something very HARD to write on these hearts.
EVERYONE of us has a choice whether to allow God to keep our heart SOFT or let it become HARD.
And listen, it’s easy for me to stand up here and say keep a SOFT HEART. Don’t lean on your own understanding. Trust God in everything. But with the DAY IN and DAY OUT testing and trials it’s not always easy.
I’ve known people who went through a GREAT LOSS in their life and they became hard hearted.
I’ve known some who became ANGRY with God, when things got tough.
There are those who attended church and some HUMAN PASTOR messed up, or somebody else, and NOW they want nothing to do with God.
ILLUS: I was talking to a guy I don’t know real well but I invited him to church. He said “NO, there’s too many hypocrites down there.” I said “Come on bud, why don’t you come, there’s room for one more.” LOL. Not really but I did tell him that there is NO PERFECT CHURCH and if there was they wouldn’t let me nor him come.
But we’re living in a time when people’s HEARTS are HARD. But God has a SOLUTION. King David wrote Psalms 51 after the Adulterous affair with Bathsheba. And this is what he said in Verses 9 and 10.
“Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”
David wanted God to take an eraser to his heart. Erase the LUST, the COVETING, the HATRED. He wanted God to ERASE the SIN that was written upon his HEART. And he wanted God to write something NEW.
His own son Solomon wrote in Proverbs 3:3
“Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:”
Listen we serve a God who can ERASE what’s been written on the TABLE of your HEART and WRITE Mercy and Truth. And here’s the deal. God doesn’t have to use a CHISEL. He will give you a NEW HEART. I think it is Brother Doyle I’ve heard say, “God did HEART SURGERY on me and he never had to make a single cut!!!” I like that. Ezekiel 36:26
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”
It’s ALL ABOUT the HEART. NOT this AMAZING MUSCLE that beats within our chest. No, it’s all about our very life. Our very being. It’s ALL ABOUT what we THINK. How we FEEL and WHAT WE DO. Romans 10:9 and 10,
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
Now let me ask you. Have you given your HEART to the Lord? Your very BEING? Listen, Jesus longs to be your Savior. Why don’t you give Him YOUR HEART today?
Let’s Pray
