LESSONS FROM JEREMIAH – PART 5 – INJUSTICE AGAINST GOD; TREACHERY AND DEMONISM
PART 5 - Jeremiah 2:4-12
CHAPTER 2
[A]. THE ADDRESS TO THE NATION; THE LORD PLEADING WITH THEM
{{Jeremiah 2:4-8 Hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Jeremiah 2:5 Thus says the LORD, “WHAT INJUSTICE DID YOUR FATHERS FIND IN ME, that they went far from Me and walked after emptiness and became empty? Jeremiah 2:6 They did not say, ‘Where is the LORD who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of deep darkness, through a land that no one crossed and where no man dwelt? Jeremiah 2:7 I BROUGHT YOU INTO THE FRUITFUL LAND to eat its fruit and its good things, BUT YOU CAME AND DEFILED MY LAND, and My inheritance you made an abomination. Jeremiah 2:8 The priests did not say, ‘Where is the LORD?’ and those who handle the law did not know Me. The rulers also transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and walked after things that did not profit.”}}
Now we come to the serious message delivered through Jeremiah to a wide audience. It seems he is addressing the whole of the descendants of Jacob and not just the people of the southern kingdom of Judah. He is inclusive in “house of Jacob” and specific in “families of the house of Israel” but the message is from the Lord and he proceeds with it. A man of courage will speak for God when he knows there is fierce opposition, as did all the Old Testament prophets and so many in the New Testament. In our own day we seem to have too many wimps in church leadership who won’t upset the apple cart. They are more interested in image and popularity, money and acceptance, rather than in faithfulness to the Lord.
There is a Sunday School chorus the older ones might know called “Dare to Be a Daniel” – “Dare to be a Daniel; Dare to stand alone; Dare to have a purpose firm; And dare to make it known.” The same could be said for Jeremiah. Could it be said of us?
WHAT INJUSTICE? In verse 2 God recalls their former devotion but evil came upon them commensurate with their deliberate departure from their life source. God asks them what injustice did they find in Him. In fact Israel became self-willed and separated itself from God. They pursued their own endeavours and saw any restraint from God, or any leading of God as injustice.
This is the problem with the human heart. It is so corrupted it can never pursue a level path with God. Sin has caused so much distortion that man can not separate right from wrong. The first casualty in this is justice. Over and over again the Old Testament, prophets decried the injustice of the land and that included unjust judges.
For those of you who live in the United States, you may or may not follow what is happening in your law courts in 2023 and 2024 with the multitude of trials against Donald Trump, trumped up charges to discredit him in the Presidential election. There is no justice in New York State, none whatever. Blatant injustice is there, and corrupt judges and juries and District Attorney. The whole system is sick and putrid from head to toe. Don’t believe me. Go and read it for yourselves. In fact throughout the bible the abuse of justice make God very angry. His judgement most certainly will fall.
The nation of Israel was to live in submission to God but refused to do that and rebelled. God has established this headship through all of creation. Man was designated head over the woman in the original creation. The husband is designated as head of the family in marriage. Christ is Head of the Church His body, and of course, Jehovah is Head and husband of Israel. Wherever there is rebellion, it will destroy God’s order and God’s institution. The stark truth of self-will had to be made known to Saul – {{1 Samuel 15:22-23 Samuel said (to Saul), “Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed, than the fat of rams, for REBELLION is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.”}} Rebellion is compared with divination (NASB) or witchcraft (KJV). It is very evil and the whole of Israel is guilty of it.
Israel considered God’s position as unjust and rebelled. The world’s woman has considered God unjust in establishing headship in creation and rebels against it. Israel rebelled against Jehovah when all His workings with Israel was for good. Men rebel against the headship of God over them. Some women in marriage don’t care what the head of the marriage says and go off to do what they want as independent, rebellious women who destroy marriages. They speak about not being under any control, even that of their husbands. It is just one facet of the world’s rebellion, of the lost position of humanity before a holy God.
It is so calming and good to see a woman who values her husband and seeks to be under his leading from God. It was said to me by a woman, “I don’t care what so and so (the husband) thinks. I will just do what I want.” Sadly it goes without saying her daughter is just the same and she is trying to instil in her own daughter to be part of the same rebellion. This spirit of rebellion is not from God. Those women are convinced that what their husbands do or try to do in marriage leadership is unjust, and they won’t be led or submit, which is a command by God to do. Needless to say all that wrecks relationships and marriages.
You say, how can that happen? That is what God is asking in verse 5. What injustice was there that saw Israel departing from God? I think it has to come from an untamed spirit of rebellion and pride that operates within, so that the good ideals of God and of a husband are said to be unjust. Sadly rebellion in Israel, and in marriage, and in a Church, all come from the father of rebellion, Satan, for he rose up in pride to overcome God. Paul warned the church to be careful lest there be found in you a spirit of rebellion leading away from God. Rebellion is pernicious. Verse 5 correctly identifies a walk not according to God. It is one of emptiness and fills the self-willed one with emptiness so that the whole life is wasted and passes to a lost eternity.
Jeremiah’s message continues to inform them in verse 6 that they did not ask where the Lord was, the very Lord who led them through peril and difficult places, proving His care for them through the centuries. Not only did God do that, but also he placed them in a fruitful land so they could enjoy its blessings, but incredibly, they defiled the very good land into which the Lord brought them. The land was defiled by the high places, and idols and rituals under every green tree, even child sacrifice to Molech. The land was God’s inheritance that He gave to Israel to be their inheritance but it was defied by all their abominations, by all the Baal shrines and images to Astarte and all the asherim. They corrupted the land so that it became like putrid refuse.
The United States seemingly was founded on Christian principles and over time the nation was relatively “christian” often with a good Christian witness. BUT NOW? What has happened? The land has become polluted by the worship and promotion of homosexuality; and babies murdered by abortion; and the justice system made a political weapon; by the destruction of gender and children’s sexuality. America is not alone in this; Europe is just as bad, and Australia is worse with the addition of paganism and spiritism forced into the culture.
Verse 8 lists those who were in positions of authority and who abused those positions by acting corruptly. Their corruptions were against God. The first group was the priests who should have been seeking the Lord to know His will and to carry out the service of the Lord with clean bodies and souls, as they had to do when serving in the Temple. The priests were to be holy and seek the Lord but these then, had no regard for God.
The second group was those who handled the Law, that is the teachers of the Law and the implementers of the Law, but these people failed because they did not even know the Law. They were hypocrites who took a position they were not called to, or qualified for. Is it no different in some churches today with ministers, clergy and priests assuming positions they know nothing about? They know the rituals and the church procedures and the protocols but they do not know the Bible or the Lord personally. Whether you use the words nominal, liberal or career men, it still means the one thing – they do not know God’s word as the living water in the new birth. Charlatans in churches.
The third group is the rulers and they are the ones who should have led the nation but they did not because they were corrupt. Amos outlines the abuses in Judah because of men like this who were in control but were the perpetrators of these sins against the Lord. The prophets came next but they were dishonourable for they abused their position also. They were supposed to know the mind of the Lord and speak His messages to the nation, but these men forfeited that right as they were servants of Baal and were as dead as dodos towards God. False prophets. Judah was betrayed by these four classes who represented the leadership of the nation.
[B]. GREAT TREACHERY WITH THE LORD GOD REJECTED - GOD CHALLENGES THE NATION’S MOTIVES
{{Jeremiah 2:9-12 “Therefore I will yet contend with you,” declares the LORD, “and with your sons’ sons I will contend. Cross to the coastlands of Kittim and see, and send to Kedar and observe closely, and see if there has been such a thing as this! HAS A NATION CHANGED GODS WHEN THEY WERE NOT GODS, BUT MY PEOPLE HAVE CHANGED THEIR GLORY FOR THAT WHICH DOES NOT PROFIT? Be appalled, O heavens, at this, and shudder. Be very desolate,” declares the LORD.}}
The logical thing was that the Lord would step away and leave the nation to its own devices. In fact the Lord did that in the end, but the end had not yet come because God still sought the nation’s return and would contend with them. This stopped at the time of Nebuchadnezzar, but in an unnoticed way, God has always been contending with the Jew, but it will be openly done after the Church is raptured, and in the Great Tribulation the Jews will return to their Messiah. Their time will come, and after the Second Coming, Israel will be the head of all the nations of the earth and the Lord God will reign over all nations from Jerusalem.
Kittim was west of Judah (Chittim in the KJV), and was in the region of Cyprus, colonised by Phœnicians. The modern city is known as Chitti. Jeremiah seeks out the most distant place to the west that was known, which was around Greece and the term became applied to all the Mediterranean coastline. Those people to the west were considered cultured, whereas the peoples to the east, represented by Kedar which was in the Arabian area, were thought of as barbarians. Kittim is found in Numbers 24:24; Isaiah 23:1 and Daniel 11:30. Simply, the passage means, “Go to the most distant parts of the earth and observe the people to see if any of them has changed the worship of their forefathers.” The implied answer is “No.” Then the contrast is made. The gods of the nations are empty, false gods, yet the God of Israel is the true, living God, but Israel has changed the true God for the false Baals, whereas those who worship false gods since their forefathers’ time, have not changed theirs. Israel's change was unprofitable and gave emptiness, and the Lord even called on the heavens to be appalled at what happened for it only means desolation.
The west has changed its gods too – Now it runs after climate change, abortion, homosexuality and the destruction of the child’s identity, gender and sexuality. A monstrous thing is happening in Australia. God has been thrown away and the nation is adopting the worship of satanic spirits from the Australian aborigines. The religion of the aborigines was spiritism and the worship of Satan in the form of the Rainbow Serpent. Evil (demonic) spirits were everywhere. Now instead of opening Federal Parliament with Christian prayer as used to be done, Parliaments are opened with what is known as a “smoking ceremony,” from the spiritist Aborigines. That is when leaves and grass are lit in a container and the smoke is waved towards the face and covers the person. It is satanic, the invoking of evil spirits for a person’s “good”. Absolute spiritism from Satan and this is now happening everywhere including schools. The nation has changed its God and embraced Satanism and paganism. It is bad, really bad.
It is now happening all over the western world. Islam has its god (Allah is actually a Baal god) and communism has its god (murderous atheism).
