LESSONS FROM JEREMIAH – PART 22 – IT IS TRAGIC WHEN A NATION FINALLY REAPS THE SIN IT HAS SOWN – SIN HAS CONSEQUENCES
PART 22 - Jeremiah 6:6-12
CHAPTER 6
[A]. A CALL TO THE INVADERS, BUT A PLEA FOR JUDAH TO REPENT OF ITS WICKEDNESS
{{Jeremiah 6:6 Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Cut down her trees, and cast up a siege against Jerusalem. This is the city to be punished, in whose midst there is ONLY OPPRESSION. Jeremiah 6:7 As a well keeps its waters fresh, so she keeps fresh her wickedness. Violence and destruction are heard in her. Sickness and wounds are ever before Me. Jeremiah 6:8 Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I be alienated from you, lest I make you a desolation, a land not inhabited.”
(a). JERUSALEM THE CITY OF OPPRESSION WILL BE PUNISHED
This next section is an address from the Lord against Jerusalem, beginning with the invitation to besiege the city, and ending with the door opened to survival. The Lord’s indirect command is to Chaldean army to gather timber for the siege ramps, and therefore it would be understood, that the city would be defeated. That defeat is the punishment from the Lord and a reason is given – oppression. We have already seen the oppression suffered by the poor and by those who could obtain no justice. God will avenge the injustice done to the helpless and the powerless.
In today’s world there is gross injustice everywhere, most of it stemming from the so-called Christian world, developed nations acting in line with American greed and corruption (great corporations and Tech companies). The word “ONLY” in verse 6 is significant. God could find nothing of commendable value, just oppression overriding all else, just like Noah’s time when He found nothing but continual evil in men’s hearts and thoughts. I find that it is so easy to be influenced or numbed by the wickedness around that we can become ignorant of the hurting and suffering people in our world, those who lack decency and justice. Evil has cast a murky haze all around and we fail to discern through the cloud and see the plight of those needy ones. We easily become desensitised.
In verse 6 the LORD says Jerusalem must be punished. The principle underlying that decision is going to apply to today’s world. As I write this there is gross injustice – so evident – stemming from the White House, the legal system in the US States and from the large Agencies like the FBI. This is not picking on the USA because so many nations are going the same way. When those appointed for the welfare of the people fail, and have become corrupted, then like Samaria, like Assyria, like Judah, like Babylon, etc. then God steps in to punish and overthrow. SIN WILL ALWAYS HAVE A CONSEQUENCE and is the reason why the world now stands on the brink of the great Tribulation that is God’s wrath against injustice, willful sin, and rejection of the Creator of all things.
(b). VERSE 7 – VIOLENCE, DESTRUCTION, SICKNESS AND WOUNDS
The prophet uses a simile from God in verse 7, an example well known to everyone. All knew the importance of the well for fresh water but equally known, was the necessity to keep that well free from contamination. The water in the well must be kept fresh but the well of Jerusalem’s relationship with God was grossly contaminated. What Jerusalem was keeping fresh was its wickedness, almost in pristine condition; continually being refreshed; then to describe that wickedness, two doubles are used. The first one is violence and destruction, and these issues are brought out many times in the prophecy. It was a city given to the violence of the flesh, and bloodshed. It was horrible.
Light rejected creates greater darkness and, Judah had long ago rejected the light of God. Conditions in Jerusalem were approaching the conditions in Noah’s time and as that resulted in overall destruction, so in Judah’s time it would mean total destruction for them also. The two verses from Genesis that could parallel Judah are these – {{Genesis 6:5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” and Genesis 6:13 Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me for the earth is filled with violence because of them, and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.”}}
Then the Lord mentions sickness and wounds in the next double in verse 7. I don’t think this is referring to physical ailments, more to spiritual ones. The spiritual health of the land was sick and it had been wounded terribly by self-inflicted spiritual wounds. The condition was relentless for these were ever present before the Lord, a similar situation to what Isaiah noted – {{Isaiah 1:4-6 “Alas, sinful nation, people weighed down with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned the LORD; they have despised the Holy One of Israel; they have turned away from Him. Where will you be stricken again as you continue in your rebellion? THE WHOLE HEAD IS SICK AND THE WHOLE HEART IS FAINT. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it, only bruises, welts, and raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged, nor softened with oil.”}} Spiritual sickness pervades our nations as so many of the precepts of God have been trashed and overturned.
(c). VERSE 8 - WARNING FROM THE LORD IS GOD’S MERCY TO THE NATION
We look at a quote from the New Testament – {{Luke 13:2-5 and He answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate? I tell you, no, but UNLESS YOU REPENT, YOU WILL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH, or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but UNLESS YOU REPENT, YOU WILL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH.”}} Did the nation listen to the Lord and repent? No, they did not and they perished in AD 70. God’s words do not return empty. The world today is also standing at the brink as did Judah in Jeremiah’s time; as did Israel in Jesus’ time. Today’s world has heaped up sins of arrogance, horrible sins of homosexuality and abortion, and is about to face judgement also.
Verse 6 is the judgement. Verse 7 is the condition. Verse 8 is the opened door. God is again -yet again at this late hour - offering to pardon the nation if it would turn to Him. He warns them; tries to show them their condition; but will not force them. It is the willing heart that speaks with God, not the forced chains of another’s will. God warns them that to continue as they are would end in separation from Him, an indirect reference to the captivity they would face. The consequences were great. They would find their whole world collapsing around them; their God estranged from them; they themselves becoming a desolation (a wretchedness, a barrenness, misery); and their land becoming uninhabited. Such a warning to some may prompt them into action and repentance, but not Israel. God was dismissed by the people, and all that which was promised, fell on them.
[B]. THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN JEREMIAH AND JEHOVAH ABOUT THE NATION
{{Jeremiah 6:9 Thus says the LORD of hosts, “They will thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as the vine. Pass your hand again over the branches like a grape gatherer.” Jeremiah 6:10 To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Behold, their ears are closed, and they cannot listen. Behold, the word of the LORD has become a reproach to them. They have no delight in it. Jeremiah 6:11 I am full of the wrath of the LORD. I am weary with holding it in. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the gathering of young men together, for both husband and wife shall be taken, the aged and the very old. Jeremiah 6:12 Their houses shall be turned over to others. Their fields and their wives together, for I will stretch out My hand against the inhabitants of the land,” declares the LORD.}}
(a). VERSE 9 – CITING THE GATHERER OF GRAPES
The LORD is speaking. Here you have a dialogue between Jeremiah and the Lord, and the Lord begins with the pronouncement that they (Babylon) will not miss any of the inhabitants, so thorough will they be, that it is likened to a grape picker, fastidious about not missing any of the fruit in the gleaning. Israel was an agrarian economy and often in the Old Testament and especially in the Lord’s messages when on earth, we see references to the farming comparisons. The crop would be taken/harvested, and then the gleaners (often the poor) would come in to retrieve any missed produce they could find, so that nothing would remain.
Babylon will be like the gleaners in the capture of Israel and nothing will be missed, so thorough they will be in destruction. The problem with Babylon, is that it showed no mercy but was cruel, and for that God promised He would destroy Babylon, and it was defeated by the Medes and Persians. {{2Chronicles 36:17 “Therefore He brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or infirm; He gave them all into his hand.”}}
Nothing remaining is bad news for Judah, because it means a thorough removal of those who remain (the remnant) from the large number who will die, and scarcely anyone will remain, just some of the poorest in the country. The Lord’s vine will be fruitless and unproductive because it bore evil fruit and its productivity lay in its adulterous pursuit of all foreign gods. The vine will be left in shame, and continues in shame today, but one day will flourish again, tendered and nurtured by the Lord Himself.
(b). VERSE 10 – CLOSED EARS HAVE REPROACHED THE WORD OF THE LORD
In verse 10, Jeremiah asks about whom he should warn, who in the land would listen and heed the Lord, and repent. Nationally, the ears of everyone are closed for they are incapable of listening. Why is that? Sin hardens an unrepentant soul and the time is reached when the person is incapable of hearing and responding, for the conscience has become calloused and closed over. The original is “their ear is uncircumcised”, picturing an ear that is covered over that it can’t hear, and the nation would not circumcise its ear. What a terrible state to be in, yet people today are like that, day by day edging to a lost eternity. May the hammer of God break up the calloused soul to allow the entrance of the conversion light of God through His holy word.
This verse tells us what Judah’s attitude to God’s word was. This would encompass both the words of Jeremiah in his preaching, “Thus says the Lord”, and also the written word through the prophets and writers from Moses onwards. Their attitude to all instruction and warning from God, was the same. The word confronted them in their sin, and like Adam and Eve, they wanted to flee from God like cockroaches in the night when a light is switched on, and stop up their uncircumcised ears. Man hates the revelation of himself, for the word of God is a mirror, and once the word of God begins to take effect, then he wants to eliminate the source of spiritual irritation. He turns from God; he departs; he silences the word through all sorts of means; he even legislates against it like we see now where action is being taken in Australia against those who oppose homosexuality. Man convicted, hates the exposure of his sins to himself.
Only through the agency of the Holy Spirit, will man be brought to repentance. Then he flees to God, not away from Him. It clearly says the word of God had become a reproach to them. Some of the synonyms for “reproach” are “censure, criticism, rebuke, accusation”, revealing the effect the word of Jehovah had on them, but they rejected it all and the verse ends with “They have no delight in it”. Their loss was great for the word of God is a delight to the soul. It is like sweet honey, and the shining light that illuminates the loveliness of God and our dear Lord Jesus Christ. It is the daily lamp lighting up the way for our footsteps. God’s word is pure and holy and powerful and it is wisdom.
Judah hated the word of God, and even more, it suggested that their opposition was rising up against the word in hostility; and so many modern men and women hate the word of God, and even children today parrot the words of their elders such as, “The bible is about violence. The bible is full of contradictions. Adam is a myth. It is a book for weak-minded people. It is narrow-minded and ought to be banned.” They know it all, they think. The next generation is becoming so evil. In these last days we will see more and more of this. Even so, come Lord Jesus.
For Jeremiah, it was all so overwhelming. Day after day he faithfully delivered the warnings and appeals from God. God’s message was rejected. He was mocked and persecuted. He was reviled and scorned.
(c). VERSE 11 – JEREMIAH’S EMOTIONS OVERFLOW
Then in verse 11 the prophet says he is so full of the wrath of the Lord, and he is so weary of trying to contain it (hold it in). What can this mean? To begin with, this righteous prophet is so affronted by the wickedness of his people, and he knew God’s wrath was coming against them yet he did not desire its coming. The coming wrath was building up in him like a dam filling with water and he could scarcely contain it. The more he preached, the more the message was rejected, and the more the wrath of God was accumulating against the nation. He felt it all. It was very tiring, and after all, he was a man of human frailties even though inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Then we have a decisive change, for God knew how this ministry was weighing on Jeremiah. God breaks in and speaks the remainder of verse 11 and all verse 12. It is God who says, “Pour it out” but we have to be careful for God is not telling Jeremiah to pour out the wrath of God. Jeremiah may pour out his heart in preaching about the coming wrath, but he can not pour out the wrath himself. God has to do that, or the task is given to angels appointed for that as we see in the seal and trumpet and bowl judgements of Revelation. It is Jehovah who commands that the wrath be poured out.
The remainder of verse 11 is all inclusive for it begins with the children who play on the streets, then the gatherings of young men. These are the fittest, and probably like the youth of today, thought themselves invulnerable, but they will be swept away in judgement, just like the children. Next, the married ones are included, husbands and wives connected with each other, but not with the Lord. That moves on to the aged, the older ones of society who should have wisdom and known better, but they too will fall under the rod of God’s wrath.
Interestingly, Jeremiah then includes the “very old” and these we presume are those of advanced years who don’t have much mobility or may be partly senile, frail and needing care. Even those will not escape the outpoured wrath of God. The judgement, when it came, would not discriminate. All of them, young and old, were reprobate and would not repent, and headed onwards for certain destruction.
(d). VERSE 12 – THEIR IDOLATRY AND SIN CAUSE THEM TO LOSE EVERYTHING
Verse 12 lists some of the losses they would incur. They would lose their houses and their fields and their wives. Houses meant stability and ownership. That would go. Fields meant produce and sustenance. That too would go. Wives meant support and communion. That also would go. They would be left with nothing as God’s judgement fell severely on them. God’s outstretched hand against them was for judgement and destruction, but in this church age, God’s outstretched hand is for salvation. However the time of God’s ingathering is fast closing, and that will be followed by God’s outstretched hand again in judgement upon, not one nation, but the whole world. While the time avails, repentance is needed swiftly.
