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.
The LORD placed stumbling blocks before them so they will stumble. The prophecies of the false prophets, and the doctrines which they were permitted to spread among the people, were snares and stumbling blocks to them, and God gave them up to believe their lies, and to be hardened by them. They rejected God and stumbled and fell over Jehovah. Christ is also a stumbling block, an offence, to those who stumble and fall because of their rejection of Him. The final stumbling block for the nation was the Babylonian invaders. {{Isaiah 8:14 says “He will be a sanctuary, but for the two houses of Israel, HE WILL BE A STONE TO STUMBLE OVER and a rock to trip over, and a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,”}} (Holman) and 1 Peter 2:8 – “and A STONE TO STUMBLE OVER, AND A ROCK TO TRIP OVER. They stumble because they disobey the message. They were destined for this.” (Holman).}}
[B]. BABYLON IS PROPHESIED BUT THEY ARE CRUEL AND TERRIFYING
{{Jeremiah 6:22 THUS SAYS THE LORD, “Behold, a people is coming from THE NORTH LAND, and a great nation will be aroused from the remote parts of the earth. Jeremiah 6:23 They seize bow and spear. THEY ARE CRUEL AND HAVE NO MERCY. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, arrayed as a man for the battle against you, O daughter of Zion!”}}
(a). VERSE 22 – AWAKEN FROM SLEEP BABYLON IS COMING FROM THE NORTH
Jeremiah begins this section with “Thus says the Lord”. It is Jehovah declaring both His judgement, and the instrument of His judgement. His displeasure is about to fall on Judah for her continuing treachery, outlined many times by all the prophets. The enemy is at God’s disposal and elsewhere Nebuchadnezzar is called “My servant”. Babylon marches in triumph from its northern home of Chaldea along with vassal nations added to its empire. Their goal and purpose is fixed, unknown to them, at God’s direction. The word aroused indicates they have been sleeping but now are awake because they have a purpose to fulfill. Jeremiah 1:15 had spoken about these peoples from the north. Some count the Scythian tribes as the northerners but Babylon is on the march southwards.
Babylon was to become the first of the four great biblical empires that would affect Israel and that began the times of the Gentiles and it continues still to this day. The fourth Empire is still operating in the background. Rome was the most established of the Empires, and we are still under the influence of Rome. Rome did not perish as a power as did Babylon, the Medes/Persians, and the Greeks. Rome is not the military power it was but controls a lot more under “Roman”.
The prophecy students know that the Revived Roman Empire with the Antichrist as head will be restored in the Tribulation and we see this coming together now under NATO, the EU, the ECM and some of the WEF.
(b). VERSE 23 – CRUEL, MERCILESS, LOUD AND TO BE FEARED – THAT IS BABYLON
Their mission is terrible for they have the blood lust and they will kill at random without mercy, and with great cruelty. The Babylonian bowmen were very skilled and numerous. The spear is the javelin, shot or hurled at an enemy. They were a fully equipped army. Their battle cry and the shout of warfare are loud and penetrating and fearsome because there are so many of them. They sound like the advancing sea in the time of a frightening storm. Riding on horses means they come swiftly, fully equipped and loaded for battle, and this battle is specified to be against the daughter of Zion. Jehovah is giving up His people, no doubt with a sad heart, but the nation had become reprobate and beyond repentance. When a people reaches that stage, all they can look forward to is judgement. Judah’s position was somewhat similar to our world today as it ripens itself for the coming judgement.
[C]. PROPHETICALLY THE PEOPLE CRY OUT AND LAMENT
{{Jeremiah 6:24 “We have heard the report of it. Our hands are limp. Anguish has seized us, pain as of a woman in childbirth. Jeremiah 6:25 Do not go out into the field, and do not walk on the road, for the enemy has a sword. TERROR IS ON EVERY SIDE. Jeremiah 6:26 O daughter of my people, put on sackcloth and roll in ashes. MOURN as for an only son, a lamentation most bitter, for suddenly THE DESTROYER WILL COME UPON US.”}}
(a). VERSE 24 - JUDAH BEGINS TO COLLAPSE WITH FEAR AND DREAD
Now you have the consternation and fear among the Jews as reality strikes home, and Jeremiah becomes the spokesman beforehand of the nation’s cries. They were told by the false prophets they were invincible and they did not need to fear the invader. Jeremiah deals with this at the end of his prophecy. It is amazing how a proud, self-deceived people can melt away in fear when the lies of their lives are revealed, and all the delusion falls away exposing them as naked before a God of wrath. All that happened to Judah even before the enemy arrived. Such fear struck their hearts even at the report of the enemy’s advance.
Their hands are useless in defence. Emotionally, they are quaking with such fear that they are pained through distress, the comparison being given as a woman in labour pains, the same idea Jeremiah used in Jeremiah 4:31. Matthew Henry accurately said, [[“When warnings, corrections, rebukes, and all means of grace, leave men unrenewed, they will be left, as rejected of God, to everlasting misery.”]] God’s chosen people refused to listen to the God of their choosing when God chose them, and shut themselves off from any repentance or redeeming contact with Jehovah, so in the end, He turned away from them. We are viewing that end.
Could the people still have repented? Yes, they could have but there is some point at which human beings have become so hardened in defiance and sin, that it is impossible to bring them to repentance. That is where Judah was, and it will be the same situation in the Tribulation – read chapters 6 and 9 of Revelation. This verse among many – {{Revelation 9:21 “and THEY DID NOT REPENT of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their immorality, nor of their thefts.”}}
(b). VERSE 25 – STAY INDOORS!
In verse 25 we read of terror on every side for there is no escaping to the left or the right; to the front or to the back. To venture out to escape along the road or into the country across the field meant death for nearly all who would try. This is truly embracing of the word “hopeless”.
Fear of the unknown is real. We have all had that experience from time to time but in my lifetime it has not been national. Here in Jeremiah it will be national. When the Covid scare was on, reckless politicians and health people came out engendering fear in people. In Australia where I was living, these idiots made claims that 100,000 people would die. That is in a population of 24 million. People did not understand and these irresponsible people made ludicrous claims and then locked up people in their homes. It will be very real for Judah when the enemy begins to strike. That was to be national fear and terror.
(c). VERSE 26 – JEREMIAH CLAIMS HIS PEOPLE IN MOURNING
Jeremiah 6:26 O daughter of my people, put on sackcloth and roll in ashes. MOURN as for an only son, a lamentation most bitter, for suddenly THE DESTROYER WILL COME UPON US.”
In verse 26 Jeremiah is urging his nation to show humility, contrition and repentance. The sackcloth and ashes signify that. Normally, a repentant person would cast ashes on his head, but here the expression is to roll in ashes (“wallow” in the AV), meaning a complete cover of ashes. They were enjoined to mourn (to express grief) and to lament (wail with a sincere heart and beat the breast). They were to become as a father who had lost his only son in the grief they needed to express. I don’t believe they did that. They showed remorse/regret at what they were losing, but no spiritual exercise in recognition of their sinful heart. There was no true repentance. Jeremiah urged a contrite repentance because the destroyer was about to pounce, and it was to be sudden. Idolatrous sinfulness had earned its just reward. The Babylonians were to be God’s sword and it fell with destroying vengeance against a stubborn nation.
The book of Lamentations can not go unread in this situation. Jeremiah lamented over the sins and then the fate of his people. In this verse 26 he identifies himself with his nation. “my people” and “upon us”.
[D]. THE FINDINGS OF THE ASSAYER, JEREMIAH, ARE WRITTEN DOWN. THE REFINING HAS FAILED
{{Jeremiah 6:27 “I have made you an assayer and a tester among My people, that you may know and assay their way.” Jeremiah 6:28 All of them are stubbornly rebellious, going about as a talebearer. They are bronze and iron. THEY, ALL OF THEM, ARE CORRUPT. Jeremiah 6:29 The bellows blow fiercely. The lead is consumed by the fire. In vain the refining goes on, but the wicked are not separated. Jeremiah 6:30 They call them rejected silver because the LORD has rejected them.”}}
(a). VERSE 27 - THE LORD APPOINTED JEREMIAH AS A METAL ASSAYER
I wonder if the arrangement here is that in verse 27, God has given Jeremiah the ability to see the very heart of the people, testing and reporting on it, then the next few verses to record his findings. It is their report card and it is awful. We associate assaying with precious gems and gold, and those who do that job are skilled and know how to recognise the genuine from the fake. Jeremiah is very skilled because he knows God’s word and is faithful for the truth, knowing how to divide truth from error; genuine from the false; authentic from the imitation.
This is the time for reality. The end of the year has come and it is examination time. It is as if the metals test has arrived and Jeremiah is the examiner.
(b). VERSE 28 – THE VERDICT IS FAIL
His findings are that a great disgrace had spread across the face of the people. In verse 28 there are two uses of the word “all”, a clear statement that the whole nation is reprobate and everyone is guilty. Later on the prophet could write a conclusion for all the assaying he has done, but no better way than to quote the Master Assayer – {{Jeremiah 17:9-10 The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it? “I, the LORD, search the heart. I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.”}}
It is like the assaying of the Apostle Paul through the Spirit when his conclusion was reached – {{Romans 3:10-12 as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless. There is none who does good. There is not even one.”}} Jeremiah would have been disheartened by his conclusions of idolatry everywhere, and injustice from the youngest to the oldest, and multitudes of sins outlined by all the prophets. However he was not surprised as the whole writing of his maintained that constant theme of corruption.
In this one verse we have “rebellious, talebearer, corrupt.” It could very well be our own time about which he is speaking. One point of interest is that iron and bronze were the hardest metals known in the age so the hardness of the people towards their God is portrayed by those two metals.
Then, in the final three verses of the chapter, the testing has produced the findings. Judah is rebellious in its stubbornness – every one of them. Gossips were everywhere and misrepresentations by tales and untruths, were the way of life. Probably Judah at that time was even more wicked than our nations are today. The next finding was that the nation was bronze and iron. Both these were very hard, one an alloy and one a mineral/metal. The nation was as hard as bronze and iron towards God with no hope for it. Bronze is made of copper and tin, both minerals/metals, softer and malleable.
There was a time when Israel was malleable in the hands of her loving God but they hardened themselves to become useless to God for He could no longer work with them. Iron is associated with judgement as we find in {{Revelation 2:27 “and he shall rule them with A ROD OF IRON, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also have received authority from My Father.”}}
Some say the allusion to bronze and iron is that these base metals contain no precious metal and Israel used to be associated with gold and silver as refined before God, being the purity of godliness. Now they have corrupted themselves, becoming base. Elsewhere in scripture, the use of all metals was looked at as good – {{Joshua 6:19 “But all the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron are holy to the LORD; they shall go into the treasury of the LORD,”}} but when the nation had become base, then it was serious. The phrase “stubbornly rebellious” literally is “rebel of rebels”. The finding is that they are all corrupt, some using the term “adulterers and corrupters”. It was a morally bankrupt nation, and degenerate in the sight of God. What a terrible report card.
(c). VERSES 29 AND 30
In verse 29 the bellows are working overtime to refine Israel but to no avail, even though the process keeps continuing. There is much effort expended but no tangible result. [[“In refining, the alloy containing the gold or silver is mixed with lead, and fused in a furnace on a vessel of earth or bone-ash: a current of air is turned upon the molten mass (not upon the fire); the lead then oxidises, and acting as a flux, carries away the alloy, leaving the gold or silver pure.” (I. Napier, The Ancient Workers in Metal, 1856, pp. 20, 23).]] Judah could only produce adulterated silver for the wicked were woven in the fabric of the nation. It was one molten pot of corruption.
In the end the nation is rejected as worthless, or reprobate silver. The refiner has declared all is useless, and the Refiner of Israel did the same with the nation in Jeremiah’s time. Verse 30 ends Jeremiah’s findings spread through three verses. Again Matthew Henry’s quote from above is repeated - Matthew Henry accurately said, [[“When warnings, corrections, rebukes, and all means of grace, leave men unrenewed, they will be left, as rejected of God, to everlasting misery.”]]
We have reached the end of the chapter and it is all doom and gloom for Judah because she was grossly corrupt and would not repent. Jeremiah must have felt such a burden in his prophesying with no tangible results except the rejection of himself and his message.
