Jeremiah 25:1-11 – The importance of obedience

The prophecy recorded in Jeremiah 25 occurred in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim. Let’s look at some background information to help us better understand the text.

Second Kings 23:36 said that Jehoiakim ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. Pharoah Neco had placed him on the throne and also made Judah a vassal state of Egypt. As Egypt’s vassal state, Judah also had to pay a yearly tribute to Egypt. In her position, Judah was unwittingly drawn into the conflict Egypt had with Babylon at the battle of Carchemish. Jeremiah 46:2 tells us that this was a battle that Egypt eventually lost to Babylon in the 4th year of the reign of Jehoiakim.

One other passage that will enlighten us is Daniel 1:1-6. Here we are told  that in the 3rd year of Jehoiakim’s reign, “…Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.” We are also told that “The  Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god.” This was the time that some of the better-educated youth from Judah, including the Prophet Daniel, were deported to Babylon. For the first time that Judah came under the direct control of Babylon. Here was when Jeremiah saw with clarity how the prophecies concerning Judah’s captivity would come into fulfillment.

For 23 years since the days of King Josiah, Jeremiah had been proclaiming and prophesying God’s message to Judah faithfully, but the people refused to listen and obey. He had persistently urged the people to turn from their sins. Besides him, the Lord also sent other faithful prophets to proclaim the same, but they also refused to listen or take heed. Jeremiah 25:5-7 describe the message God sent to them through His faithful prophets. They were urged to turn from their evil deeds so that they could dwell in the promised land which God had given to their forefathers forever. They were also urged not to pursue other gods. They should neither serve nor worship them. For if they ignore God’s instruction, harm would be their experience. The people of Judah did not listen and instead continued to provoke God to anger with their evil deeds.

Because they refused to take heed to the warnings of the prophets, God was going to punish them. He would be using Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians from the north as His instrument to purge Judah. Joy, gladness, and celebration would be replaced by doom, despair, and desolation. All the pleasant experiences would cease, and they would be taken into captivity to serve the king of Babylon for 70 years.  

When must never take God for granted. Don’t test His patience. Take heed and obey His word when His grace is shown. The question the Prophet Samuel asked of the people of Israel is the question we must address. “Has the  Lord  as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?”(1 Samuel 15:22).  Nothing we can ever do for God will please Him more than our total obedience. The Lord delights in our obedience far more than anything we can ever do for Him. Let’s be God’s obedient people! 

 

Jeremiah 24:1-10 – Be disciplined or be abandoned

Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem three times. In the second siege, 2 Kings 24:12 tells us that “Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he and his mother and his servants and his captains and his officials. So the king of Babylon took him captive in the eighth year of his reign.” So the king of Babylon took Jehoiachin together with those key members of his captives in Babylon. Meanwhile, in 2 Kings 24:17 we are told that after Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin to Babylon, he made his uncle Mattaniah, another son of Josiah, king in his place in Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar also changed Mattaniah's name to Zedekiah, meaning righteousness of God.   

After Jehoiachin was taken into captivity God gave Jeremiah a message concerning the people of Judah through an open vision. In Jeremiah 24:1-3 we are told how the whole scene happened. The prophet saw two baskets of figs before the temple of God. One basket contained very good figs and first-ripen figs while the other basket had very bad and rotten figs that could not be eaten. The Lord  then asked Jeremiah, “What did he see?” The prophet’s response was “Figs, the good figs, very good; and the bad figs, very bad, which cannot be eaten due to rottenness.”

Following the vision, God then gave him a message concerning what he saw. He told Jeremiah that the basket of good figs represents those whom God would send into exile. And the basket of bad and rotten figs represents those whom Nebuchadnezzar had left in Judah. If the Lord had said nothing further, the natural conclusion would be that those taken into exile were bad and deserved to be punished and those that were left behind and not taken into exile would be the approved people of God.  But the opposite is true.  Jeremiah 24:5-7 tell us that those who were taken into exile were the people God had set His eyes upon and would fulfill His purpose through them. God was going to work in them to awaken them to bring about repentance and turn them around and bring them back from captivity. These would be ensured of a new relationship with the Lord.   

The basket of bad figs, those who remained in Jerusalem or deflected to rely on Egypt. They were the people that the Lord had abandoned and left to continue in their self-destructive devices. There they would continue in their evil and eventually end up being humiliated horribly. Verses 9-10 summed up their end. God Himself said, “I will make them a terror and an evil for all the kingdoms of the earth, as a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse in all places where I will scatter them.” God will also send them, “…the sword, the famine, and the pestilence upon them until they are destroyed from the land which I gave to them and their forefathers.’”

What’s the lesson for us? We must not mistake divine discipline for divine abandonment. Divine abandonment is when God chooses to leave us alone. Who will God abandon? Romans 1:21 tells us that people who knew God would not honor or thank Him but choose instead to worship crafted idols. What will happen to this sort of people? Romans 1:24-25 say of such people “Therefore, God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” Romans 1:26-27 say that such people would end up in degrading passion.

 

The Bible tells us that those who God loves, He disciplines. When we face hard times, it is part of God’s molding process. He is shaping us to be the person He wants us to become. God will discipline us for our good but if we do not yield to His molding, we will end up being abandoned by Him. That will be when we will become careless, illogical, and unreasonable and will freely indulge in a life of senseless depravity.   

Jeremiah 23:33-40 – Handle God’s Word responsibly

The word “oracle” literally means “burden.” When prophets declared the word of God they were essentially declaring the burden of the Lord. Here in Jeremiah 23:33, God specifically instructed Jeremiah on how to respond to the people, prophets, or priests when they come deceptively to him asking for God’s burden. He was to respond firstly by asking them rhetorically, “What burden.” Then he should proceed to tell them that “God would be abandoning them.” In other words, Jeremiah’s response to any inquiry on the burden of G0d should be: “God has no other message for them except that He would be abandoning them.”

In verses 34-37, we see a warning to those prophets, priests, and people who dared to continue to falsely claim to proclaim the burden of the Lord.  If they persist in misleading and misguiding the people with their false claims, God would be punishing them along with their family members.  Apparently, the word “burden” had been grossly misused and perverted by the false prophets. Anything they declared was claimed to be the burden of the Lord. Hence Jeremiah and true prophets were instructed to avoid using the word “burden” in their proclamation.

Verses 38-40 declared the end of those false prophets who persist in proclaiming falsely “the burden of the Lord.” Since they would display their defiance toward God with the intention to deceive the people they would be dealt with by God. What they were doing, were in effect becoming the burden of God. He would punish them by casting them away. They would be taken away as captives into a distant foreign land.

To proclaim God’s word is serious business. There should be no impropriety in handling God’s truth. God abhors anyone who would twist and contort His Word to mislead and misguide His people. God will hold everyone accountable for the careless words one has spoken. Jesus tells us in Matthew 12:36 saying, “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.”  We must be careful that what we proclaim and share does not stumble other believers. This is Jesus’ warning in Matthew 18:6, “but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” So be careful what we share.   

Jeremiah 23:9-32 – Being God’s good workmen

God as we have established is all-knowing and all-seeing. Nothing escapes his eye. In Jeremiah 23:25-27, God asserts His displeasure with the false prophets and their misleading prophecies. The source of their prophecies was questionable. Obviously, their prophecies did not originate from God but from their own dreams and ideas. Exasperated and disgusted, Jeremiah rhetorically asked how long they would continue with their fallacy. He asked how long would they continue to mislead the people with their falsehood and deception? He questioned their intention. Whatever dream they were propagating, they were dangerously making the people forget God, while goading them to embrace Baal.

God insisted that while the pseudo prophets would spread falsehood and mislead the people, God’s true prophet must always speak His true word. Several reasons were given in Jeremiah 23:28-29 why truth and not falsehood must always be told. Firstly, falsehood, like straw would only be suitable for the fire whereas the word of God, like grain, would provide needful nutrients. Secondly, God’s Word, like fire and hammer would destroy whatever was worthless. The fire would burn away falsehood and the hammer would shatter all deception.

In Jeremiah 23:30-32, God denounced the false prophets for leading the people astray. God was against them because they copied the words of true prophets and used them in their false prophecy. They would use the phrase “the Lord declares” which was a feature of true prophecy to lend weight to their falsehood. Unquestioningly, to use this phrase was a serious matter. It was as good as asserting that whatever was spoken came directly from God. But sadly, whatever they were saying did not come from God but from their own vain imagination. In so doing they were recklessly leading the people into falsehood and were of no benefit to them.

To be God’s good spokesmen, we need to return to consider the question asked in Jeremiah 23:18. “For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord to see and to hear His word, or who has paid attention to His word and listened?” In order to be able to speak for God effectively, one needs to tarry long with God in His presence and with His Word. Only until we have tarried in His presence and interacted and understood His word then can we clearly, concisely, and comprehensively expound His truth. Let's also return to one familiar call of Paul. He said, we are to be diligent and do our best to present ourselves as God’s good workmen, that need not be ashamed but rightly handling the Word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). Let us develop a passion for excellence, a passion for God, and a passion of the Word.

Jeremiah 23:18-24 – Accord due reverence to God and His Word.

Jeremiah 23:18-24 seriously questioned the prophecies of the false prophets. What they prophesied had clearly shown that they did not understand God. It showed that they had not been instructed by God and were not acquainted with His ways. The evidence of their falsehood was clear in their messages. There was incongruency between their word of false hope and peace, and God’s wrath and impending judgment. Their messages indicated the very opposite of what God would soon be doing. For the impending judgment of God had already started brewing. It would soon descend on the wicked like the swirling tempest of a great storm, one that would be unstoppable till it had brought about all the wreckages in its path.

Verse 22 implies that the messages of the false prophets were obviously untrue. If they were true, they would have disapproved of what the people were doing and would proclaim God’s impending judgment to turn them away from their sin and wickedness.  Yet what they were saying had encouraged the people to remain in sin. The folly of the false prophets would be detected when they acted as if God could not hear or see their questionable activities. Verses 23-24 tell us that God is not only all-seeing but also all-knowing. He knows everything from beginning to end. Nothing is ever hidden from His all-seeing eye.

Here we see why it is important to evaluate every prophecy we hear with the word of God. A true prophecy is always consistent with the whole counsel of God. A God-inspired prophecy will always come to pass. It is important that all who serve God and are called to share His messages must ensure that the Biblical passage is sharing are accurately exegeted and rightly and appropriately applied.

Remember the vision Jeremiah saw in chapter one verses 11-12 and what God said to Him. God alerted him to the blossoming of almond trees and asked the prophet “What do you see, Jeremiah?” He answered saying, “I see a rod of an almond tree.” What Jeremiah saw was the budding of an almond rod. The reason God pointed to the blossoming almond tree was to send His message in a way that would be humanly comprehensible. God was using the blossoming almond tree to point to a spiritual lesson to Jeremiah and to us. God commended him for answering correctly before He reveal to him the significance of the blossoming almond tree. His message to Jeremiah and to us is: He Himself is watching over His word to bring it to pass. God never says anything that He will not bring to pass. Whether positive or negative, a blessing or a curse, whatever God has promised will surely come to pass. 

Jeremiah 23:15-17 – Be careful with the message we hear

In Jeremiah 23:13-14, we saw how God compared the prophets in Judah with those in Samaria. Both were equally bad. The people of Judah were led not profanity because the prophets of Judah had desecrated their calling. They led compromising lives by committing adultery and walking in falsehood, hence they could not make any positive impact on the people. Emulating the false prophets, the behavior of the people  had become so horrendous that God even liken them to the wicked Sodom and Gomorrah which He had destroyed.

In Jeremiah 23:15, God warned the prophets of Jerusalem of a bleak future. Their profane behavior had encouraged Judah to walk in profanity. Instead of being a nation that would reflect God’s holiness and righteousness, Judah’s profanity was now polluting the land. For being the channel that led the nation into their sacrilegious behavior, the false prophets deserved to eat “wormwood” and drink “poisonous water.” In other words, they would be included in the coming divine judgment.     

So Jeremiah 23:16-17 then warned the people not to listen to those false prophets. Reasons were given why they should not listen to false prophets. Firstly,  their messages would lead the people into futility. Secondly, the source of their message could not be from God. They came from their vain imagination. Thirdly, they falsely proclaimed a message of peace insisting that calamity would not come upon them. so they enticed those recalcitrant Judean into a false hope, encouraging them to walk in their stubbornness instead of repenting.

Just as the false prophets of Judah were harming the people of God then, the false prophets of today are also bringing harm to the believer’s community. They also claim to speak for God but often time they are speaking from their imagination. Instead of drawing the people nearer to God, many of their hedonistic messages encourage the people to focus on themselves. Their subjects will inadvertently center on increasing one’s financial wealth and increasing luxurious and pleasurable living. The best way to ascertain whether a message proclaim is truly from God is to check the message with an accurate interpretation of Scripture. They also learn to look at the character and lifestyle of those purported prophets.  Remember the warning of our Lord Jesus in  Matthew 7:15-16, He said, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits.”

 

Jeremiah 23:9-14 – It is needful to heed God’s uncomfortable words.

In Jeremiah 23:9-10, Jeremiah expressed his deep distress. His heart was broken and reeling with deep anguish. He felt like a drunken man who had a cup of wine too many. He knew the heart of God and the holy message and had been proclaiming the truth of God entrusted to him. He had pointed out God’s impending judgment for the people’s unfaithfulness. His message, however, went unheeded. Preferring the comfortable words of the false prophets, the people continued in their unfaithfulness ignoring the coming judgment that God would send their way. Here what verse 10 described their condition:

For the land is full of adulterers;
For the land mourns because of the curse.
The pastures of the wilderness have dried up.
Their course also is evil
And their might is not right.

Going further, Jeremiah pointed out that both prophet and priest were polluted resulting in wickedness being found even in God’s house. In the temple, idolatry and immoral living were blatantly encouraged. This was the key reason why the judgment of God had started and what would follow would be worse. It was bad enough in the north, the prophets in Samaria prophesied for Baal and even engaged and encouraged Baal worship, the religious leaders in Jerusalem were equally bad if not worse.  Verse 14 summed up what happened in Jerusalem saying:

“Also among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing:
The committing of adultery and walking in falsehood;
And they strengthen the hands of evildoers,
So that no one has turned back from his wickedness.
All of them have become to Me like Sodom,
And her inhabitants like Gomorrah.

Many believers are reluctant to accept hard truths. They would rather listen to soft and comfortable words, even if they are bordering on untruth. When we prefer that, there is the possibility of missing out on the needful message God wants us to hear. It is good to know that we can find rest in the Lord and that He wants to bless us. But it is just as needful if not more to hear the uncomfortable call of God “to take up our cross deny ourselves and follow after Him.”