Jeremiah 16:14-18 – Living for God every moment

In Jeremiah 16 and verse 14 onwards, the message God gave through the Prophet Jeremiah was one of hope. He prophesied to them what would come beyond the Babylonian captivity. He was now looking at the other end of the tunnel. Yes, Judah had gone through a long dark tunnel but now there is light at the other end. God promised to deliver them and bring them back to their own land.  Just as He had rescued the people of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt under Moses, He would also deliver His people from their exile in Babylon and restore them to the promised land.  This latter deliverance would outweigh the significance of the deliverance from Egypt. How so? Israel's deliverance was only from one country i.e. Egypt. But in the upcoming deliverance, the people of Judah would be delivered from the land of the north  and from all the countries they were banished to.   

However, verses 16-18 prophesied that they would first be brought into captivity. Their captors were likened to fishermen and hunters. Judah’s captors like fishermen would come fishing for them. Then God would send their captors after them like hunters going after the beasts of the field. The hunters would search for them thoroughly. There would be nowhere that they could hide and not be found. No mountain, hill, crevice, or cleft of any rocky place could prevent them from being hunted. This was to say that there was nowhere that they could hide from their pursuers.

The reason: all they had done could not escape the eye of their all-seeing God. Sin always extracts a price and God saw everyone’s sin. No matter where they were hidden, they would be hunted. They had all polluted the land with their false worship of those idols. They would all be hauled and wholly deported  into a foreign land.

One verse comes to mind as we consider what God has said in this passage. Hebrews 4:13 says, “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”  Nothing ever escapes the sight of God.  Our every thought and deed are ever before His sheering eyes. It behooves us therefore to be careful how we live. We must live as wise and not as fools redeeming every opportunity in these evil days.  There is no necessity for us to wait for calamity and then consider how we should live to please God. Jesus said that we must do work while it is yet day for the night will come when no one can work. We are now in the daylight of God’s revelation, so we must seize every opportunity and live every moment for the glory of His name!  

Jeremiah 16:1-13 - Sin always exacts a price

In Jeremiah 16:1-13 we see three instructions God gave to the prophet. These instructions were three messages of warning to the people. He was to live them out to create talking points to start conversations. Firstly, in verses 1-4, though every Jew was expected to be married, Jeremiah was forbidden to have a wife or start a family. God did this in the prophet's best interest. Why? Because of the impending disaster that was coming upon Judah, upon every member of every family. No family would be spared the calamities. God said that “They will die of deadly diseases, they will not be lamented or buried; they will be as dung on the surface of the ground and come to an end by sword and famine, and their carcasses will become food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth”(verses 4). God knew that if Jeremiah were to get married and had children, they would not be spared. His wife's and children’s safety would be his concern. They would become a needless burden he would have to bear. Hence, remaining a bachelor would certainly spare him the agony pain of having to see his wife and children enduring the pain. Hence for his sake, God’s first instruction was for him not to marry and have children.

The second instruction to Jeremiah found in verses 5-9 was for the prophet not to attend any social function, either a funeral or a wedding ceremony. The message God wanted to send was that the impending disaster coming upon the people would bring about untold numbers of death. So overwhelming would be the number of deaths that would virtually make proper mourning and funeral impossible to be conducted. Besides, Jeremiah was also not to attend any wedding also for the same reason. The disaster that was coming would cause the absence of marriage ceremonies in the land. The gist of the message was to underscore the fact that there was coming a time of hardship where there would be neither peace nor rejoicing in the land.

The third instruction Jeremiah had found in verses 10-13 was to proclaim an unpopular message and be ready to answer any challenge that would be brought about by his unpopular message. He was to expose both their and their fathers’ unfaithfulness to God. Their fathers had forsaken God and not obeyed the laws He had given. Now the sons were following and persisting in their father’s sin and apostasy. Hence God would be hurling them into exile so that they could serve the foreign gods as their father did.

Sin is never nice. No one who spurns the love of God should expect to be treated kindly. The sin of the people of Judah had created a breach in their relationship with God. and they had to pay heavily. Persistent sin always separates people from God and invites His judgment. The people of Judah suffered much before they were sent into Babylonian exile for their sins. This serves as a warning for us. If we refuse to repent when God reveals them, judgment would be inevitable too. Just imagine being sent away from God in eternal exile.

The cruel and violent death Christ endured on our behalf reminds us how hideous sin truly is. Sin committed, more than just missing God’s standard, it hurts the heart of God. It is still God’s desire that we repent. He so loved us that He did not spare His only begotten Son but sent Him to take our wicked place on Calvary. When we acknowledge Him, nothing will ever separate us from His love. Today 7 April 2023, is Good Friday. Let’s be reminded that Jesus gave Himself for us on that first Good Friday long ago so that we could be spared the agony of eternal separation and exiled from God.

Jeremiah 15:19-21 – Learn to keep our focus on God

In the earlier verses, we saw how the discouraged Jeremiah began to question God and made some audacious statements. He compared God to a stream that promised water but  yield nothing. It was obvious that he was wallowing in self-pity. As we have said God knew his servant well so in Jeremiah 15:19-21, he responded to get him to stop feeling sorry for himself. God told him to stop being sorry for himself and to return to doing the precious work that he was accustomed to doing. He should be the spokesman that God had called him to be and not be influenced by the people.  

If Jeremiah returned to God and walked by faith and obeyed His Word, verses 20-21, God reassured Jeremiah that he would be like a fortified and impenetrable wall to the people. He would be given victory over the enemies who would not be able to prevail over him. Furthermore, God would protect him and redeem him from the violent hands of the wicked.  

We human beings will have to face discouragement every now and then. They are part and parcel of our experiences. The best of God’s servants from Moses. to Joshua to Elijah, and many others all had their moments of discouragement. While it is impossible to ignore our feelings we know that we can learn to keep our focus on God and develop trust in Him. We must learn to abandon ourselves to God when the going becomes unbearable.  The moment we take our eyes off Him and pay undue attention to our circumstances instead, we will feel overwhelmed. We must walk by faith and not by sight. Remember God will never lead us to where His grace cannot sustain us.    

Jeremiah 15:15-18 – Life without hypocrisy

Jeremiah was struggling with a dilemma in chapter 15:15-18. He had been doing everything as instructed by God, yet had to face so much resistance from the people he was ministering to, even threats of death. So in verse 15, he prayed to ask God to protect him from his persecutors and to avenge him. His dilemma was that God seemed to be patient with the people. So in his plea to God to vindicate him, he was praying that God would not sacrifice him at the expanse of His patience with the people.

Jeremiah appealed to God on the ground that he had been a faithful representative of His Word. He said that when the word of God was found (this could be a reference to the law that was discovered in the temple during King Josiah’s reform), he gladly devoured them and found deep joy. So he rejoiced and delighted himself in the calling that God had placed his life.

Having received God’s calling on him, verse 17 shows us that he took on the assignment to reveal the truth to the people seriously. He refused to patronize his hearers nor to promulgate levity. He proclaimed nothing but God’s severe warning. So identified was he with God that His anger also consumed him. Hence even the people could feel his anger as well. The people did not take to his message, so they persecuted him instead. The suffering he bore was intense, and he seemed to be enduring wounds that refused to heal.

We can see that Jeremiah was a human and not a psychopath and was subjected to discouragement. So in his despair, he wondered why he had to go through so much to do His assignment. Feeling that God had failed him, he honestly expressed how he felt inside him. He thought God was like a deceptive stream that promised water but yield nothing because it had no water. What audacity? How to explain his irreverence?

Being all-knowing God was certainly fully aware of the prophet’s predicament. He also knew how faithful Jeremiah had been in carrying out his assignment. It would not be over-extrapolating to imagine that God also knew his pains and suffering because the truth is that God is all-knowing. We can also be sure that God knows everything about us. As Psalm 139:1-4 say, God has searched us and knows everything about us. He knows our character, conduct, contemplation, and even our conversation. He has the capacity to take our honesty. Psalm 103:14 says that God “…knows our frame and He is mindful that we are but dust.” In life, it is better to be honest with God than to pretend that we enjoy suffering when we are not. Pretending to enjoy something when we are not, is downright hypocrisy. God would rather that we be honest with our feeling than live life with pretence. We sense the call of God to live life with honesty and sincerity.

Jeremiah 15:11-14 – God will vindicate His own

In Jeremiah 15:11-14 we see the response of God to Jeremiah’s lament in verse 10. He told Jeremiah that he would be vindicated. Two things the prophet would experience. Firstly, in verse 11, Jeremiah was promised strength and deliverance. God would deliver him from his adversaries for the purpose of good. He would also make the people come before the prophet’s feet and plead with him for help in their time of disaster and distress.

Secondly, in verses 12-14, God was saying that Jeremiah’s vindication would be fulfilled in the judgment he had warned Judah about. The enemy from the north would advance to wipe out Judah.  This mighty foe from the north like iron or bronze could not be easily stopped or smashed. The iron and the bronze gave the sense of the foe’s invincibility. Nothing would be able to stop them from advancing from the north to deal with Judah.  

 

When they come upon Judah, they would plunder their treasure and wealth. They would become the unnumbered booty that the enemy would take because of the sins they had committed against the Lord within the borders of the promised land. God would allow their enemy to take them and their treasure as booty of wars into a land they do not know. The captivity God warned about would come to pass. For God’s anger would be kindled like fire against them and they would be carried into a foreign land.

 

God will never allow His word to fail. He always fulfills His Word, both positive and negative promises. God will bring to pass whatever He had said. If we dare to take a stand for God, even when we have to go through many difficulties, He will vindicate us. Like Jeremiah, we must stay faithful and serve God boldly.   

Jeremiah 15:10 – Be bold to share the truth

Being a voice that spoke truthfully for God in the face of many that spoke falsehood, Jeremiah was greatly despised and persecuted. Being a controversial figure, he suffered much from the people. The treatment he received was not only unwarranted but also unjust. So Jeremiah 15:10, the prophet lamented his plight. He did no wrong, and neither did he bring any harm to the people, yet he was hated. In contrast with false prophets that gave false hope of peace, he proclaimed the truth of God’s impending judgment. All he did was proclaim God’s truth and plead with Him for mercy on behalf of the people. Yet he was intensely disliked by everyone in the land.

Taking a stand for God and speaking for Him in a world that resists and opposes His truth takes strength and character. People normally prefer to hear patronizing lies and feel good rather than stark and unembellished truths that hurt. So if we speak hard truth that is strong to stomach expected to be loathed. Like the day of Jeremiah, Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 4:3 that “The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth.” We are living in such a day.

 

Are we afraid to suffer for the truth? Don’t cave in just because people cannot accept the hard truths we share. The challenge to us in a verse like this is for us boldly speak the truth of God even when it is unpopular and dangerous to do so. It will not be easy but the end will be more rewarding than we know.    

 

 

 

Jeremiah 15:5-9 – Don’t take God’s love for granted

Though the people of Judah went through divine dealings and much suffering, yet would persist in their errors. God dealt with them countless times to get them to straighten up, all to no avail. They continued to listen to false prophets, cling to false hopes and promises they had made, and preferred to incur God’s displeasure. God hoped they would acknowledge their sin and quickly repent, change, and return to Him, It was all a long fruitless wait and God’s patience had worn thin. To Him, these people were undeserving of any pity. Using human terms to help them see the situation, God told them in Jeremiah 15:5-6 that He was wearied of having to threaten them and then withhold His judgment and wait for a possible change in their stubborn stunts and attitude.

Tired of waiting in Jeremiah 15:7-9, God then told them a final slaughter was coming upon them. It would come with such finality and severity beyond any imagination.  This, to God, was their inevitable outcome. God’s process of judgment described as “a winnowing fork” would begin at the gate. So severe would be the dealing that the nation would be bereaved of young men who would be killed coming against their enemy. Mothers would lose their children to the sword of the enemy,  resulting in unnumbered widows in the land. Using hyperbole, God said that the number of their widows would even exceed the grains of sand in the sea.

 

In the later part of verse 8, Jerusalem was illustrated as a mother of a young man. whose son would be killed by a destroyer at noon, the least unexpected hour. She would be brought into deep anguish and despair. Using poetic description, Jerusalem would be like a despairing mother, who had given birth to seven sons (signifying many sons), would suddenly experience a severe and unusual labor, and would die prematurely. The premature death is described in verse 8 as the sun going down while it was yet day and long before the time for the sun to set. Those who were not killed after the fall of Jerusalem would be overtaken by the sword of their adversaries and humiliated. 

The description of the devastation in these verses leaves us with one key lesson in life. While God's mercy remains available to those who will respond to Him and repent, there will be no mercy for recalcitrant who refuse to take God seriously and continue to spurn His love.  Let us not spurn the love of God nor take Him for granted.