Jeremiah 6-9

Jeremiah 6:

• God's wrath is upon Jerusalem.

Verse 6: This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Cut down the trees and build siege ramps against Jerusalem. This city must be punished; it is filled with oppression."

Verse 8: Take warning, O Jerusalam, or I will turn away from you and make your land desolate so no one can live in it.

• Both of these verses show God's displeasure with Jerusalem. He is warning them and describing to them how He will allow other nations to surround them.
• He also talks about how the city must be punished due to its oppression.

Verse 10: To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear. The word of the LORD is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it.

• There are many references to the inability of the Israelites to hear the LORD and to understand how good He is to them.
• He goes a step further saying that His word is offensive to them. It's offensive to many today as well. At certain times, none of us wants to hear it. It confronts us and makes us uncomfortable.

Verses 13 & 14: "From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. Peace, peace, they say, when there is no peace."

• Basically, it appears that God cannot find even one who is not greedy. He doesn't discriminate in these verses. He calls out everyone, including the poor, including the righteous, including the clergy.
• He also remarks that the people do not take these matters seriously. They cry out for peace but aren't willing to do the hard work that true peace requires.

Verse 20: "What do I care about incense from Sheba or sweet calamus from a distant land? Your burn offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please me."

• Even in a culture where the law required very specific sacrifices to be made as penance for sin, God rejects the Israelites' sacrifices.
• He likely does this because their hearts have turned away from Him. They only repent when they are in trouble. They only pay attention to God when they are in trouble.
• Their actions are unaffected by their ceremonial sacrifices. There's no change from within.

Jeremiah 7:

Verses 1-8: Here, Jeremiah is instructed to again warn the Israelites about their actions & their false gods. It's interesting because he mentions that the people do come to the temple to worship, and they obviously feel good & righteous about this worship, however, Jeremiah informs them that LORD does not recognize their worship since their actions are in conflict with their worship.

Verses 9-11: God asks them boldly if they will continue to seek after false gods while at the same time arriving at the temple that bears His name. He refers to their safety in the context that they feel "safe" in their wrongdoing in the temple. He tells them He is paying attention.

Verses 21-24: God tells the Israelites to do what is forbidden: to eat their burnt offerings. He's making the point that His instructions to the Israelites as He led them out of Egypt were not strictly centered around the sacrifices of custom, but that His people are to obey Him so that He can give them life to the full. Instead, He said that the people went backward as opposed to going forward. After such an incrdible deliverance, the Israelites rebelled from their Deliverer. I can relate to this.

Jeremiah 8:

Verse 2: "They will be exposed to the sun and the moon and all the stars, which they have loved & served and which they have followed & consulted and worshipped. They will not be gathered up or buried, but will be like refuse lying on the ground."

• The irony is heavy in this verse. God hints at His power and the lack thereof regarding some of the Israelites' favorite gods.
• He says He will lay them bare before these idols, and obviously, the implication is that these idols won't be able to do anything for them, for God created even these items which the Israelites were worshipping.

Verses 8 & 9: "How can you say, 'We are wise, for we have the law of the LORD,' when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely? The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the LORD, what kind of wisdom do they have?"

• The difference between human wisdom & God's wisdom is huge. Even that which God has entrusted to His people (the Law in this case) has been not only misinterpreted, but purposefully misrepresented.

Jeremiah 9:

Verse 1: "Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people."

• This verse & the last verses of Chapter 8 are a glimpse of God's anguish over the disobedience of His people. He is saddened by the wickedness they have chosen.

Verse 5: "Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sinning."

• This is a challenging verse to me. It's a criticism of the "I'm OK, you're OK" mentality. We have deceived ourselves into this type of thinking. Instead of speaking the truth to our friends so as not to offend them, we do them a great disservice by not sharing the truth that God has revealed to us.

Verses 13-16: God again describes why He is ready to destroy the Israelites. He laments that they haven't obeyed His law, that they have worshipped idols, and He describes their hearts as "stubborn."

Verses 23 & 24: This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD.

Verse 25: "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh..."

• A turly wise man will boast only of his knowledge of God and that he is able to know God.
• Verse 25 is very telling. The exterior is not important to God. Relationship with Him comes from the inside and then spills over into what we do.