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.

Jeremiah 4-5

Jeremiah 4

Verse 4: Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, circumcise your hearts, you men of Judah and people of Jerusalem, or my wrath will break out and burn like fire because of the evil you have done--burn with no one to quench it.

• The circumcision spoken of here is inward, which is interesting since I was under the impression that most Old Testament references would have have been to the physical act. The verse in Deuteronomy (10:16) also shatters my assumption. And as I would have thought, the Romans passage (2:28-29) refers to circumsision as an inward act.
• The inward act is related to the heart & ourselves. We should submit our will to God's.
• The wrath of the LORD is mentioned as well. This wrath will occur, but in reading Zephaniah 2:2, it is apparent that people who consider themselves God's people should seek him now so that we might be spared.

Verse 10: Then I said, "Ah, Sovereign LORD, how completely you have deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, 'You will have peace', when the sword is at our throats."

• God deceives? This is a challenging notion. Reading 2 Thessalonians 2:11, it appears that this deception comes as a result of the peoples' worldly appetites. It almost seems as though the people deceive themselves by what the LORD is saying to them due to their annebriated & sinful state. They don't even realize what they are doing or the consequences of such actions.

Verse 22: My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil; they know not how to do good.

• This is very true today, and it's a main reason why God had to send His son as a sacrifice for our inability to do good & our propensity for doing evil.

Chapter 5

Verse 7: Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I supplied all their needs, yet they committed adultery and thronged to the houses of prostitutes.

• The continued references to idols & adultery give us an idea of how the LORD views our disobedience. We don't really have idols today that are physical like the ones of gold, silver, or wood that were back then, but we do have idolotrous behavior. We still fall to our sinful desires.
• God still fulfills our needs, but we still chase after un-Godly pursuits. Why do we do this? Can't we see that God is sufficient? I pray that I would continue to find this out.

Verse 19: And when the people ask, "Why has the LORD our God done all this to us?" you will tell them, "As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your own land, so now you will serve foreigners in a land not your own.

• Given the Middle East issues that are going on and have been going on for so long, this verse is certainly prophetic. The land ownership uncertainty the Jews have undergone & the constant upheaval they've been under from their neighbors are a couple of related points in this verse.

Jeremiah 1-3

Chapter 1

-Jeremiah's hometown of Anathoth was located about 3 miles north of Jerusalem in Palestine.
-Josiah, Jehoiakim, & Zedekiah all reigned as King of Judah at one time or another during the book's writing.
-It led up to the people of Jerusalem's exile.

Chapter 1, verse 5: Before I formed you in the wombe I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

• A conversation between Jeremiah & the LORD begins here with Jeremiah stating that he's only a child, & the LORD stating he need not talk like that, not to be afraid, and the LORD's appointment of Jeremiah as a prophet & one who is to deliver His words as he is instructed.
• The LORD then tells Jeremiah about the judgment Judah is about to face from foreign kings & nations, and that these judgments are being carried out due to Judah's idolotry.
• The LORD then informs Jeremiah that he shouldn't be terrified by the prospect of warning God's people. The LORD promises to remain with Jeremiah & to rescue him from harm.

Chapter 2

Verses 2-3: I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown. Israel was holy to the LORD the firstfruits of his harvest; all who devoured her were held guilty and disaster overtook them, declares the LORD.

• The words of the LORD were a look back at the faithfulness Judah had shown to God & how He protected them from foreign enemies.
• The LORD uses the illustration of marriage to describe this faithfulness.

Verse 6: They did not ask, "Where is the LORD who brought us up out of Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness, through a land of deserts and rifts, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?

• Here God is dismayed by Judah's newly found self-sufficiency. He speaks of where He has had such a huge hand in delivering them from difficult trials.

Verse 8: The priests did not ask, "Where is the LORD?" Those who deal with the law did not know me; the leaders rebelled against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal, following worthless idols.

• Here, even those who were supposed to be Spiritual Leaders among the community are exposed for their failings & decision not to call on God.
• The leaders appear to have gotten what they wanted from God: recongnition, power, & prestige from their God-ordained titles.

Verse 19: Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD you God and have no awe of me, declares the LORD.

• God lets His people know that their abandonment of Him will result in punishment.
• It's also interesting that He remarks that they "have no awe" of Him. I'm afraid we fall into this quite often. The lack of reverence I sometimes display would be stunning if I were to look back at some of my interactions with God. He's the Creator of the universe & our LORD & SAVIOR, but sometimes it almost seems like we who purport to believe this really don't. Father God, please forgive me for my disrespect of You.

Verse 20: Long ago you broke off your yoke and tore off your bonds; you said, "I will not serve you!" Indeed, on every high hill and under every spreading tree you lay down as a prostitute.

• Just a quick note about this: What does the yoke mean in this regard given the context of Jesus' words that His yoke is easy?

Verse 27: They say to wood, "You are my father," and to stone, "You gave me birth." They have turned their backs to me and not their faces; yet when they are in trouble, they say, "Come and save us!"

• Undoubtedly, we are all guilty of this. It's amazing how reluctant I am to think of God, much less pray to Him when things are going well. Then upon the first inkling of trouble where it involves personal agony (usually due to embarrassment), I call on Him to keep my actions hidden.
• I believe also that a distinction must be made between calling on the LORD when the trouble that prompts the prayer is related to temptation vs. when it is related to prideful deception.

Chapter 3:

Verse 3: Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame.

• Entanglement in sin causes the sinner to rationalize or even to put off the behavior so that any guilt might not take hold during the act.
• I believe these entanglements, especially for believers, can be looked at as Satanic attacks. We must pray continually in order to combat these attacks, and we must recognize that these attacks exist.

Verse 11: The LORD said to me, "Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah."

• I need to do a word study on faithless vs. faithful. Interesting too that in 2 Timothy 2:13, I believe, God says He will remain faithful to the faithless.

Verse 14: "Return faithless people," declares the LORD, "for I am your husband. I will choose you-one from a town and two from a clan-and bring you to Zion."

• Again, a reference to the LORD as Israel's husband.
• He's now decided to bring them back if they would only repent of their wrongdoing.
• He goes on to promise them leaders who will lead with knowledge & understaning.