WWUTT 2379 Where is the Wise Man Who Knows (Jeremiah 9:12-26)

The people of Judah had persisted in this sin, so that God asks where is the wise man who can tell you your sin and why this judgment is coming upon you the way that it will, when we understand the text.

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Judah’s Rebellion and the Wise Man Who Understands Judgment

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we are back to chapter 9 and finishing up the chapter today. Remember, God has promised judgment against Judah because they rebelled against God.

They had worshiped false gods and practiced in the ways of the pagans around them. And even though they were warned of their sin and the judgment that was coming upon them because of their sin, yet they persisted in it.

And so the question that's going to be asked here in the section that we're looking at today is, where is the wise man? And the wise man is the one who knows that they have sinned against God and that they are deserving of the judgment of God.

They have a wisdom that comes from God. So remember in our study of Luke this week, Jesus had prayed, Father, I thank you that you've hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and you've revealed these things instead to little children.

He's referring to the wise and understanding in a facetious way. It's wise and understanding according to the class of people that they belong to. They are the teachers in the temple and in the synagogue, so people are looking at them as wise and understanding, but they don't have the right kind of wisdom.

It's not that kind of wisdom that recognizes their own sin and need for a savior. And that's the kind of wisdom that's talked about in this section we're looking at today. So this is Jeremiah chapter nine.

I'm going to begin reading here in verse 12 and go through verse 22. Hear the word of the Lord. Who is the man so wise that he can understand this? To whom is the mouth of the Lord spoken that he may declare it?

Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness so that no one passes through? And the Lord says, because they have forsaken my law that I set before them and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals as their fathers taught them.

Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I will feed this people with bitter food and give them poisonous water to drink. I will scatter them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known.

And I will send the sword after them until I have consumed them. Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider and call for the morning women to come. Send for the skillful women to come. Let them make haste and raise a wailing over us that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids flow with water.

For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion, how we are ruined. We are utterly shamed because we have left the land because they have cast down our dwellings. Hear O women the word of the Lord and let your ear receive the word of his mouth.

Teach your daughters a lament and each to her neighbor a dirge. For death has come up into our windows. It is entered our palaces, cutting off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares speak.

Thus declares the Lord, the dead bodies of men shall fall like dung upon the open field, like sheaves after the reaper and none shall gather them. Now as it's mentioned here about how the land becomes a desolation, this is, this is like what we had read at the conclusion of the reading last week.

So in Jeremiah 9, 11, I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of jackals, and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant. It was common among many cities at that time. So not just in Israel, but many ancient civilizations that whenever a nation would come in and conquer another nation, that place, depending on the totality of the conquering, but that place would be referred to as a place that was inhabited by wild animals.

So all the people had been utterly driven out of the land, either they had been killed or they had been taken as slaves or something to that effect. So the land doesn't have people in it anymore. It's just occupied by animals.

And that's what God is promising will happen to this land. And remember that throughout the old Testament, this land has been referred to as God's land. And he was giving this land to God's people, as he said in Deuteronomy, not because you have done anything great that you deserve this, but because the people that currently inhabit that land, referring to the Canaanites, their evil have has become such a stench that God was using the Israelites to punish them, drive them out of the land, and God would place his people there.

But then when his people disobey him and are worthy of the judgment of God, then they will also be driven out of that place. And who will be left to inhabit it? It will become a place that will be occupied by wild animals.

And so the Lord first asks for the wise man who can understand, who can understand the sin that Judah is guilty of and what the judgment for that sin will be? Jeremiah 9, 12, once again, who is the man so wise that he can understand this?

To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness so that no one passes through? Who can answer that question? Who can discern why this land has become the way that it is?

It's no longer the flowing land of milk and honey, the flourishing land, the good, prosperous, fertile land that area of the world was known as for hundreds of years. Now it's become something else. Even during the time of Israel, when they had sinned against God, there were periods in which God would shut up the heavens, there would be no rain in the land.

So though it had been known as a fertile place, God's judgment was upon it now. And it wasn't a place that anybody wanted to live in. Even these nations that were coming in to take it over were not going to occupy it themselves.

When the Assyrians had driven out the Israelites from the northern kingdom, instead the king brought in Mesopotamians and other people groups that would occupy that area and they became kind of a hodgepodge of different nationalities who would eventually be known as the Samaritans.

They were not exactly Jewish, they were not exactly Gentile, they were mutts. And that was why the Israelites didn't care for them, nor did any people from any other.

Nation.

They were not a pure ethnicity in the eyes of anybody. And so when a land can't be occupied, when a nation doesn't want it, what do they do with it? Well, they might do with it like the king of Assyria did, or they would just leave it desolate and it would be occupied by wild animals.

So what has occurred that has made the land, that has left the land now in this condition? And the Lord is asking, who is the wise man who is able to say? And the wise man, therefore, is one who knows.

He understands why Judah fell. The wise man knows the people of Judah had forsaken God. They did not obey his law. They did not worship him the way that God said that he was to be worshiped. Instead, they followed their own hearts and they followed after their fathers in worshiping the Baals.

And in committing all the great sins that they committed, God has committed them to destruction by their foreign enemies. The wise man understands this. Who is the man so wise that he can understand? Let's give that some practical application here.

In what ways do we need to be wise that we can understand what God is doing, why he may do something? You know, it could be that a person is facing the consequences because of their sin. Maybe a person has been sleeping around and he's feeling empty inside.

Maybe he's doing drugs. He can't find the answer. His mind just feels like it's looking for the next hit or something else. Who can tell him why he feels so empty? Why he feels so hopeless? Why he keeps losing his jobs?

Why he can't hold down a relationship or anything else? Who can tell him why his life is in such disarray? It's the wise man who will confront him and say, you're in sin and you're following your own heart, your own passions.

You are in disobedience to God and his hand is heavy upon you. You're facing the consequences of your actions and you must repent and come to the Lord Jesus Christ and he will forgive you your sin. It won't make your situation all better now, but you will know in your heart of hearts that God is not holding anything against you when you have put your trust in Jesus.

For he died on the cross for your sins, rose again from the dead by faith in him. You're still going to die, but you won't perish under the judgment of God, which a sense of you certainly fears, which is why you feel so helpless the way that you do.

So hopeless, like there is no meaning or purpose in anything that you do, but in Christ Jesus, your sins are forgiven and now you live in such a way that may glorify God and he will restore you and lift you up and your life will become something that it wasn't before.

It doesn't mean you won't face consequences for your actions, but now you have a meaning and purpose by which to live unto the glory of God in worship unto him. Romans 12, one presenting your body as a living sacrifice unto God in view of the mercies that he has shown you in Christ Jesus.

A wise man is able to tell a broken man why he's broken and what he needs to be fixed. Sin is the reason you're broken. Christ is the cure. He is the remedy. He is the savior. And so as we, as we continue on here, looking for the wise man who understands why Judah has been laid waste and what is the way that this people can be forgiven, can be restored.

We go on though to verse 13, the Lord says, because they have forsaken my law that I set before them and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, but if stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the bales as their fathers taught them, therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I will feed this people with bitter food and I will give them poisonous water to drink.

This doesn't necessarily mean that he's literally feeding them bitter food and that their water will be poisoned. Although that could certainly be a consequence of their rebellion against God, but it has a particular significance to it.

So it's painting a picture of something. It refers to the bitter hearts of the people because of their disobedience. And then also their experiences that have led to their defeat. And so the water therefore being poisoned, the water of the land is no longer good.

So the bitter food is this people's rebellion and the bitter or poisonous water is their defeat. I will feed this people bitter food and give them poisonous water to drink. Now in the literal sense, bitter food, poisonous water, consider the instruction that God gave to Ezekiel on what kind of bread he was supposed to eat.

He was basically going to eat bread that was made up with whatever was left over laying around on the ground. And this bread was going to symbolize the kind of famine, the kind of destitution that Judah would be in because of their sin and rebellion against God.

So Ezekiel ate that bread showing what was going to soon come upon Judah. So Ezekiel had bitter food as Judah would eventually be given bitter food. And then what about poisonous water to drink? Well, as you have a nation that will come in and they want to drive people off of a land and they want to make that land so that it cannot be inhabited, inhabited again, they'll poison their wells.

So they'll actually dump stuff in their wells to make the water so that it cannot be drinkable. And that's another reason why even that nation would not be interested in occupying that.

Land.

They just want to make sure that people can't occupy it anymore. We're going to go back to our own home territory, but so that you can't live here, we're going to poison all your wells. That may be a temporary embittering of that well, but it still makes the water unable to drink.

If it's spring water, eventually the water will renew. But for the time being, the people can't access that water. They can't drink it. And so the water becomes poisonous. But these things are still pointing to what it is that Judah had done and what it was that they deserved.

God says, I will scatter them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them until I have consumed them. Now we know as things go, God doesn't totally consume them.

But this is nonetheless the punishment that comes upon them because they rebelled against God. It's something that we need to recognize and take to heart so that we would not fall into the same dreadful sins that they fell into.

The Apostle Paul, the writer of Hebrews, they both, if they're two different people, they both make reference to these things in the Old Testament so that Christians today or in the present at the time that they were writing those letters would not repeat the same sins.

In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul said, these things were written long ago for us, for our benefit that we would not fall into the same kinds of sins that they fell into in the wilderness and perished. And then in Hebrews 3, same sort of thing, brothers, beware that there is not found in you an evil and unbelieving heart causing you to fall away from the truth of the gospel that had first been proclaimed to you.

Now we know that if a person does fall away, it's because they were never really walking with God in the first place. But as far as human perception goes, there will be a time when this person looks like a Christian and then he comes into serious sin and falls away and is not a Christian.

Anymore.

He was never really a Christian to begin with, of course, but he did not watch himself, did not watch his steps, was not careful, got ensnared by sin and continued to walk in that sin instead of the way of God that has been shown us through Christ and his word.

So these are things we need to take to heart as well, following those same warnings that are given in the New Testament, not to go after those sins that may eventually cause us to fall away and perish in our wilderness in which we are exiles until the day of Christ.

Mourning Women, Lament, and the Coming Desolation

Verse 17, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider and call for the mourning women to come, send for the skillful women to come, let them make haste and raise a wailing over us that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids flow with water.

Have you ever been in such a mood and you don't really know what's going on? You don't really know how to resolve it, but you just know, I just don't, I'm not feeling it right now. I'm in a bad mood for some reason.

I'm feeling kind of morose or down or brooding or whatever else. And I don't even know what it is. And then the right kind of song plays, whether it's on your CD player comes on the radio, something that somebody else plays and you overhear it, whatever it might happen to be with just that right kind of sad song plays.

And that lyric hits you in the right spot with the same, with that, that perfect kind of melody. And the tears just start flowing and you understand the struggle that you're in. Suddenly the anxiety just weighs upon you like that.

Have you ever had an experience like that before? I've had that happen a few times. Some of you know that I have that, that I have a radio background, I spent a number of years working in Christian radio.

There was one or two times that happened on the air. I'm playing the right kind of song just hit me in the right kind of way. And I'm even, I'm even choking up as I'm talking on the radio. So here God is saying, let's call for those skillful women to come and play these songs that are finally going to show you what you can't understand because none of you are wise.

Going back to that question before, where's the wise man who can understand this and point out to you why these things are happening to you. Let's sing a song. Let's have the women who are skilled in, in playing mournful songs.

Verse 19 for a sound of wailing is heard from Zion, how we are ruined. We are utterly shamed because we have left the land because they have cast down our dwellings. I've seen the same sort of thing happen in churches before too.

Right kind of hymn is sung in church, the right kind of praise song and boy, the tears just start flowing like waterfalls. I'm not meaning it in the good way, not in the good goosebumps kind of way, but in the way that the conviction of the spirit just hits your heart and you recognize your sin and need to confess before God.

So verse 20 here, oh women, the word of the Lord and let your ear receive the word of his mouth. Teach to your daughters a lament and each to her neighbor a dirge for death has come up into our windows.

It has entered our palaces, cutting off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares. So saying to pass this on to your daughters, teach your daughters a lament and each to her neighbor a dirge.

It's because the years of mourning are going to come upon Israel and they are going to last and if there is going to be any songs sung among you, they will be songs of sadness. Speak thus declares the Lord.

The dead bodies of men shall fall like dung on the open field, like sheaves after the reaper and none shall gather them. There's no one there to lift you up. No one is going to rescue you from the judgment that's about to come upon you is what God is saying.

Boasting in the Lord and the Significance of True Circumcision

Let's finish up the rest of the chapter here. Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast in his might. Let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth.

For in these things, I delight declares the Lord. This is the way that you should have walked and you didn't walk in that way. And so the thus judgment is coming upon you. Now these words here in Jeremiah nine, let him who boasts boast in this, that he who understands me, that I am the Lord practices steadfast love, justice, righteousness in the earth.

Same sort of word that the apostle Paul gave to the Corinthians in first Corinthians chapter one, let him who boasts boast in the Lord. Verses 25 and 26 as we finish this up, behold, the days are coming declares the Lord.

When I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh, so they were not circumcised in heart, they had not united themselves in Christ and cut themselves up, cut themselves off from the world.

Verse 20, 26, Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair for all these nations are uncircumcised and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.

And so because they were united to those pagan nations, didn't matter whether they were circumcised in the flesh, they disregarded the law of God. They did not obey it. And so as the apostle Paul makes this point in Romans chapter two, it's as if their circumcision was really uncircumcision because they did not follow the law.

And so let them be cut off from me, God is saying, and turned over to their enemies for.

Judgment.

My friends, you have the opportunity now to turn from your sin to the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be forgiven and you will be restored. But continue in a way of sin, practicing that habitual sin as if God is not there or he does not see or he will not hold this against me.

Beware that you're not found with a deceitful and unbelieving heart causing you to fall away from the living God. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read here and I pray that it's personally applicable to us that we heed those warnings against those who persist in sin that we may draw near to Christ resisting the devil and then he will flee from us.

We might see this applied even to our churches. How much does a church tolerate sin until eventually God just kind of turns them over to fall apart and not be able to be maintained as a church that honors God anymore?

How much would this apply to the nation in which we live that loves and cherishes sin until God eventually turns them over to destruction at the hands of their enemies? We must come to the Lord Christ who forgives sin and gives eternal life and preach the message of his gospel to a lost and dying world that they too may put faith and trust in Jesus Christ and so be saved.

Thank you for your love toward us in Jesus name we pray, amen.

This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com and let your friends know about our ministry.

Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word when we understand.

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