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Reading Jeremiah 7:30-8:3 where God exposes to Judah their sin of sacrificing their children to the pagan gods, so that all may see God is just in His judgments. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
The people of Judah thought that they were safe from any judgment because they had the temple of God. But the Lord exposed to them their sin and showed them why God would be just in bringing judgment upon them.
When We Understand the Text.
This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.
Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we're going to finish up Chapter 7 today, even get into a little of Chapter 8, where we have been reading about how the people of Judah treat the temple of God as a good luck charm.
They offer their sacrifices, but then they go out, and as God has revealed to them, as He has exposed their sin to them, they steal, they murder, they commit adultery, they swear falsely, they make offerings to Baal, and they go after other gods, because that's where their heart is.
They don't really have a heart for the Lord. They have a heart for their sin and the ways of the pagans that are around them. Instead of going forward, they go backward, as if to submit themselves to slavery again, slavery that God had called them out of when He freed the people from Egypt, but they enslave themselves to their sin.
And so God is going to bring judgment against them. And as we finish up the chapter today, we will see further the seriousness of the sin that Judah has committed, how instead of treating the temple of God in its proper reverence, they have defiled that place.
And though God has rebuked this people, they will not listen. And so here is the judgment that they deserve. So let me begin reading here in chapter 7, verse 30. I'll go to chapter 8, verse 3. Hear the word of the Lord.
For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the Lord. They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name to defile it. And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come to my mind.
Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no more be called Tophet, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter. For they will bury in Tophet, because there is no room elsewhere.
And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away. And I will silence in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the land shall become a waste.
At that time, declares the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs, and they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the hosts of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after and which they have sought and worshipped.
And they shall not be gathered or buried, they shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them, declares the Lord of hosts.
And following this word, God will give a declaration to Jeremiah that he is to deliver to this people. We'll see if we get into part of that here today, but let's come back to verse 30. So once again, the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the Lord.
They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name to defile it. Remember the way that we started this particular chapter. God said to this people, do not trust in these deceptive words.
This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. So they would proclaim loyalty to God and worship in his temple as if that was somehow enough to cover over their sin. They were treating the temple like a good luck charm, as I said in the beginning.
They did not offer genuine worship there, but as we see here now toward the end of the chapter, they defiled that place that was called by the name of God. Remember when Solomon had built this temple and he prayed unto the Lord and he asked that it would be a place that God would dwell and he would make his name upon his people.
Well, this place that was called by my name has been turned into a place of detestable worship instead of genuine worship to the Lord, their God. He alone who has delivered them, provided for them, who has done everything for them.
And yet when they speak his name, when Judah speaks his name, they do so in vain. I just happened to catch online recently that it's becoming popular again for everybody to make a declaration that Christ is Lord or Jesus is Lord or Christ is King or something like that.
It's some sort of statement of tribe or of union. Hey, we are together in this political fight, but it is not being said in true and genuine worship unto God. This does not please the Lord. He does not like his name being used in such ways to own people that we don't like or to swear our allegiance to a certain tribe, not swearing unto God, not saying his name in a way that is reverent or worshipful of him, but saying this in such a way that we would make those people that we don't agree with feel bad or we would look down upon them.
We're using the name of Christ like a club to beat them down. That's what they're doing. It's using it in vain, not in reverence, not in worship. It's just like this people here. Because many of those who are making this proclamation that Christ is Lord, Christ is King, they're probably pro-abortion, they're pro-gay marriage, they're pro-LGBTQ, some manner of sexual immorality that is demonstrated in that acrostic.
They don't know the Word of God. They don't live according to Christ's commands. They're just using this in a self-serving way to elevate themselves above somebody else. It's even worse than the way that the Apostle Paul rebuked the Corinthian church for this.
In 1 Corinthians 1, he said, Some of you will say, I am of Apollos, and I am of Cephas, and I am of Paul, and I am of Christ. It wasn't really that they were of Christ. In this case, they were using that name to elevate themselves, make themselves feel like they were better than the other guy.
Oh yeah, you have the teachings of Paul. Well, I have the teachings of Christ. We've seen those kind of denominational wars, right? This is even worse than that. Because this is coming from a people not even seeking after the way of God at all.
It's just to swear some kind of political party allegiance. And so they're doing the same thing that Judah is doing here. We have the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.
And though they may offer sacrifices there, they go out from that place, and their hearts filled with greed and all manner of unrighteousness, they go after the ways of the pagans. And so what does God expose to them as being their sin?
Look at verse 31. They have built their high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.
So the valley of the son of Hinnom was right outside Jerusalem. It was the low place just outside Jerusalem. And they were going into that valley and burning their children, just like the pagans would do when they offered sacrifices to Moloch.
And a sacrifice to Moloch, when they burn their firstborn in the fire to Moloch, this is what the pagans intended by that. I'll offer my firstborn, and then the gods will bless me with many more children.
So if I offer them my firstborn, then I will be fruitful. I will be bountiful. These gods will bless my harvest. They will bless the rest of my family. And when those sacrifices were going on, there were these loud drums.
They would bang on the drums as these children were being sacrificed in this horrid idol. And the drums were to drown out the cries of the children that were being sacrificed. That's what was going on in this valley.
It was a place that would later become synonymous with hell. In Psalm 106, verse 34, it says,. They did not destroy the peoples as the Lord commanded them, but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did.
Remember, the command was given to Judah when they went into the promised land that they needed to conquer all the pagans and drive them out so they would not be tempted by them and their pagan ways and go after their false gods.
But they did not do that. They mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. Verse 36, they served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons.
They poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. And the land was polluted with blood. Thus they became unclean by their acts and played the whore in their deeds.
Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people, and he abhorred his heritage. He gave them into the hand of the nations so that those who hated them ruled over them. Their enemies oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their power.
Many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes, and they were brought low through their iniquity. God has judged this people in this way before. But again, as I said earlier, not receiving discipline and not repenting of their sin, God is now going to bring judgment against them for this.
You have done which I did not command, nor did it even come into my mind. Now, this does not mean that God had no knowledge of this ever happening in the future. I did not even know that this people would become so wicked that they would offer their children up in this way, as if this is something that somehow took God by surprise.
That's not what is meant by this, that he was somehow unaware of it. But he did not have even the slightest thought of ever approving of such a practice, is what that means. And yet, these were the sacrifices that were offered in that place.
To Moloch, which by the way is a name that means the God of shameful sacrifice. It's a combination of two Hebrew words, but that's the meaning that comes out. It's unlikely that the pagans called their God by that name.
They didn't call him Moloch. Could have been multiple different kinds of gods. But it was the Hebrews that gave him that name. Because of just how horrid the sacrifices were that were offered up to these false Canaanite gods.
And here, the Israelites were doing that very thing. Israel did it, Judah did it. That which had formerly detested them, now delighted them in rebellion against God. And we've seen that kind of decline happen in many cultures in the world throughout history.
We might even see it happening within the very culture that we live in, no matter where you are. You've seen this kind of depravity that becomes more and more tolerated and accepted. Whatever is tolerated will become practiced later on.
If it's not taken care of, it's not rooted out. If it's not said of this people, do not tolerate this sin. If they tolerate it, they'll eventually become partakers in it. And so what do we see happening even in our own nation?
Myself as an American living in the United States of America. We've seen delight in this very kind of sacrifice. In a single day, as many as 3 ,000 unborn children will be murdered by abortion in America.
Over a million children a year. And instead of being increasingly horrified by this act, especially with the internet, and you can go online and you can look at what an abortion looks like, you can see it, all the parts of that child laying there in the aftermath of abortion, having been shredded and laid out there on a table.
There was the undercover investigation that was done a few years ago in a Planned Parenthood that exposed that they were actually selling these body parts and making a profit off of it. The body parts of aborted, cut up children.
But instead of being horrified by this, when we see these images online, on the internet, or even protesters that'll be out there, they'll have the images on their poster board. Instead of being horrified by it, the abortion industry has just found a way to make it more private.
And so you have the abortion pill now, right? No matter what laws your state may have, you can get the abortion pill from anywhere. And that's been proven by different pro-life and abolitionist organizations that have demonstrated.
We can order these pills, have them delivered to our state, even though we're not allowed to have abortions in our state, and they can still do an abortion at home through that abortion pill. These sacrifices have now been moved indoors into the privacy of your own personal bathroom.
Still sacrificing these children to false gods. Still over a million every year, just in the United States of America alone. And the people have not been horrified by this. They're looking for more inventive ways to do it.
And so, verse 32, Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it will no more be called Tophet. It will no more be called the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but it will be called the Valley of Slaughter.
Now that was happening there already, right? They were slaughtering children and sacrificing them in the valley. But the reason why it will be called the Valley of Slaughter now is because they will bury in Tophet, because there's no room elsewhere.
There will be so many dead bodies in Judah. There won't be anywhere else to lay them in graves. So they're going to bury them in the very place where they were offering sacrifices to these false gods.
The very reason why God was bringing this judgment against them. Verse 33. And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away.
And that could be something metaphorical. And we'll talk about how nations will come in from outside, after this people have been conquered, and they will pick off their bones. They'll pick off their flesh.
They'll look for the remnants of the spoils of war. What else can we find? They'll raid houses. They'll go into cities. They'll look on the ground. They'll even pick off of dead bodies what kinds of treasures they might be wearing from their necks, or armor, or laid out swords and shields, or whatever else.
People from other nations will come in and start picking off of them, and none will frighten them away. Because up to this point, nations have not come against Judah like this, right? Especially Jerusalem.
Because they know they can't. The last nation that tried this, the Assyrians, 186 ,000 of them died in a single night. Because the angel of the Lord came down and struck them down. So the nations have been in fear of the Jews, but now once they will be conquered, nobody will be afraid of them again.
Verse 34,. And I will silence in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the land shall become a waste.
There will be no more partying. There will be no celebrating. There will be mourning in this land. And my friends, let me tell you, no matter where a nation is, no matter where it exists, no matter how safe they might think that they are, no matter how big it is, no matter how powerful their military, if God decides to bring judgment upon a nation, there is nothing that can deflect it.
If God means to bring judgment, He will bring judgment. And America has much to repent of, for America is guilty of much. And so let us pray for the conviction of the word of God to come upon the hearts of this people, that they may turn from their sin to the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
That is the only thing that will save this people. It's not a certain political party that would be occupying the White House or Congress or even, you know, your state offices or anything like that. It can certainly be nicer to have the more conservative party there rather than the more liberal party.
But unless there is genuine repentance and a turning back from these wicked ways, turning to the Lord Jesus Christ, God is not going to turn back His anger. People can make all kinds of legalistic revival in the land that they want to, a revival of law.
We're going to make our laws to be more righteous, but unless it is done in a spirit of repentance, of submission unto God, of honoring His name, of worshiping Christ and bowing the knee to Him, truly proclaiming that Christ is Lord, really, and not just using the name in vain.
Unless this is done from a heart that loves God, it's not going to save this nation. It's just done out of self-righteousness. Look, we can take care of ourselves. I don't need the Lord. He will still bring judgment upon a people that wicked, no matter how great and moral the laws might be in their land, because they are in rebellion against God.
As it is said in Psalm 127 .1, unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. Let us turn from our sin to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Pray for revival. Pray for repentance in our land.
Absolutely.
But we need to understand our responsibility to warn people about the judgment of God that is coming and to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, which saves. And so as we finish up here with the start of chapter 8, at that time declares the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs.
In other words, nobody is going to be spared this judgment when it comes. All are guilty. And we've been seeing that as we've been going through these first seven chapters of Jeremiah. Everybody's guilty.
Same sort of thing that the apostle Paul does at the beginning of Romans, right? Spends the first two and a half chapters talking about how all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So all of these people, nobody's going to be spared this.
The kings, the officials, the priests, those who had fed themselves instead of feeding the flock, bones of the prophets, those that had prophesied for themselves instead of for God and for his people, the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, even the lay people shall be brought out of their tombs, not risen from the dead.
That's not the picture here. I'm going to bring them back to life. No verse two. They shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served because they worship and served the creature rather than the creator, right?
They've gone after these false gods, those spirits and those demons that are not of God. As I had read a moment ago from Psalm 106, they shall not be gathered or buried. The bodies will not be gathered or buried as though they may rest in peace.
For as we read in Isaiah, there is no peace for the wicked. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. They'll be as refuse. They'll be as if an animal chewed them up and dumped them out. Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them, declares the Lord of hosts.
Wouldn't it be much better if we repent of our sin than to face that judgment and desire death that will never come, a relief that will never happen? For those who will be judged by God and cast into hell, there will be no peace.
There will be no resolve to the suffering that they will endure for all eternity, those who had rebelled against God. My friends, if you have sin that you're continuing to live in and hold fast to, you proclaim that you love God with your mouth, you go to church, you practice all the Christian-y things, you will say Christ is King and Jesus is Lord, but in the meantime, you go after these other sins.
You're looking at things on the computer and pleasuring yourself in ways that are detestable to God. You have these sins that you do that as long as nobody else finds out, it's not going to be that big a deal.
Substance abuse nobody has to know about. Gossip and bitterness and anger that you cherish in your heart instead of giving it up to the Lord. My friends, if there are things you love more than Christ, are you sure you're a believer?
Repent of this wickedness. Ask the Lord to cleanse you and he will. And do not walk in these ways anymore. For the judgment of God is coming.
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.
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