WWUTT 2359 Going Backward and not Forward (Jeremiah 7:21-29)

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Time and time again, Judah was continually rebelling against God. They were always going backward, like back to their slavery, instead of going forward unto the

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Lord. And may it not be said of us that we went backward when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature

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New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

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Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we come back to chapter 7, where God has been rebuking

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Judah for treating the temple like a good luck charm. They believed as long as the temple was with them, nothing bad could happen to them, but God called them out for their hypocrisy.

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They would worship, they would lift up sacrifices, but then they steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods.

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And so God means to bring judgment against them for their constant rebellion against Him.

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He sent prophets to them, they wouldn't listen to the prophets. They continued to walk in their wicked ways. And so, as we read last week,

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God even says to Jeremiah, do not pray for this people or lift up a cry of prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.

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It is God's intention to bring judgment upon Judah, both to punish them and to make an example out of them, so that anyone will see.

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Those who go away from God, who will claim to worship Him, but love their sin,

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God will bring judgment upon them. That's a lesson that we must learn as well. So let me pick up reading where I left off last week.

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I'm going to start here in verse 21 and go through verse 29. Here the Lord is rebuking Judah for their meaningless sacrifices.

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Hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat the flesh.

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For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.

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But this command I gave them, obey my voice and I will be your

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God and you shall be my people and walk in all the ways that I command you, that it may be well with you.

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But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts and went backward and not forward.

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From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants, the prophets to them day after day, yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck.

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They did worse than their fathers. So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you.

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You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. And you shall say to them, this is the nation that did not obey the voice of the

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Lord their God and did not accept discipline. Truth has perished. It is cut off from their lips, cut off your hair and cast it away.

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Raise a lamentation on the Bear Heights for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

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Now there was a statement that was made there in the middle that I think is pretty key to what we're reading here, and that was in verse 24, talking about the

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Israelites who had come out of slavery in Egypt. God said of them in their rebellion, they went backward and not forward.

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And so the same thing could be said here of the Jews at Jerusalem at this time, right before the exile, when the

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Babylonians are going to come against them, they also have gone backward and not forward. And so may this warning come to our ears that we would not go backward.

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We would go back to our sin. We would go back to the ways that we were in before we came to Christ, but let us pursue and seek after God and walk in his ways.

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Back up to verse 21, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat the flesh.

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Now burnt offerings were supposed to be consumed by fire, but there were parts of the offerings that could be cut off of the sacrifice and be consumed like eaten.

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Now, either it was consumed by fire or you could consume it by eating it, but useless sacrifices cause

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God to be angry with his people and he considers them all alike.

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It doesn't matter the sacrifice. It doesn't matter whether it's a great ox or a lamb or a goat or a pigeon, turtle dove, or whether you have taken part of the sacrifice for yourself or you have given it all to God.

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If it is done with a heart that is not actually worshipful to the Lord, if the only reason you're doing this is so that you can say, well, here,

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I've done this work, so that will appease God's wrath and he won't come upon me. Well, God is angry with you because you won't walk in his ways.

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You're only doing these things that you can continue to love your sin and walk in that, which is in rebellion against God.

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I'm just doing this stuff so that, you know, it'll appease God. You're treating God almost as if he was a pagan deity because that was the way the pagans worship their gods.

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They would sacrifice or they would cut on themselves or they would do their chants and their dances or whatever else, trying to get their

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God's attention or appease their God in some way so that their false God would show favor to them.

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But that is not what the Lord demands of us. He doesn't want a checklist that you just go through begrudgingly.

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You don't love God. You don't love the Lord. These are not the it's not God that you were after. It is the passions of your flesh.

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But hoping that you can appease the God of wrath that you know so that he won't pour judgment out upon you for your sin.

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You're treating him just like these pagans regarded their own gods. And that is not a heart that pleases

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God. A heart that pleases the Lord is a heart that is truly after the Lord, not looking for ways that I can still indulge in my sin.

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But how do I put all of these things to death and live unto Christ? And so even with their sacrifices that the

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Jews were raising up, no matter how they regarded their sacrifices, God was not pleased with it. And he was going to pour his judgment out on all of Judah.

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For in the day that I brought them, verse 22, he's talking about now Israel as they had come out of the wilderness, out of or sorry, out of slavery and into the wilderness.

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In the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.

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Now that's odd because didn't God give the law to Israel and tell them that they had to sacrifice?

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Weren't they supposed to offer up these sacrifices? I mean, the Levitical law is pretty detailed into exactly how those sacrifices were even supposed to be offered.

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So why is it that God says here in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.

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What is meant here by this is that the sacrifices were not the moral law.

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This was not an exercise of their morality. Sacrifice these things and I will see you as good people.

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That's not the purpose of the sacrifices. God gave the moral law before he gave the ceremonial and Levitical law, showing them now here's how you are to worship me.

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First he gives them the moral law. So things that are, you know, summarized in the 10 commandments, you'll love the

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Lord, your God, you'll have no other gods before me. Don't raise up a graven image. Do not disrespect my name.

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Do not disrespect my day. And then you have the laws concerning how you love your neighbor, honor your father and your mother.

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Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not lie or bear false witness.

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Do not covet. These laws God gave to direct his people in godliness.

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And then as an exercise of their godliness out of the overflow of a godly heart, a heart that desires to honor and worship

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God out of a heart that desires the Lord. Then they would offer sacrifices.

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The offering of sacrifices was not to appease God or to earn his favor or that we can somehow atone for our own sins.

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For as it will later say in the book of Hebrews, the blood of bulls and goats never had the ability to forgive sins.

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God was going to give the forgiveness of sins through his son, Jesus Christ, and his shed blood on the cross for us.

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But the blood of the sacrifices of bulls and of goats were never going to accomplish that. So God was not requiring of them these sacrifices as some sort of moral imperative.

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The sacrifices were going to be acts of their worship that came out of a heart that desired

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God. And so the Lord says in verse 23, but this command

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I gave them, obey my voice and I will be your

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God and you shall be my people and walk in all the way that I command you that it may be well with you.

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So have a heart that desires God and wants to please him. And when you live out godliness, then as an exercise of that godliness in worship to the

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Lord, give up sacrifices to him. But the sacrifices themselves did not make the people sinless.

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It did not even make the people moral. So as the Lord goes on in verse 24, but they did not obey or incline their ear.

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They walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts and went backward and not forward.

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One of the places this is exemplified for us is in the book of judges, where it is said about the people there that there was no king in those days and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

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We saw that over and over again. Of course, the direct context here is God talking about the Israelites.

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They came out of Egypt and they did not walk in the way of God, even though they heard his voice exactly from Mount Sinai, give the 10 commandments.

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They saw his presence as it came down on the mountain and the mountain burned as as fire from a kiln.

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And the smoke went up into the heavens and they heard the sound of angels that were like trumpet blasts and peals of lightning and thunder.

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And it terrified the people. They saw the presence of God in this way and yet still rebelled against him, still grumbled.

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And in their hearts, they desired Egypt more than the land that God was promising them.

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Hence why God says they went backward in their evil hearts.

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They went backward and not forward. They were trying to go back to slavery instead of praising

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God for the freedom that he had given to them, calling them out of slavery, out of the slavery that they were in in Egypt.

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So there are many today, and maybe this has been you at some point, maybe this is you now. There are many who have been called out of their slavery to sin.

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And they may for a time show that they are Christians, that they are followers of Jesus.

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We talked about this when we were in the parable of the sower a couple of weeks back in Luke chapter 8.

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They will for a time show that they have turned from sin and love Jesus Christ and desire to walk in his ways.

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You would look at that person, you would say that person's a Christian. But over time, it might be demonstrated in their lives that their heart is not really for God.

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Their heart is still for their sin. They're still going back there. I've had so many conversations like this.

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You may have had a conversation like this before with a Christian brother or sister. It's backsliding and they're going back to sin.

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And knowing that what they're doing is sinful, they may make all kinds of excuses for it. They may try to drag you along with them into it.

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But in their heart of hearts, they know. They're trying to justify the behavior, but they know. They know that what they're doing is sin.

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And you plead with them and you ask them not to continue in that way, lest they fall away and fall into judgment.

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And they won't enter into God's rest. The very warning that God gave to Israel, and we see that warning come up again in the book of Hebrews.

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God says, obey my voice and I'll be your God. But they did not obey or incline their ear.

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They walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts and they went backward and not forward.

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What would forward be? Forward would be in pursuit of Christ. Of becoming more

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Christ -like. Of growing in godliness, maturing in your love for God, for his word, and even for his people.

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This fruit is even seen in your life as you grow in love for God's people.

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Remember the fruit of the spirit in Galatians chapter five. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self -control.

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Against such things there is no law. These things that are the fruit of the spirit.

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We need other people in order to demonstrate love. You can't love by yourself. You have to have people to love.

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And so as we grow in godliness, we're going to grow not only in our understanding of who

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God is according to his word, walking in those ways that are pleasing to him, but we even grow in our love for God's people.

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And this is going forward. As it said in Hebrews chapter 12, let us set aside every sin and every weight which so easily entangles anything that would hold us back from the pursuit of Christ.

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And as that verse goes on to say, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

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When we're in pursuit of Christ, that's forward, that's progress, that's moving forward.

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And we keep our eyes on Jesus. We're pursuing Jesus. And what are we ultimately going to get in the end?

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We're going to get Jesus. We still have Jesus now, but we'll have more of him and even his very presence when we will be with him in glory.

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I believe it was Charles Spurgeon that said, the great thing about heaven is that Christ is there.

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We need not know too much about heaven, only that God is there. And that's our heaven, that we get to be with God forever in glory.

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Whatever else heaven is going to be, the greatest thing about it is that we get to be with God. So let us be in pursuit of that, seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, moving forward, not going back to our sin, not going back to our sinful ways, forward in Christ.

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Verse 25, God continues with this rebuke of Judah, from the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day,

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I have persistently sent all my servants, the prophets to them day after day.

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Remember that Jesus says in the Beatitudes, he says to his people that if you are hated, if they persecute you, if they say all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account, rejoice and be glad, for so they did to the prophets who were before you, and great will be your reward in heaven.

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So here God has sent these prophets to Judah and warned them, and they won't listen.

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From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants, the prophets to them day after day.

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Who was that first prophet when they came out of Egypt? Moses. They rejected Moses. All the other prophets, then on down the line, the people have continued to reject.

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So it's not like Judah can have this attitude that, well, we didn't know. I mean, come on, he didn't give us a chance.

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Yeah, God had always sent prophets to them, always warning them. So when God says to Jeremiah, do not intercede for this people, because he means to bring judgment against them, it's not that God hasn't already been long suffering.

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He has patiently waited for Judah to repent and come back to the Lord, and they haven't, and so here is the judgment that is coming upon them.

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Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but they stiffened their neck, and they did worse than their fathers.

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So the people now, they've done worse than even those who had rebelled against God in the wilderness, in Exodus.

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Verse 27, so you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you.

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Going back to the statement we read last week of don't intercede for them. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you.

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And you shall say to them, this is the nation that did not obey the voice of the

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Lord their God and did not accept discipline. Truth is perished. It is cut off from their lips.

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So why is it that Jeremiah is supposed to proclaim these things to them if they're not going to repent and come to the Lord anyway?

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It's so that God would be glorified. It's because God has told Jeremiah to do it, and so he must.

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But God will show himself to be just in all of his judgments that he brings upon this wicked people.

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They were told, they were warned, they did not listen. They're not even going to listen.

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But God is proclaiming this so that he would be praised even in his judgment that he pours out on the wicked.

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As I've said before, teaching from Romans 9 and from other places, God will be glorified in you.

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He will either be glorified by saving you or he will be glorified by bringing judgment upon you.

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But in one way or another, God is going to be glorified in you. So which will it be for you? Will you perish in judgment or will you repent and turn to God and praise him for his patience toward you, his loving kindness, that you would come to salvation in Christ and walk in his ways?

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But they don't accept discipline. Truth is perished. It's cut off from their lips. And so, verse 29, cut off your hair and cast it away, which is a sign of mourning.

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Raise a lamentation on the bare heights for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

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And may it not be said of you and me, my brethren, God's wrath may very well come upon this generation among whom we live, but may we not perish with them.

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Turn from your sin to the Lord Jesus Christ. First John 1 .9, if we ask forgiveness for our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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And then let us walk in his ways to the day of Christ. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read and I pray indeed you would lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake.

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May it not be that we are continually going back to our sin, our lusts, our cravings, the things that we covet, the appetites of our flesh, the temptings of the world.

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We're not constantly running back to that. We're running to Christ. We're fleeing from the devil, drawing near to God so that the devil will flee from us and draw us near to you,

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O Lord, and bring us safely into your kingdom. Save us from even the temptations of our own flesh.

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Thank you for your patience and your loving kindness toward us. And may we serve as a testament to others about God's goodness to those who love him.

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It is in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Amen.