WWUTT 2394 I Have Forsaken My House (Jeremiah 12:1-17)

Jeremiah did what God had told him to do. He went and warned the people of the judgment of God that was coming, but they did not accept His word. And when we speak of the judgment of God, we're going to get the same reaction 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 are up to Chapter 12, where Jeremiah is going to bring a complaint before God. What we read last week in Chapter 11, Jeremiah brought God's words to the people, specifically the men at Anathoth, and they rejected His word.

Jeremiah’s Complaint and God’s Warning to Prepare for Worse

Now this has been the pattern with the prophets throughout Scripture, even prophets before Jeremiah. They speak a word from God. The people hate that word because they don't want to accept what that means.

We've rebelled against God. God is going to bring judgment upon us, so therefore we must repent, but I don't want to repent. I want to keep going on in the sinful passions of my flesh. That's not what they're going to say.

That's essentially the attitude of their hearts. I don't want righteousness. I want this wicked thing because I like the way it makes me feel. So it is a deliberate rebellion against God for the personal passions of the flesh, and God has promised He's going to bring judgment upon this people because of their continued rebellion against Him.

So Jeremiah is going to bring this complaint here because His word has been rejected. God is going to bring this judgment against the people. Why doesn't God just bring judgment against the wicked and the righteous won't be swept away along with this total judgment that will come upon the land.

So that's going to be at the heart of Jeremiah's complaint, which he raises respectfully, but nonetheless doesn't understand why God is doing things the way that He's doing them. That's surely something we can relate to, right?

So let me begin reading here. I'm just going to read the first six verses. The first four verses are Jeremiah's complaint. The next two are the beginning of God's response to Jeremiah. So here are the word of the Lord.

Righteous are you, O Lord, when I complain to you. Yet I would plead my case before you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? You plant them and they take root.

They grow and produce fruit. You are near in their mouth and far from their heart. But you, O Lord, know me. You see me and test my heart toward you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter and set them apart for the day of slaughter.

How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field wither? For the evil of those who dwell in it, the beasts and the birds are swept away because they said, he will not see our latter end. If you have raced with men on foot and they have wearied you, how will you compete with the horses?

And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? For even your brothers and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously.

With you.

They are in full cry after you. Do not believe them, though they speak friendly words to you. Now, there was nothing in the text here that delineated a change in voice or who was speaking. So again, as I said, the first four verses were Jeremiah.

There wasn't anything in there that said, and the Lord replied. But I tried to put a pause in there because then the Lord begins to speak in verse five and he gives Jeremiah something of a proverb. He says, if you've raced with men on foot and they've wearied you, how will you compete with horses?

And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? What's God getting at when he asks that question of Jeremiah? Well, Jeremiah has gone to Anathoth and he has delivered the word of God there and the people have rejected it.

And Jeremiah didn't take their rejection so well. So God is saying, if you couldn't handle it there in Anathoth, what makes you think that when you go up to Jerusalem that you're going to have any more success there with that people?

Because that's kind of the height of the rebellion, the capital city of Judah. You're going to go and speak the word of God there and they're going to reject you. So God is saying this to Jeremiah to say, prepare for worse because you've already had your word rejected by the people who know you, your fathers and brothers.

Now you're going to go up to Jerusalem and speak to them. You need to prepare for harder days and you cannot trust even your family and friends. This is how corrupt this people have become. So Jeremiah is making this appeal.

Just set the wicked apart and let them get swept away for the slaughter where he says something like, how long will the land mourn and the grass of every field wither? Because the judgments that God has made previously in this letter have talked about how when the Babylonians come, it's just going to lay the land to waste.

So how long does all the land have to wither like this? Why does the whole land need to suffer when it's just these wicked ones that need to be set apart? And God is saying, oh, it's worse than you think it is.

That's really God's response. So Jeremiah is saying, just let the wicked get swept away. He's going to see, of course, how evil everything has become, how far their hearts have really become against God.

There is still a righteous remnant among them, Jeremiah being among them. For he says, oh, Lord, you know me. You see me and test my heart toward you. Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter and set them apart for the day of slaughter.

So Jeremiah has enough confidence in his own fear of God that he can say to the Lord, you test me and you know me. David said the same thing in the Psalms. Job said the same thing in the book of Job as well.

In fact, some of this complaint actually sounds like Job. Job saying, why are you allowing the wicked to prosper? Why do they get to thrive? Let me start at the very beginning and get these first two verses here, kind of covered the rest of it so far.

Righteous are you, oh Lord. That's how Jeremiah begins his complaint. So he starts very respectfully, like Abraham did, when Abraham questioned God bringing a total destructive judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah.

You remember this in Genesis, right? So Abraham comes before God and says, oh, you who deal righteously, are you going to sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Abraham's respectful. He fears God. In issuing his complaint, Jeremiah does the same.

So righteous are you, oh Lord, when I complain to you, yet I would plead my case before you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? Now Jeremiah is not necessarily blaming God.

He's not saying, isn't this your fault that the treacherous thrive in the land? It's setting up his point of saying, why can't you just deal with the wicked ones? Like they're thriving in the land, so deal with them.

And then those who are righteous who are being oppressed by the wicked ones, then we would be allowed to thrive. So verse two, you plant them and they take root. They grow and produce fruit. You are near in their mouth.

Now we've seen this throughout Jeremiah, how the people will acknowledge God with their.

Mouth.

They will still say Yahweh. They will still go up to the temple and sacrifice. Remember we read, I think this was in chapter seven, where the people said, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.

So they put their trust in the temple. As long as the temple is with us and God dwells in that temple, then nothing bad can happen.

To us.

But they acknowledge God with their lips while their hearts are far from him. We see that a lot in Christian evangelicalism today. No matter what country you live in, it's kind of a Western world thing going on right now where a lot of people will say that they are Christian.

They will use that even to virtue signal. I'm a Christian, so of course I'm a good person. Of course I'm going to heaven. Living in Texas, there were a lot of people in Texas who believed that they were making that confession just by saying they're Texan.

Of course I'm Texan. I grew up in the South. I was born in South Carolina. It's real big there in the Bible belt as well. I'm Southern. It's almost synonymous with saying I'm a Christian. So of course I'm going to heaven.

We'll make these appeals to things as though they're good luck charms. It's my get out of hell free card. Of course I'm this. Of course God loves me. Of course we're all his children. There are different sorts of vocabulary that people will use to try to make a plea for the fact that I am a good person and God loves me and I am going to heaven.

But while they will say that I'm a Christian and God we trust, I pledge allegiance to the flag, one nation under God. They'll use all the vocabulary. They'll wear the Christian t-shirt if you were around in the 90s.

They'll wear the WWJD bracelet. But their heart is far from God. They know how to do the look. They know how to speak the Christianese, but they don't really have a heart that's for the Lord. And this, this is Judah and all throughout Judah, though they will pay lip service to God, yet they are worshiping the false gods and their behavior, their, their practices are like all of the pagans that are around them.

They look like the world, except that they have the temple in Jerusalem and they speak the name of Yahweh as being on their side. That's about the one difference. So God is going to bring judgment upon this people because of their continued wickedness and even despite the warnings, they have continued to do these evil things, worshiping at altars to false gods instead of walking in the commandments that God had given to his people through the prophet Moses.

So in verse three, Jeremiah says, you, Oh Lord, know me. You see me, you test my heart, pull them out like sleep, like sheep for the slaughter and set them apart for the day of slaughter. God's response again to Jeremiah verse five, if you have raced with men on foot and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?

And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? It's almost like God is ignoring this plea that Jeremiah has made, though not entirely. He's just not responding to it directly.

Okay.

This is why even those who dwell in the land who do righteously are going to end up being caught up in this judgment that I'm bringing upon the land. That's not God's response. His response is you're not doing so well with the reaction you got from the men at Anathoth.

So if you couldn't handle that, how are you going to handle when you have to go to Jerusalem and speak these things? Verse six, for even your brothers in the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously.

With you.

They are in full cry after you do not believe them though. They speak friendly words to you. This is also God saying to Jeremiah, can you open your eyes a little bit and see the severity of the problem here?

Who do you think the righteous are that won't get swept away with the land? You look at even your own father and brothers and you see how much they hate you. So you're going to go up to Jerusalem and it's going to be like walking right into the midst of wolves.

You need to prepare for harder things that are to come. And so we go on with the word of God. This is still God's answer here in verse seven. I have forsaken my house. I have abandoned my heritage. I have given the beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies.

My heritage has become to me like a lion in the forest. She has lifted up her voice against me. Therefore I hate her. Is my heritage to me like a hyena's lair? Are the birds of prey against her all around?

Go assemble all the wild beasts. Bring them to devour. So this is kind of like the way that God responded to Job. If you think that the righteous can be spared and only let the wicked be the sheep led to slaughter, then you do it.

You bring an enemy against this land and you single out those who deserve destruction and those who deserve to be spared. Let's see you do it. Do you have the power and the authority to do that? Are these your people?

Have they turned against you in the way that they have turned against me? So just as God would ask these kinds of rhetorical questions of Job, so he is doing it with Jeremiah as well. And so verse 10, many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard.

They have trampled down my portion. They have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. They have made it a desolation.

Desolate.

It mourns to me. The whole land is made desolate, but no one lays it to heart. So Jeremiah is raising this complaint about when you bring the Chaldeans, when you bring the Babylonians against the land, the whole land is going to suffer for it.

Why does every blade of grass need to wither because of the wickedness of a few? And God is essentially responding, the people who are in the land who have done wickedly, they have already brought this reproach upon the land.

The land is already suffering because of them. Jeremiah don't assume that it's me that's bringing this destruction upon the land. The people that are there have already done this. The land is suffering because of them.

And it's true that here, you know, just to take the United States of America as an example, it's true that there are righteous people that are here in the U .S. There are people here that genuinely love and fear God.

I know them. I've known many of them. I've been raised and mentored by some of them as well. But the vastness of the U .S. is extremely wicked, even with what we might term to be conservatives leading in Congress and in the executive branch, the president of the United States.

Even though it might be a majority of conservatives on the Supreme Court, which that's relative as well. When you're talking about conservatives on the Supreme Court, it's like it's conservative by comparison.

It's conservative compared to the previous administration. But don't assume that this land is more righteous because of what happened in the past election. These are still wicked people. The vast majority of those leading the nation are wicked.

This is still a nation that is murdering 3 ,000 children by abortion every day, 3 ,000 unborn children. This is still a nation that values and upholds and defends the right for a man to marry another man.

This is a nation in which in the public school system, children can be taught abhorrent things about sexuality, things that are an abomination to God. We have all manner of other wickedness that's going on, full of all manner of unrighteousness, the way that Paul puts it in Romans 1.

Evil, covetousness, malice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

And that's not even comprehensive. There are maybe other sins that we could say that a nation such as the U .S. is guilty of. It would be the whole podcast, if not longer than that, just going through all the different evils that are going on in the nation.

Who are we to say that, hey, we're the righteous ones. Just sweep away the wicked and leave the righteous alone. God has a right to do with his creation as he wants. That was kind of the response that he said to Jonah.

Remember, Jonah wished that the Ninevites would have been swept away. And God's saying to Jonah, who are they to you? You didn't care for these people. You didn't raise them up. God is sovereign and he will do as he pleases.

And so verse 12, upon all the bare heights in the desert, destroyers have come for the sword of the Lord devours from one end of the land to the other. No flesh has peace. Sword of the Lord is a reference to the Babylonians.

Yeah, they're going to come against the land. The judgment of God is going to come through this people. But they're ultimately a weapon in God's hand as he brings judgment against those who have rebelled against him.

This is Providence. This is God working through these things to bring about what he had decreed from before the foundation of the world. So it is his purpose and plan to do this. And he is the one who can do it to bring about what he means to happen to this people who have rebelled against him and will do so through the Chaldeans.

Verse 13, they have sown wheat and have reaped thorns. They have tired themselves out, but profit nothing. They shall be ashamed of their harvests because of the fierce anger of the Lord. And then this is the closing of God's words to Jeremiah here for this chapter.

In the in the next chapter, God has instructions for Jeremiah what he wants him to do next. That's what we'll get to next week. So here versus 14 to 17. Thus says the Lord concerning all my evil neighbors who touch the heritage that I have given my people Israel to inherit.

Behold, I will pluck them up from their land and I will pluck up the house of Judah from among them. And after I have plucked them up, I will again have compassion on them and I will bring them again, each to his heritage and each to his land.

And it shall come to pass if they will diligently learn the ways of my people to swear by my name as the Lord lives, even as they taught my people to swear by Baal. Then they shall be built up in the midst of my people.

But if any nation will not listen, then I will utterly pluck it up and destroy it, declares the Lord. So he gives this promise to Jeremiah. Yes, judgment is coming upon this people. And I'm not going to change what I'm going to do.

You can't do what I'm going to do. And this people, they are mine to do with as I please. It's God's land. By the way, when he gave the people into that land, he said, this land's mine. You didn't earn it because of anything that you did.

It's because of God's grace to that people that he gave them the promised land. So it's his to do with what he wants. He is going to drive them off of that land. But he promises Jeremiah a day will come in which I'll bring them back to this place again.

So Jeremiah needs to trust and just continue to be obedient to what the Lord tells him to do. God is going to judge the world in which we live. That day of judgment is coming. The Apostle Paul saying it in Acts chapter 17.

The Lord has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness. How are we going to be saved from the judgment of that day? Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the message that we, even in a prophetic sense, would go out and speak to other people.

Judgment is coming. Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will live. And then with the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of you, walk according to those statutes and ways that God has said his people are to live by.

And we will show that we belong to God when we live according to the ways of his kingdom, to the way of Christ. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read and I pray. These are still warnings that are spoken to us today because we know that you are a righteous God.

And as a righteous God, you are not going to allow evil to go unpunished. There is a judgment that is coming upon the world. And we must fear lest we also be swept away in that judgment. So convict our hearts that we would turn from sin.

And may we have boldness and strength in these days to tell others that the judgment of God is coming. May we not shrink back when people hate us. Even members of our own family may hate us for it. But it's because we love them and we desire for them to be saved by faith in Jesus Christ, that we would warn them of the judgment to come and salvation that is found only in him.

It is in Jesus' name that 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.

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