WWUTT 2329 Shall God not Punish Sin? (Jeremiah 5:1-9)

God has given a warning to Jerusalem that His judgment is going to come upon them, but Jerusalem refuses to repent.

They love and desire the passions of their flesh. And we see a lot of the same thing in our world today, 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 on to Chapter 5.

What we've read about so far in this prophetic book, God has, through the prophet Jeremiah, confronted

Israel in their sin. They have whored themselves out with false gods. They have indulged in sexual immorality with the pagans around them.

But God has given them an opportunity to repent, and there's even a foretelling of their repentance. Repentance and forgiveness are offered.

Then God turns to Judah, calls them out on the same sin. But Judah will not repent.

And what we read about here in Chapter 5 is their unwillingness to repent, even though it is said to them, judgment is going to come from the north, and you have brought this upon yourselves.

Yet they will not turn from their sin, and thus we will also read here in Chapter 5 about the consequences that will result.

And so let me read here. We're going to split Chapter 5 up into two parts. We'll do half this week, half next week. Let me begin reading through about the first nine verses.

Hear the word of the Lord. Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem.

Look and take note. Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her.

Though they say, as the Lord lives, yet they swear falsely. O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth?

You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish. You have consumed them, but they refused to take correction.

They have made their faces harder than rock. They have refused to repent. Then I said, these are only the poor.

They have no sense, for they do not know the way of the Lord, the justice of their God. I will go to the great and I will speak to them, for they know the way of the

Lord, the justice of their God. But they all alike had broken the yoke.

They had burst the bonds. Therefore, a lion from the forest shall strike them down.

A wolf from the desert shall devastate them. A leopard is watching their cities.

Everyone who goes out of them shall be torn to pieces, because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are great.

How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me and have sworn by those who are no gods.

When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of whores.

They were well -fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor's wife.

Shall I not punish them for these things, declares the Lord, and shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?

And where we go from here, we'll even reflect upon the fact that Judah would rather have their false teachers.

They won't listen to someone who teaches them the truth, who proclaims to them danger, gives them warnings so that they will repent.

They won't listen to Jeremiah, but they love their false teachers because the false teachers tell them what they want to hear.

Though their false teachers are completely lying to them, they would rather have that word than the word of God.

We see that a lot in our day as well. Many things to relate to here, so let's go through it.

Back to verse 1. Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem. Of course, this is the capital city of Judah, representing the entire southern kingdom.

Look and see, take note, search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her.

So we're looking for a godly man here in the streets of Jerusalem. What is this godly man going to be like?

Is he strong? Does he drink and guzzle with the best of them?

Does he chew and spit? You know, does he hunt? Is he a manly man?

Does he have lots of weapons? Rides the biggest horse? You know, something like that. Are these his qualifications?

Drives loud cars? Has hair on his chest? Is that the guy that we're looking for?

We're looking for a man. What kind of godly man are we looking for? Very specifically, he's a man who does justice.

He's a man who seeks truth. A word synonymous with justice, by the way, is righteousness.

These words are often interchangeable in Scripture. Justice, the one who desires what is just.

Righteous, the one who desires to do what is right. This is a morally upstanding man who would do what

God desires of a godly person to do. And not only this, but he would desire it for his neighbor and even speaks up for those who are mistreated.

He desires God's justice to be done in God's kingdom. He seeks truth.

He wants to know the answer. He wants to know what God has said that I may follow in his way.

Not going after the philosophers. Not going after what any of these pagans have said.

We're not listening to the ideologies of our age. I don't want to know what the world has to say a man is supposed to be.

I want to know what God has said I am supposed to be, according to his word. What does it mean to be a godly man?

To seek after God. To be a Christ -like man. To seek after Christ. What has Jesus said and desiring holiness according to his way.

This is the kind of man God is looking for in Jerusalem. Of course, I'm being somewhat anachronistic here with a reference to Jesus since Jesus has not shown up yet as the incarnate

Son of God. But he is, of course, present. The Son of God being among the

Godhead who is speaking here through Jeremiah. Look for a godly man. And if you find that man

I will pardon her. There's some parallels here to Sodom and Gomorrah as well.

I'll come to that here in just a moment. Verse 2 Though they say as the Lord lives yet they swear falsely.

So there are many in Jerusalem who sound like Christians, right? They sound godly.

They know all the Sunday school answers. They will repeat Thus saith the

Lord. Hear the word of the Lord. What does the Bible have to say? That's what I'm going to live by.

Again, being anachronistic. But you get what I'm after. And yet, though they can speak the language though they sound like Christians though they'll pay lip service to it their lives don't reflect it.

They swear falsely. They're taking the Lord's name in vain. Making it sound like they're more genuinely of God than they are.

So verse 3 O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth?

You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish. You have consumed them but they refused to take correction.

They have made their faces harder than rock. They have refused to repent.

God has given them warning. He has even brought afflictions upon them. But it has not changed anything.

They refuse to repent. They continue to go after falsehoods instead of seek instead of seeking the

God of truth. Verse 4 Then I said, These are only the poor. They have no sense.

For they do not know the way of the Lord, the justice of their God. How many times have you seen somebody misbehave?

You know, sin, right? They've done wickedly, they've done evil, and you've said something to the effect of, well, they just don't know any better.

You ever said that? Maybe you have a grandmother that would respond that way whenever she sees the way young people will misbehave in the culture today.

They just don't know any better. Something to that effect. There's something of truth to that, but at the same time, that's not the problem either.

Because even if they knew better, they would still go the way that they are going.

Even if they knew the answer, like they were told in Sunday school, here's what God expects of you, but now they're choosing to go another way.

It doesn't matter. It would not matter if they had been told the right way to go. They're going the way that they're going because it's what their flesh desires.

They're acting out what their heart wants. Throughout the scriptures, the heart is the very core, the very seat of the person's moral character.

As Jesus said in Matthew 12, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So whatever the heart wants, whatever it desires, everything else is going to be manifest from there.

So when the heart is corrupt, when the heart goes after evil things, it doesn't matter what the ears hear, the person is going to go after that which they most desire.

In outright rebellion against whatever it is that God has said. It doesn't matter if they know.

They're acting out of their flesh. They're going after what their heart, what their flesh wants.

And here Jeremiah has this lament, like this is only the uneducated people.

This is only the people who don't, they don't know any better. If I go to the great, if I go to the learned,

I go to the scholars, I go to the rich, I go to those who are in the most influential positions in Jerusalem, you know what

I'm going to find there? I'll speak to them, for they know the way of the Lord. They know the justice of their

God. Jeremiah is sure he will find the godly man there among the great.

End of verse 5. But they all alike had broken the yoke.

In other words, nobody's telling me what to do. I'm not being led along by God. I'm going where I want to go.

I'm doing what I want to do. They have burst the bonds. Verse 6.

Therefore a lion from the forest shall strike them down. A wolf from the desert shall devastate them.

We have false teachers in the New Testament described as wolves. We have the devil as in 1

Peter 5 described as a prowling lion looking for someone to devour. We have both of those creatures mentioned here.

A lion from the forest will strike them down. A wolf from the desert will devastate them.

Predators, prowlers. Now this, of course, will be in reference to an army of Babylonians that will eventually come against Jerusalem, but the reference to Satan and false teachers still applies.

False teachers will prey on them because the false teachers will recognize,

I know what their flesh wants. I know what it is that they want to go after. I'm going to give it to them so that they'll pay me for it.

Got a lot of social media influencers out there doing that very thing today. Different kind of televangelists going on right now.

Of course it's not on TV, it's not on cable anymore. Well, as much.

Let's say it's not on there as much as it used to be. That's not the most prevalent form or the most prevalent medium in which you will find most of these false teachers.

It's now through social media. It's now podcasting, it's now YouTube videos, so on and so forth.

False teachers are going to find whatever medium they can in order to get the message out, in order to prey on people, in order to separate gullible and naive people from their dollars.

Just getting you to watch is getting them money because everything is ad -based now on social media, podcasts and video and things like that.

It's all ad -based. So everybody who gets a bunch of views is going to get a cut of that ad revenue.

So the very fact that you just sit there and watch it is it's going to give them revenue. If they can develop the right kind of hot takes or they develop the right kind of content that people are going to watch and consume, they're going to make money off of it.

That's exactly what it is that they're after. So we see a different kind of televangelists today, but they're still preying on the same thing as before.

It's still the passions of the flesh. It's still what the heart desires. A person doesn't desire God. They desire health and wealth or whatever else.

They desire a certain kind of manhood that feeds the fleshly appetites, the lusts of young men.

You know, thinking of somebody like Andrew Tate out there who's really popular even among young men, it's because he's going to feed their lusts.

That's what makes him so popular. There are still Beth Moore -like women on social media.

Beth Moore is not as prominent a name or a figure as she used to be anymore, but she's got little mini -me's out there making all kinds of video content, saying very, very similar things to what

Beth said. The Lord has given me a word today for you and saying things that are going to tickle women's ears.

There's more Jen Hatmakers than ever before. There's more Rachel Hollises. There are more

Sadie Robertson -Huffs. She might be one of them, actually. One of the little Beth Moore clones.

But you get what I'm saying. There's even more of them than ever before out there on social media, still with the same kind of messaging, still scratching the same kind of ears because they're telling people what it is they want to hear.

That's what makes them popular. The more they get watched, the more revenue they get, and then the more content they put out, deceiving more and more people.

This is, as Satan is described in Ephesians 1, is the prince of the power of the air.

He's just using the airwaves in another way now, through social media and the different ways that young people are watching.

And they're getting devoured by these false teachers. I've mentioned a few of the minor examples.

There's worse stuff out there. And people listen to it, and they listen to the lies and the deceptions, and they get drawn into it.

A leopard is watching their cities. Everyone who goes out from them shall be torn to pieces because their transgressions are many, their apostasies are great.

Apostasies. Now, that's a word that we don't see very often in the Old Testament, but it is prominent here in the book of Jeremiah.

This is a people who had previously proclaimed to be followers of God and they have left the way.

Their apostasies are great. They've found all manner of sins and teachers who will encourage them in those sins.

So, verse 7, How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me and have sworn by those who are no gods.

When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of whores.

When things were going very well for this people, they decided to indulge in sin.

They went after false gods. They gave the credit, all the blessings of God that they have received and they gave the credit to gods which are no gods at all.

Because those gods would give them the passions of their flesh. Yeah, these sex gods of the pagans,

I'll worship them if I get to have all the desires of my flesh, all of my lusts met.

So, verse 8, they were well fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor's wife.

I remember living in a part of Kansas a number of years ago and there were so many instances of adultery.

And it was so abundant, so prevalent, even among a people who claimed to be

Christian. And then you would find another act of adultery. It was happening over and over again.

And it was getting closer and closer to home until eventually one of our elders at the church that I was at got caught doing it as well.

But there was a man who was kind of a traveling minister and I was having a conversation with him about it.

There's so much adultery going on. And he said, yeah, in my town, many as well.

And named people in his church that were underdisciplined because of that very thing.

They had been committing adultery with one another. Just seemed to be rampant in little towns in like north central

Kansas. It was incredible. Well, that very same minister that I was talking to about that, he fell into it as well.

It was unbelievable how prevalent it was. It was almost like there was that spirit of deception was just there in that area and was dragging people out of their homes to be devoured by the beast outside.

It was getting them to wander into unsafe places and entertain the lusts and the passions of their flesh.

They neigh for their neighbor's wife. Shall I not punish them for these things, declares the

Lord, and shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this? And this, of course, is talking about Judah, but the

United States of America, guilty of many of the greatest sins. Homosexuality and other forms of sexual immorality.

Adultery, of course, that's rampant as well. Pornography, the lusts of the flesh that are entertained by young men, older men as well.

Women get into it also as they desire porn. And OnlyFans, that site

OnlyFans, has become a place where more and more women can become a prostitute and not have to be caught out on the corner.

The corner of the street of my town, that would have been a very shameful, shameful place to be caught.

But now I can do it in the comfort of my own room and I can do it on the internet and who has to know about that?

And they prostitute themselves out for a few dollars. You'll hear those stories about some of the women that are making millions on OnlyFans.

So some women get this idea in their head that they can be one of those million dollar makers. And they end up selling their body cheap and they don't even make that much off of it.

And now they've shamed themselves. They have sinned so incredibly deeply. And we can't play around with this stuff and think that God is not going to avenge himself on people who do such sins.

Shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this? God is going to pour out his judgment on America too.

Just because the election went a certain way, the way that it did this past fall, does not mean that God is holding back his wrath.

It could be that he lets the so -called conservative side I say so -called because the

Republican party has become LGBTQ approving and pro -choice with this last election.

With the last platform that they released in 2024. So they're as liberal as Democrats were 20 years ago.

And God may be allowing the quote -unquote conservative party to come in just to demonstrate this side is just as wicked as the other side.

So that he will be justified when he finally does pour out his judgment on the

United States. It could be the same way that God will pour out his judgment on Judah and Jerusalem by bringing an enemy in from the outside that is going to conquer them.

That's what of course we're going to see happen to Judah. Now I'm going to stop there because we're really at the end of our time today as we come to the close of verse 9.

That was as far as I read anyway. So we'll pick up there next time in verse 10.

Where again Jerusalem does not want to repent. They refuse to repent. And so they go after those false teachers that will tell them the things that they want to hear.

That's where we're picking up with verse 10 next time. Heavenly Father I thank you for what we have read and I pray that we understand.

We're able to read the times and we understand the kind of day that we're living in. And that everything is so close to God just taking his hands off this nation.

Letting it be submitted to its own passions so that the wrath of God could be poured out upon it.

Whatever nation it is that we live in. The world is not a heavenly place right now. In just about any country that anybody, any

Christian lives in, we can see the sin and the depravity that is going on around us that is just taunting

God to pour out his wrath upon it. And so Lord as we see that day drawing near,

I pray that we would be all the more diligent to be out there sharing the message of the gospel.

Because there is nothing else that will save except hearing. Jesus died for my sins and only by faith in him can

I be forgiven my sins and made right with God and be able to escape that day of judgment that will come upon everyone.

The living and the dead. Jesus is our salvation. He is the savior.

He is also the righteous judge who will strike down the nations with a rod of iron on that day when he returns.

May we be diligent to warn those of the judgment that is coming that they will turn from their sin to the

Lord Jesus Christ. No sin is too great that a person can't turn to Christ and be forgiven.

Today is the day of salvation. Keep us close to you in the hour of trial.

May we not go after the passions of our flesh. Keep us from the spirit of the age.

In your Holy Spirit that dwells within our hearts. It's in Jesus name we pray.

Amen. This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes.

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