WWUTT 2309 Return for I Am Merciful (Jeremiah 3:1-14)

The Lord rebuked Israel because they had gone after false gods, and though they deserve the judgment of God, yet the

Lord said to them, Return to me, faithless Israel, and I will be merciful 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 three, where the

Lord is going to call Israel to repentance. We've read a pretty harsh indictment of Israel in chapter two the last few weeks, with Israel having played the whore, whoring themselves out with the false gods of the pagans around them,

God even comparing them to a donkey in heat. At the start of chapter three here, he will continue that rebuke of Israel, but then, through the prophet

Jeremiah, will call them to repentance. So let me begin reading here in verse one. We'll go through verse 14.

Hear the word of the Lord. If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's wife, will he return to her?

Would not that land be greatly polluted? You have played the whore with many lovers, and would you return to me, declares the

Lord? Lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see. Where have you not been ravished?

By the waysides, you have sat awaiting lovers like an Arab in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your vile whoredom.

Therefore the showers have been withheld, and the spring rain has not come. For you have the forehead of a whore.

You refuse to be ashamed. Have you not just now called to me, my father?

You are the friend of my youth. Will he be angry forever? Will he be indignant to the end?

Behold, you have spoken, but you have done all the evil that you could. The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah, Have you seen what she did, that faithless one

Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree and there played the whore?

And I thought, after she has done all this, she will return to me. But she did not return, and her treacherous sister

Judah saw it. She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one

Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.

Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.

Yet for all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the

Lord. And the Lord said to me, Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous

Judah. Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say,

Return, faithless Israel, declares the Lord. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the

Lord. I will not be angry forever, only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the

Lord your God and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, declares the

Lord. Return, O faithless children, declares the Lord, for I am your master.

I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

So we come back up to the start here of verse one, where the Lord says, If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's wife, will he return to her?

Now there's an instruction that's given in the law in Deuteronomy chapter 24. This is at the start of the chapter here.

When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man's wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies who took her to be his wife, then her former husband who sent her away may not take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination to the

Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your

God is giving you for an inheritance. So what does this sound like here at the start of Jeremiah chapter three?

It sounds exactly like that reference in Deuteronomy 24. You hoard yourselves out with all these false gods, the

Lord says to Israel. So it's as though Israel has married them, has entered into a one -flesh union with them.

And so God says, should I take you back? Is it not written in the law that once you have hoarded yourself out and become the wife of another, that you can't come back to the previous husband who had given you the certificate of divorce in the first place?

Would you return to me, declares the Lord. Now the fact that God highlights this at the start of chapter three makes the offer of his mercy all that much more gracious.

So when we get down to verse 11, that's where you hear that call to Israel, return, faithless

Israel, declares the Lord. I will not look on you in anger for I am merciful, declares the

Lord. When you know that the law says this, when God even uses that law against Israel and says, you are unworthy, how could

I take you back after what it is that you have done? Then that makes the offer of mercy all the more beautiful.

Of course, we know that Israel doesn't end up taking it. In fact, that's going to be said when we get to chapter four, but still the offer is made there.

Even though Israel has done something that the law declares, you're unworthy to come back and God is perfectly just and righteous to not take you back.

Yet he is going to, in mercy, offer you pardon anyway, and Israel won't take it.

So see that here in the setup at the start of the chapter. So we see how amazing it is that he offers this mercy to them later on.

Verse two, lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see, where have you not been ravished?

By the waysides, you have sat awaiting lovers like an Arab in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your vile whoredom.

Where have you gone in this land and not been sacrificing to these false gods?

And not just sacrificing to these false gods, but when God compares them to being a whore, that's more than just a spiritual connotation, because indeed there's been sexual immorality wrapped up with these pagan practices that Israel has adopted.

Verse three, therefore the showers have been withheld and the spring rain has not come. Yet you have the forehead of a whore.

You refuse to be ashamed. God has done as he had promised in the law, as also said in the book of Deuteronomy, that when they disobey

God and do not follow in his laws and his statutes, he would shut up the heavens and there would be no rain upon the land.

God also said this to Solomon when Solomon built the temple and asked that God would dwell there and that he would give a blessing to Israel.

God said, when I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain or command the locusts to devour the land or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then

I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal their land. You know that passage, right?

Second Chronicles 7 .14. Verse 13 is the verse that's often not mentioned there when it comes to referencing that verse.

We love Second Chronicles 7 .14 and we apply it to our nation because, hey, if we just pray and seek the

Lord, then he'll forgive our sin and we'll heal their land. But we don't like to pay so much attention to the fact that God's judgment upon a land would include no rain, being devoured by the locusts.

There would be pestilence, disease, plague that would be spread among the people.

Seems like we tend to ignore that part whenever we reference Second Chronicles 7 .14. But anyway, the point being that God said there to Solomon, I will shut up the rains when you guys disobey me, when you forget my law and do not keep my statutes.

It's been said to Israel over and over and over again. So they know the reason why they're not getting rain, why their crops are not getting watered, why they are not living in abundance.

And yet God said, you have the forehead of a whore. You refuse to be ashamed. The forehead of a whore, meaning that a prostitute might cover her lower face with a veil, but her head would be uncovered.

So she would have the forehead of a whore. And this would be the way that she would show her availableness.

Or it could be that there's no veil at all. It's just that her head is entirely uncovered. And that's the reference to her having a forehead of a whore.

Have you not just now called me, as said in verse four, my father, you are the friend of my youth.

Will he be angry forever? Will he be indignant to the end? Behold, you have spoken.

But you have done all the evil that you could. So Israel is called upon the

Lord. But is it with a genuine heart? Or are they continuing to do the evil that they've been in, just expecting, well,

God's going to hear me anyway. So there's no repentance there. They call upon the Lord. But it's not from a heart that is actually turned back to the

Lord. In verse six, the Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah, have you seen what she did?

That faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree and there played the whore.

And this goes back to that question that was asked earlier. Is there anywhere that you have gone where you have not whored yourself out with these false gods?

On every high hill, those were the high places. There were like many temples that were built on all those high places.

Solomon did that at the end of his reign. He sympathized with the false gods of his many wives, and he built high places.

And so the Lord had said to him that he would tear the kingdom from Solomon, though it wouldn't happen in his lifetime.

It would happen in the lifetime of his sons, and the kingdom would be split into the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom.

Hence why God will say in verse 12, go and proclaim these words to the north, because Israel was in the north.

So Solomon had built those high places. So up on every high hill, that's where there were altars to false gods.

And under every green tree, that was another place where these false gods were worshiped.

Could be that a tree wasn't entirely cut down, but there would be a relief or an idol that was shaped into the side of the tree, or believing that the tree itself represented a particular false god.

And so what would they do under the tree? There would be acts of sexual immorality and even child sacrifice that would take place under these trees.

Verse 7, and I thought. Now it says, and I thought. That's not Jeremiah speaking. That's the Lord speaking.

And I thought, after she has done all this, she will return to me. But she did not return, and her treacherous sister

Judah saw it. She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one

Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister

Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. So instead of seeing what happened with Israel and how

God had cut himself off from Israel and how Israel wasn't receiving rain, they were getting no blessing from God, there was no evidence of God's presence with Israel.

How did Judah read that? They didn't fear

God as they should have. Judah did not see it and fear me, but she too went and played the whore.

It was like instead of looking up at God, Judah looked down at Israel and said, we can do that. We'll do it better.

I don't know. I don't know if that's what Judah was thinking or not, but it seemed to be their attitude.

They learned nothing from what God had done to Israel. She saw all the adulteries of that faithless one

Israel and also went and played the whore. Verse nine, because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree.

And again, mentioning this last week, reading actually from Jeremiah chapter 10, they take a stone, shape it into an idol.

They take a tree, cut it down, shape the wood into an idol, overlay them with gold and commit adultery with them, being faithless to God and whoring themselves out with these false gods.

Verse 10, yet for all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense declares the

Lord. Now, what does that mean? Well, it means they may have looked like on the outside that they were asking

God for forgiveness or declaring repentance or worshiping and honoring

God. It may have looked that way, but they were just making it look true. It wasn't actually true.

Their hearts were not really for the Lord. They were still going after the false gods of the people around them.

And the Lord said to me, verse 11, faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous

Judah. And I think the reason why the Lord says that there in verse 11 is because Judah had an example.

Judah had a warning. They could have seen what was going to happen to them watching what was happening to Israel.

And yet they even more foolishly than Israel go after false gods and whore themselves out with them.

Israel wasn't following anyone's example. They just fell into it on their own. Judah is looking at Israel and decides to do what

Israel was doing, though they are seeing the consequences of God play out on Israel for their wickedness.

So, therefore, God says that Israel, though they have been faithless, they're more righteous than Judah.

So, verse 12, go and proclaim these words to the north toward the north, which is the northern kingdom of Israel, and say, return, faithless

Israel, declares the Lord. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the

Lord. I will not be angry forever. Israel was surely feeling the judgment of God upon them and that the rains had been shut up.

And there was probably other consequences that they were facing because of their sin as well.

And asking this question, how long will God be angry? God promises, I will not be angry with you forever.

You return to me, I will be merciful. However, it's not that this is unconditional.

There are conditions to this. Every covenant that God makes, there's conditions to the covenant. I will be faithful to the covenant if you're faithful to the covenant.

And so, the Lord requires of Israel this, verse 13, only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the

Lord, your God, and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, declares the

Lord. Now, all things considered, those are not high expectations, are they?

That's a very simple and reasonable request. I will show mercy to you if you will only do this.

Only do what? Sacrifice 10 ,000 bulls? Build you another temple? What is it that the people of Israel must do?

Only this, acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the

Lord, your God, and you have not obeyed my voice. Verse 14, return,

O faithless children, declares the Lord, for I am your master. I will take you, one from a city, two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

I will bring you back to my holy hill. You will come to that place where God dwells, and you will be able to stand there with Him.

Such a merciful God that He would say this to Israel. But of course, as we come to know, and we'll look at later,

Israel doesn't actually repent. Nonetheless, with what we have read here, let's give it a little bit of application here.

The God of Israel is our God, the God of the universe, with whom we are able to communicate and fellowship with through Jesus Christ, our

Savior. He died on the cross for our sins, rose again from the dead, so that all who are in Christ Jesus, who have faith with Him, we have access to God and fellowship with God.

And what does He require of us? Only that we have faith in Jesus Christ.

There is no work that can save us, because all of our works, as said in Isaiah 64, 6, are as a filthy rag before a holy

God anyway. Our works are never going to be good enough. They will not make us righteous.

We will never be in a good enough state to be able to stand with God if we're relying upon anything that we do.

So God does not require any of our works to be made right before Him.

He just simply says this, that we would trust in His Son, that we would believe in Jesus, and we will be forgiven our sins.

We acknowledge our guilt. Believing in Jesus means we acknowledge our guilt, that we are deserving of the judgment of God, and only faith in Jesus Christ can absolve us of that guilt, can wash away the stain, can satisfy the wrath of God on our behalf, so that we may stand before God, not as the objects of His wrath, but as the children of His love.

If we will turn from our sin to the Lord God, He will forgive us.

Now, if you have fallen into sin, like Israel did, I mean, Israel at one point, they're following after the

Lord, but then they turn away from God, and they fall into sin. If you fall into sin, and you repent before God, is it from a genuine heart, or is it under pretense?

Going back to verse 10, yet for all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the

Lord. Do you still find yourself falling into sin, because it's the passion of your flesh, and you feel guilty about it, so you go to God, and you ask for Him to forgive you, but the next day, you're falling right back into the same sin again, and over and over and over again, that just seems to be the pattern?

Then it could be that you don't actually return to the Lord with your whole heart, but in pretense.

It looks like you are repentant, but you're really not, because if you were really repentant, you would turn from that sin to Christ.

You would not desire the sin, you would desire Christ, and wherever you are weak in your flesh, you continue to draw all the more near to Christ, that you might crucify the flesh and be made alive together with Christ.

When you come to the Lord and ask forgiveness, do it with your whole heart, do it genuinely, desiring to turn from your sin and be forgiven, and God will give you that.

1 John 1, 9, I quote it many times with regards to this, if we ask forgiveness for our sins,

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

As we read here once again in Jeremiah 3, 12, the Lord proclaiming, I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, declares the

Lord. I will not be angry forever, only acknowledge your guilt that you rebelled against the

Lord, your God, and scattered your favors among foreigners under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, declares the

Lord. Return, O faithless children, for I am your master, and I will bring you to Zion.

What sin do you need to confess? What do you need to turn from and come back to the

Lord Jesus Christ? And in him, you will stand with God at his holy mountain.

Heavenly Father, as we wrap this up, I pray that you would convict our hearts of our sin so that we might seek the righteousness that is given to us in Christ.

Fill us with your Holy Spirit, knowing that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. So let us not whore ourselves out and unite with the world or the passions of our flesh, all of these temptations that our flesh might seek after, for we want that house that the

Holy Spirit occupies to be kept pure, to be a place deserving of the

Holy Spirit's presence. Cleanse us. Come inside and cleanse out that house of all the wicked idols that we raise up, the coveting and things that we go after of this world.

May it not be our desire to have the world, but our desire would be for Christ.