WWUTT 2339 Shall I Not Punish This People (Jeremiah 5:20-31)

The people of Judah had rebelled against God, though God had loved them and had given them so much, yet they turn and worship false gods.

And God says, shall I not avenge myself on this people? 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 be finishing up Chapter 5 today.

This is where the Lord has been rebuking Jerusalem, for they refused to repent.

The judgment that is coming against them they have brought upon themselves. Though the people will say things like, as the

Lord lives, yet they swear falsely. Their heart is not really for the Lord.

They believe Yahweh is just going to be on their side no matter what. Meanwhile, their hearts go after false gods and the passions of the pagan people around them.

And so because they have disobeyed God and refused to hear his voice or the words of the prophets that have been sent to them,

God is going to bring judgment against them. We pick up reading here. I'm going to start in verse 18 to keep things in context and go through verse 31.

Hear the word of the Lord. But even in those days, declares the

Lord, I will not make a full end of you. And when your people say, why has the

Lord our God done all these things to us? You shall say to them, as you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve foreigners in a land that is not yours.

Declare this in the house of Jacob, proclaim it in Judah, hear this, O foolish and senseless people who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not.

Do you not fear me, declares the Lord? Do you not tremble before me? I place the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass.

Though the waves toss, they cannot prevail. Though they roar, they cannot pass over it.

But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart. They have turned aside and gone away.

They do not say in their hearts, let us fear the Lord, our God, who gives the rain in its season, the autumn rain and the spring rain and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest.

Your iniquities have turned these away, and your sins have kept good from you.

For wicked men are found among my people. They lurk like fowlers lying in wait.

They set a trap, they catch men. Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of deceit, therefore they have become great and rich.

They have grown fat and sleek. They know no bounds in deeds of evil.

They judge not with justice the cause of the fatherless to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy.

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

An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction.

My people love to have it so. But what will you do when the end comes?

Now that question that's asked there in verse 29, shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this, we have seen that question before.

That was back in verse 9. Shall I not punish them for these things, declares the Lord, and shall

I not avenge myself on a nation such as this? So that appears to be the repeating question here in Jeremiah chapter 5.

Shall I not avenge myself on a nation that has received such great blessings from God?

The nation that God had chosen to dwell with, to put his name with, that a temple would be built among them, and he would descend and live there with this people.

He has given such favor to them, and yet they have rebelled against God, and they have hoarded themselves out with false gods.

They have listened to false prophets. They have gone after lies. And so, because this people has done so wickedly, though they had been given so much, though they had the very presence of God living among them, then

God is going to pour out his judgment upon them. Now, as we read here in verse 18, even in those days,

I will not make a full end of you. But when your people say, why has

God done these things to us? You shall say that we forsook the

Lord. We went after foreign gods. And because you went after foreign gods in your land, you brought these foreign gods into the land that God had given you for an inheritance.

So you shall now serve foreigners in a land that doesn't belong to you.

So let's pick up there, verse 20, where God says to Jeremiah, declare this in the house of Jacob and proclaim it in Judah.

That's a parallelism. So it's a statement, but same thing said twice, slightly different ways.

Verse 21, hear this, oh, foolish and senseless people who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not.

Where else have we heard that? This was a similar thing that God said to Isaiah at the beginning of the book of Isaiah.

So we have it here near the beginning of Jeremiah. We read it previously in Isaiah chapter six.

I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And I said, here

I am, send me. And he said, go and say this to the people. Keep on hearing, but do not understand.

Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed.

So God is telling Isaiah to go to a people and preach to them who will not hear him.

Yet he is still supposed to preach. We've been in the book of Exodus in our Sunday school class at church and just recently read about the

Lord sending Moses before Pharaoh, telling him what God has commanded him.

And yet God says to Moses, I will harden Pharaoh's heart.

And he won't let the people go. Yet Moses is supposed to go in front of him and say, let my people go, even though God has said to him, but I'm going to harden his heart and he will not let the people go.

Yes, because what is ultimately the thing that God is after, that he might be able to display the full range of his glory.

Pharaoh's heart is hardened so that God can show these spectacular signs and wonders over Egypt and not just to the

Egyptians, but even to the people of God, as Israel would see it, they would see the power of God, his love and care for them, that he would pour out this judgment on their enemies and release them from captivity.

And then these things would be spoken down through Israel, through the generations, as it said, even in the

Psalms, remember these things and tell them to your children. In Romans chapter nine, it is said that God raised up Pharaoh to tear him down, put him at this high position so that he might show his power, his glory over Pharaoh by tearing him down.

And so God will speak to this people through a prophet, but they will not hear so that he will bring them into judgment.

And so that will be a testament that will be spoken as well regarding the justice of God.

This people has done wickedly. God in his justice is going to punish them, but in his mercy, he won't bring a full end to them because God still means to accomplish his purposes through this people.

It is through the Jewish people will eventually come the Messiah, the one who will die on the cross for our sins, rise again from the dead so that whoever believes in him,

Jew or Gentile will not perish, but have everlasting life.

So here God is sending Ezekiel, I'm sorry, Ezekiel, now I'm jumping into another prophet here. God is sending

Jeremiah in the same way that he sent Isaiah. Hear this, O foolish and senseless people who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not.

Do you not fear me, declares the Lord? Do you not tremble before me?

I place the sand as the boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass.

Though the waves toss, they cannot prevail. Though they roar, they cannot pass over it.

This sounds familiar too. Do you know where else we've seen this? This is in Job chapter 38 where God is demonstrating himself before Job and shows the power of what he has made and how he governs over, still continues to govern over his creation.

In Job 38 verse 8, who shut in the sea with the doors when it burst out from the womb, talking about the forming of the seas here at this point, when

I made clouds its garment and thick darkness, its swaddling band and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors and said to the sea, thus far you shall come.

And no farther and here shall your proud waves be stayed.

God is asking this question of Job so that Job will see that God is God and Job is not.

God is the one who holds all things in his hands, is holding all the world together, who made the sea and even keeps it from going farther than it does.

All of this is by the sovereign hand of God, as though to say to Job, do you do this? Is it by your hand that the sea only goes this far and no farther?

And so this reminder is given even to the people of Judah here. I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea.

I gave it a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass. You'll see the waves tossed to and fro.

You've probably even seen ships dashed upon rocks in the midst of the sea. And yet as fierce as the sea is, it will not pass this boundary line.

And what does God say at the beginning of that statement? Verse 22, do you not fear me?

Do you not tremble before me? Pretty sure I've shared this before, but when

I took the kids for the first time to the beach, I actually grew up around the beach. We visited often.

I lived in South Carolina, wasn't too far away from the coast, of course. And so we went to the beach all the time.

My aunt and cousins who lived up in Wilmington, North Carolina, also very close to the beach.

So when we would go see them, we went to the beach. I grew up around the beach as a kid, having grown up in the

Carolinas. And so I was used to seeing the ocean. And yet when I took my kids to see the ocean for the first time, we were visiting some friends down in Florida.

And this was one of those beaches that's on an island. You know, sometimes there will be an island right there at the coast.

And so there's often a big bridge that you have to cross in order to get to the coast that's right on the ocean there.

And so we're crossing this bridge that arches way up high. And once you get to the top of the crest of that bridge, you just see the ocean out there in front of you.

And it is vast and kind of scary. I mean, even for me, who grew up around the ocean, was used to playing in the waves and the waters and learn to respect the ocean because you can get carried out by an undertow or a riptide.

And so we knew to be careful about such things. And even what sort of precautions we were supposed to take when we were swimming, even in the shallows, even when you're just like knee high or waist high or something like that, you could still be in danger of being pulled out by the riptide.

So we knew how to be safe, even though we were out there in the waves.

And though I grew up around those things, even taking my kids to the ocean for the first time when I saw it, when

I saw it for the first time in however many years it had been since I had been to the beach, it was pretty intimidating to see that something that big, that vast.

And you can't see the other side of it. It's huge. It's massive. And the ocean in the ancient times, even during Bible times here, whether you're talking about Job or Jeremiah, even during the time of Christ, the sea was seen as something chaotic.

It was scary. It was a frightening thing to be out there on the ocean. And sailors who spent a long time on the sea, even traders who would be aboard vessels that are moving goods to and fro.

If you're on the sea for a long time, it can do weird things to your mind. It's kind of scary to be out there on a vast ocean that you can't drink.

If you drink of the sea, it will actually dehydrate you. So you could die of thirst out in the middle of the ocean.

You could get stranded out there. You could drown out there. A storm could come up. I mean, all different kinds of things make the ocean, make the seas so incredibly chaotic.

And yet God controls it all. He made it. And so knowing that the creator designed all of this and holds it all together should be enough to strike fear in your heart.

When Jesus calmed a storm out on the Sea of Galilee, this isn't even a huge sea, right?

This is wherever you are on the Sea of Galilee, you can see a coastline. And yet when a big windstorm came up with the disciples and Jesus in the boat, and they stirred

Jesus awake and said, we're drowning. Jesus rebukes them and says, oh, you have little faith, rebukes the wind and the waves, and it all becomes calm.

And at that point, the disciples were like, oh, well, okay, I feel better now because the storm is calm, right?

Was that their reaction? No, they were filled with fear again, but this time of Jesus.

Because that thing that had scared them so much, the wind and the waves, they thought we're going to capsize the boat and turn it over.

This man here in the boat with us has power and authority even over the wind and the waves that could destroy us.

He has greater power than the sea. What sort of man is this?

The disciples asked about him, but they feared God seeing that kind of power from Christ.

I know that we talk about how we would love to have been there. We wish we could have been there on the

Sea of Galilee and see Jesus either walking on the water or rebuking the wind and the waves or something like that, and it's all still again.

We wish we could be there. We would be just as terrified as any of those disciples were.

Seeing someone walk on the water is not normal. You've never seen it before, probably will never see it in your lifetime.

To see someone have such power over wind and waves that they can just rebuke it and it's all calm.

Those things are pretty astonishing to witness. You wouldn't just sit there and go, that was cool.

You would be terrified. And so the Lord is bringing these reminders to the people of Judah and saying, why don't you fear?

You've seen the things that God has done, and you can see his power, even in all that has been made. Verse 23, but this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart.

They have turned aside and gone away. They do not say in their hearts, let us fear the

Lord, our God, who gives the rain and season, the autumn rain, the spring rain and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest.

Because see, if it really was in their hearts to love and honor God, then they would recognize all of these things that they have received have come from the hand of God.

And so they know God can either send us rain or he can send us drought. He can make all this stuff dry up so that we don't have any of these wonderful luxuries that we've enjoyed here in this promised land.

Remember the answer that God gave to Solomon when

Solomon did the dedication of the temple and asked that God would dwell there and that he would bless this people.

God appears to him in a dream and says to Solomon that for now

I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.

But he also says, 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 will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now, you probably know that Second Chronicles 714.

We always quote 714. But we don't always quote verse 13.

Again, verse 13 says, 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.

Why would God send such things among his people? Because they are disobedient and worthy of being punished.

But this promise was given to Solomon and it would still be the case for the people even now being addressed through Jeremiah.

If my people will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, he would forgive their sin and heal their land.

But it's being said here, this is a stubborn people. They don't say in their hearts, let us fear

God. Instead, your iniquities, verse 25, have turned these away and your sins have kept good from you.

For wicked men are found among my people. They lurk like fowlers lying in wait. They set a trap.

They catch men. It's talking about false teachers and talking about other influencers that may speak ill of the

Lord or encourage people to go after their passions or these false gods. Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of deceit.

Therefore, they have become great and rich. Probably praying off of other people, even striking deals with pagans.

And in the false gods that they worship, verse 28, they have grown fat and sleek.

They know no bounds in deeds of evil. They judge not with justice the cause of the fatherless to make it prosper.

And they do not defend the rights of the needy. So we know from James 127, that religion that God, our father finds pure and faultless is to keep oneself unstained by the world and to help orphans and widows in their time of need.

It is also said in Proverbs 31, open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.

Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and the needy.

But this people are not doing that. Instead, they are continuing to rebel against God, not loving their neighbor, even bringing judgment upon those that they live among.

And so God says in verse 29, shall I not punish them for these things, declares the Lord? Shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this?

Why would anybody be surprised that God would bring judgment even upon the Jews because they had behaved in the way that they had?

Rebelling against God, going after false gods, verse 30, an appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land.

The prophets prophesy falsely. The priests rule at their direction.

My people love to have it so. But what will you do when the end comes?

The people love what the false teachers say because the false teachers tell them what their flesh wants to hear permission for them to do all manner of evil thing that they are doing.

That's why they love the false prophets. And so God is going to bring judgment upon them.

Because they continue to go after that which God hates. And so, my friends, we must not be light about sin.

We must not think that sin is no big deal, because remember, sin is the reason why death happens.

Sin is the reason we die. That's the curse that God had placed upon creation because of mankind's rebellion against God.

There are probably worse sins that you can think of, at least if you were going to put it on a scale.

There are sins you can think of that are worse than eating a fruit that God told Adam and Eve not to eat. And yet it was that sin, one sin, that rebellion against God that has resulted in all mankind and the entire universe being sent into upheaval.

Sin is a big deal. And so we must not be glib or flippant about it or nuanced in the way that we talk about it where God has strictly said something is wrong.

It's wrong. Turn from it. And if you stumble into sin, turn to the

Lord Jesus Christ, ask his forgiveness, and it will be granted to you. And then go and sin no more.

As Jesus was fond of saying, let us walk in the holiness and righteousness of God that we have been given in Christ Jesus, our

Lord, and go and sin no more. Heavenly Father, we ask that you convict our hearts when we do wrong, and may we desire to bring ourselves before God and ask that you would forgive us our sins.

Teach us to fear you, to tremble before you, knowing that you are the one who created all things.

You hold all things in your hands. Let us not say in our hearts that we don't need to fear

God, but let us fear the Lord, our God, who gives the rain in its season, the autumn rain and the spring rain and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest.

Help us produce a harvest of righteousness. In Jesus' name, 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

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