Jeremiah 6, The Road Less Traveled

Jeremiah’s Warning of Coming Judgment

Jeremiah chapter 6, starting in verse 1, hear the word of the Lord. Flee for safety, O people of Benjamin, from the midst of Jerusalem. Blow the trumpet in Tekoa and raise a signal on Beth-hacharim, for disaster looms out of the north and great destruction.

The lovely and the delicately bred I will destroy, the daughter of Zion. Shepherds with their flocks shall come against her. They shall pitch their tents around her. They shall pasture each in his place.

Prepare war against her. Arise, let us attack at noon. Woe to us, for the day declines, for the shadows of evening lengthen. Arise and let us attack by night and destroy her palaces. For thus says the Lord of hosts, cut down her trees and cast up a siege mound against Jerusalem.

This is the city that must be punished. There is nothing but oppression within her. As a well keeps its water fresh, so she keeps fresh her evil. Violence and destruction are heard within her. Sickness and wounds are ever before me.

Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I turn from you in disgust, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land. Thus says the Lord of hosts. They shall glean thoroughly as a vine the remnant of Israel, like a grape gatherer pasture hand again over its branches.

To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised. They cannot listen. Behold, the word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn. They take no pleasure in it.

Therefore I am full of the wrath of the Lord. I am weary of holding it in. Pour it out upon the children of the street and upon the gatherings of young men also. Both husband and wife shall be taken, the elderly and the very aged.

Their houses shall be turned over to others, their fields and wives together, for I will stretch out my hand against the inhabitants of the land, declares the Lord. For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain.

And from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed.

They did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall. At the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the Lord. Thus says the Lord. Behold, stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient paths where the good way is and walk in it and find rest for your souls.

But they said, we will not walk in it. I set watchmen over you, saying, pay attention to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, we will not pay attention. Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what will happen to them.

Hear, O earth, behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to my words. And as for my law, they have rejected it. What used to me is frankincense that comes from Sheba or sweet cane from a distant land.

Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifice is pleasing to me. Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I will lay before this people stumbling blocks against which they shall stumble. Fathers and sons together, neighbor and friend shall perish.

Thus says the Lord, behold, a people is coming from the north country. A great nation is stirring from the farthest parts of the earth. They lay hold on bow and javelin. They are cruel and have no mercy.

The sound of them is like the roaring sea. They ride on horses, set in array as a man for battle against you, O daughter of Zion. We have heard the report of it. Our hands fall helpless. Anguish has taken hold of us.

Pain is of a woman in labor. Go not out into the field, nor walk on the road, for the enemy has a sword. Terror is on every side. O daughter of my people, put on sackcloth and roll in ashes. Make mourning as for an only son.

Most bitter lamentation, for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us. I have made you a tester of metals among my people that you may know and test their ways. They are all stubbornly rebellious, going about with slanders.

They are bronze and iron. All of them act corruptly. The bellows blow fiercely. The lead is consumed by the fire. In vain the refining goes on, for the wicked are not removed. Rejected silver, they are called, for the Lord has rejected them.".

And the Lord had his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, have you made decisions in your life that you wonder? You know, looking back, you've chosen something else. What would have happened?

You know, it could have led to an entirely different kind of life. If you second-guessed, made your decisions, you know, you think, how would that, whatever it is you chose, have changed the whole course of your life after that?

You know, some key choices just start us down a path, and one thing leads to another. And so, there are some critical decisions that we make in life that start a chain of events, kind of like pushing over a domino, one pushing over another, that give us, then, our lives.

Sometimes we know those decisions are big when we make them, like who to marry, what profession to pursue. Other times, you know, we don't. We look back and say, oh, that little decision I made about what to do with a Saturday night, who to call, where to go, the party to attend.

I sometimes wonder if I, myself, if I should have stayed in college an extra year. I could have gotten, you know, after my undergraduate, I could have gotten a teaching certificate in about a year, and then I had another year of athletic eligibility, how fast could I have gotten another year on track?

But then, if I had done that, that would have changed everything else about my seminary education after that. Maybe then I wouldn't have met Mary. And so, I'm glad I chose the way I did. There's a famous poem by Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken, which says, two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler long I stood and looked down, one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth.

And both that morning equally lay in leaves, no step had trodden black. Oh, I marked the first for another day, yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence, two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

The Broad Road and the Narrow Way

Well, the Lord Jesus said himself that there are two roads, one broad and easy, kind of sloping gently downward, and many take that. And then there's the other, that's hard and narrow, and he said, few take that one.

And the easy broad way, he said, is the way to destruction. And the narrow one, the hard one, is the path to life. At the end, of course, now when you're at the end of the destination, no matter which way you chose, it's easy to see and look back, that if you took the road less traveled, the narrow path, you glad you did.

Or if for someone who took the easy way, to look back and wish, ah, I could do it again, go the other way. At the end, it's easy to feel good or bad about the decision. But think of the reality, you know, what the way Jesus said it, think of the reality that while you're on the road, while you're on the path, you know, there was a time, isn't there?

Think of which way you choose. It's easy to feel good that you had waited and maybe didn't settle for marrying the wrong one at the end. But there's a time, is it there? When you're waiting, is this worth it?

Waiting too long? Maybe I should settle for something else. You know, for those who took the wrong turn, that has to do with marriage, but those who took the wrong turn, went down the wrong path, usually there is a period of time, perhaps a long period of time in which they think things have turned out pretty well for them.

You know, like they like the life they've chosen, even if they chose the Broadway destruction, they like it for a while. After all, Jesus said it's pleasant, it's easy. That means for a while, those people on it like that.

It's comfortable for them. Even if it's a life of immorality or materialism. You know, some people try to scare the young folks from choosing the wrong path, you know, frightening them with STDs or the ravages of alcohol and drugs.

You know, you'll be lonely if you choose that kind of immoral life. In a few years, you'll have a disease, you'll be in jail for DUI, you'll be abandoned by your girlfriend because you were so unfaithful.

That's where you're going. You don't wake up. And that could happen, but there also are cases of people choosing the life of immorality and seeming to be pretty happy for a while. You know, just this past New Year's Eve, the pornographer Hugh Hefner, who is 86 years old, married his 26-year-old girlfriend.

That's a 60-year age difference. And I'm sure that Hefner thinks that the path he's chosen is the right one, right? You got millions of dollars, you live in a mansion, and you got a 26-year-old wife, you're 86 years old, okay?

You think you chose the right way. He's sure of it. And so, there are two paths. And while some are on the road to destruction, they are sure they are going the right way. Understand that. There's a story about a man, just a story, it's not true.

I don't think it's true. There's a story about a man wanting to escape, prisoner in prison, trying to...wanting to escape. And he finds, to his amazement, one day, in his cell, the hidden entrance secret to a secret tunnel.

Delighted to find, this is his way out. So, he starts crawling down the tunnel. It's a good tunnel, too. It's not too tight, so he can make his way quickly. And then it starts to slope downward, which at first seems like that's good news.

It makes it easier to crawl even faster through this tunnel. Then it slopes even more. It starts to get muddy and steeper, and it gets so muddy, he's just sliding now. And now, he's delighted. He's making...he's, you know, going so fast, making so much distance.

Soon, he assumes he'll be out of this tunnel, he'll be out of the prison, he'll be free man. And then he splashes down into this little chamber, deep underground, little flashlight. There's nothing there, except the skeleton of the previous prisoner and a tunnel that's now impossible to climb back up because it's too muddy and too steep.

People on the way to destruction are often very happy, slipping and sliding, taking the easy way until they reach the end. And it's to those kind of people, happily on their way to destruction, that the prophet Jeremiah here speaks.

And he does so in five parts in this chapter. The appealing to them, first, with the warning in verses 1 to 8, and second, in verses 1 to 9, or, excuse me, 9 to 15, the wound. And then third, the way and the watchman, from verses 16 to 21.

And fourth, the weapons, verses 22 to 26. And then finally, the last paragraph, the wickedness. So, well, first, the warning. And you notice it begins. Flee for safety. Run for your life. But then he adds, don't run to the refuge.

You know, normally, in that day, fortified cities like Jerusalem were there as a refuge. Key cities had walls and protection so that people from all around in the countryside could flee into them when some marauding army came through.

But now people are to flee, he says, from Jerusalem. The very place that was made as a fortress. Jeremiah said, it's going to be a deathtrap. Jerusalem was supposed to be God's city. Now, you know, they didn't understand how it could be a deathtrap.

It's God's city. The temple is there. It's well fortified. It's on a hill. It's well defended. But Jeremiah says, flee from it, not to it. Today, people flee to their money or maybe flee to a relationship, flee to their family, flee to the government, flee to their guns, flee to their religion or to their morality.

But sometimes, you have to flee from those things. And then he says, blow the trumpet in Tekoa. And we kind of lose the effect of this because we were speaking English. But, you know, they blew a trumpet to warn like a siren, right?

The siren goes off to call people to attention so that they would know danger is coming. And he says, blow it in Tekoa. It's a play on words there because the word, the name, Tekoa, sounds a lot like the Hebrew word for blow, okay?

So it's a reminder. And also possibly because that is where the prophet Amos had come from. He came from Tekoa, reminding them that God had already warned them. He had already blown the trumpet, sounded the siren, and warned them.

Amos had said that fire, quote, shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem. Amos 2, verse 5. So you don't flee for safety into a raging fire, do you? No, you run from it. And then he says, raise a signal, set a signal fire to alert people.

Disaster, great destruction is looming like a sword dangling over their heads. But they are totally unaware of it. They're in complete denial it is there. They're feeling very comfortable, as a matter of fact.

For them, they think this is a golden time. You know, the cruel and hated Assyrian army is falling apart. And so they are no longer living under the threat of being attacked. For now, for more than a century, they've been in fear and dread of this Assyrian empire that would attack them at any time.

But now that empire is falling apart. They're weakened. And, you know, Jonah hated the Assyrians so much that he didn't even want to go there, fearing that God would be merciful to them, which he was for a time.

If you remember the story of Jonah, he didn't want to go to Nineveh, which is the capital of Assyrian empire, because he didn't want God to have mercy on them, but God did. And Nahum later pronounces God's verdict on them, that they would be destroyed.

And that is what is going on at about the time Jeremiah or even before that Jeremiah has said this. And so from Judah's point of view, for the first time in a long time, the southern kingdom of Judah felt free, you know, felt safe.

This threat that had been over them for so long is now gone. No more Assyrian empire to worry about. And they felt like they had escaped the sentence of death. You can relax now for the first time in centuries.

Now, but the only problem is, you know, everything seems so peaceful, it's so great, then why is this prophet Jeremiah still warning them, still warning us about destruction from the north?

Why?

Hasn't he read the papers lately? When I was a kid, many of us thought that it was just a matter of time before we fought a war with the Soviet Union, right? You know, would it be a nuclear war? Do we need to have a fallout shelter of our own under the house or in some kind of, you know, bunker in our backyard?

Speaking of second-guessing, you know, when I was a kid, this was a common thing to say. People would say, you know, we should have attacked the Soviet Union right after World War II when we were the only ones with an atom bomb.

You remember that, Mr. Perry? Bet you heard that some, yeah? People would say that all the time. You know, they could not have withstood us. They would just have to surrender because we were the only ones.

With nuclear weapons.

It turned out, of course, that our leaders made the right decision and avoided war. And so, the 90s come around and Americans felt that they had won the Cold War without having to have another war. And so, there will be peace and prosperity.

This threat that had been over us for like a generation, the Soviet Union, had fallen apart. There's peace. Happy days are here again. And that's why September 11th, 2001 was just so shocking. It was the end of this dream.

Now, here, Jeremiah is trying to wake these people from their own dream. Disaster and destruction are looming and it will come on all kinds of people, he says, not just the soldiers in battle, but in verse 2, the lovely and delicately bred, you know, the sweet ladies in their hats and the smiling girls taking dance lessons.

He calls them the daughter of Zion and warns they will be destroyed. And he says they'll be destroyed by the nation of shepherds, like from Mesopotamia. Babylon doesn't mention them, but that fits the description.

In verse 3, and they're so eager for destruction in verses 4 and 5 that they will begin their attack in the heat of the day. When it's noon, when the sun is hot, why don't we wait till the next day? No, they will begin it, they're hot for destruction, and they will cut down so many trees around Jerusalem so they could build a ramp up against the wall in verse 6.

And they are doing it because God himself has decreed, notice what he says there, this is the city that must be punished. There is nothing but oppression within her. They had chosen the way of oppression.

Keeping some fellow Israelites as slaves, that's one thing they did. The rich were able to bribe the courts and not be punished for their crimes. You know, the money brought them power, and they could bribe the judges and never lose, never be punished, never lose if they were sued.

In the middle of verse 7, God says, violence and destruction are heard within her. You know, realize, looking at that Israelite history, what about our own American history? This part of the U .S. built its original prosperity, anyway, on oppression.

In the 1850s, you know, the economy of the South was growing at twice the rate of the economy in the North. And, of course, it was built on the oppression of slaves. The South was getting rich. It really was getting exorbitantly rich off the sweat of the slaves.

But then, just as here, destruction came, ironically enough, from the same destination, same origin, from the North. Here, God warns that those who make their living by denying the rights of others, they will be judged.

God sees it. People think, God doesn't see, God doesn't care. God sees it, he says in verse 7. He said, as it is ever before me. And then he says in verse 8, be warned, he will make a desolation of them.

As Abraham Lincoln said, God made the U .S. pay for every drop of sweat stolen from the slaves in the cotton fields with a drop of blood spilled on the battlefields. Today, if we make our living or our comfort off of the oppression of others, perhaps today it could be the unborn who can't speak up for themselves.

Human beings denied the right to life because, you know, they're just not convenient for us. The timing for them is not right for us. Or if they're a person born with a birth defect, maybe now the baby can be, you know, let's think of a nice word, euthanized, so that we can be relieved of this burden.

Or if they're too old, too handicapped, we can, you know, whatever, let them go. If we live off the oppression of others, God's word is be warned. Be warned of what this constant bubbling up of our sins show about ourselves, about our life.

What he describes in verse 7, notice there, it's like a well, a good well, the water level is constant, right? You take water out of it, just more water comes up from the earth. It is replenished. And so, too, he says, are you, with your sins, our human nature, our inherent sinfulness keeps refreshing itself with new sins.

You can take all the sin out and just more just bubbles right up. And so, God says in verse 8, be warned. If he turns from us in disgust, he will make us desolate. That's the warning. And then comes the wound in verses 9 to 15.

Now, what is this wound? What was the source of all these problems? What is it that God is taking so seriously to warn of destruction? It's so serious that the destroyers, he says, will be thorough, like the harvesters of a vineyard who pluck every last grape.

They don't leave anything behind. And he says the destroyers, they will take or destroy everything. What then is the problem, the wound? What's the controversy? What does God have against these people that deserves that?

Well, he says, the heart of it, they don't care about God or his word. In verse 10, I don't know if it's Jeremiah or God speaking, it probably doesn't matter.

It's both the same.

It's just verse 10, to whom shall I speak and give warning? You know, he started out, warn them. But who am I supposed to warn? Because no one's listening. No one's listening to me. Oh, they may listen to parts of it, the parts that please them, that appeal to them, that don't challenge their idols or call them to forsake their sins.

Nothing though, they won't listen to the part that exposes their sinfulness. You know, the demand has been constant and it's been growing over the last couple of generations, really, in America for religion, for the church, to be all about what is positive.

A couple of generations ago, it was Norman Vincent Peale preaching the power of positive thinking, to Robert Shuler about a generation ago, to saying that flattering people's self-esteem is the new reformation, to Joel Osteen today saying it's all about living your best life now, to Christian radio stations that I listen to that sell themselves as being about everything that is positive and encouraging, which will never get you to Jeremiah chapter 6 because there's not much positive and encouraging here.

But think of the assumption behind that as though our problem, our wound is only a lack of positive words and feelings. But that's superficial. And this is why I warn you, not that you have to listen to other radio stations, I listen to them on the way here myself, but that you know that your needs are greater than that.

Just like you need, you know, you need to eat more, as far as your diet, you need to eat more than sweets. You know, you need more than Coke and Twinkies, whatever. You need more than just what is positive for your soul, for your heart, you need more than what is just positive and flattering.

Do you know what happens to someone who eats only sweets? You know, in the long run, of course, they'll get fat and sick. But at first, for a while, they like their diet. They like their Coke and Twinkies.

They don't want steak or potatoes or a good salad. They don't want real meat. They want real fruits. And so, too, are people who only take in the sweet verses, you know, the ones that make great posters, the poster verses.

While they neglect the hard stuff, like Jeremiah chapter 6. I once had a friend who was into this prosperity gospel, you know, the word of faith movement. Everything had to be a positive confession. And, you know, what we say, what we read, what we think had always to be positive, he thought.

And so, one day, he saw a book I had that began with this very severe paragraph calling for judgment and predicting disaster. And he exclaimed, you know, that's a negative confession. I turned the page, and it was all a direct quote from the book of Hosea.

It was all God himself speaking. Now, this person, he wouldn't heed the word of God because the word of God is too negative. So, too, in verse 10, God says he's trying to warn them, but no one is listening.

Who am I supposed to warn?

They scorn the word of God. Notice how it describes them. The word of God, they could care less. They scorn it. They dislike it. They turn away from it. What it says about sin and about specific things being sin that they were, maybe that they were supposed to protect, you know, the life, stand up for justice for the vulnerable, that they would ignore that.

Specific things that the scripture says are sins, maybe they thought would protect as a civil right, depravity, judgment, hell, whatever takes us from the glory of what people think of being accepted as we are, you know, that's what they want.

They don't want the word that exposes their sins, that shows that we are incapable of saving ourselves, that makes us completely dependent on God rather than believing in ourselves. That, what the word really says, that is scorned.

Today, many people think the wound is that our self-esteem is wounded. That's it. We weren't complimented enough as a kid. We've been wounded within. If only we develop a more uplifting attitude. And so, such people scorn what the Bible really says, especially in places like Jeremiah 6.

But the real problem is that people, he says, notice that they take no pleasure in the word of God. They don't like it, they don't want it, they have no desire for it. They may use parts of it, parts they think that flatter them, but they really aren't interested at all in what the Bible really says.

The wound, the ultimate problem, you know, they think it's self-esteem, but it's not, it's the heart and what we take pleasure in, what we find our satisfaction, our life in. If it's in the Lord, then we delight in His word.

If it's something else, it's in ourselves, you know, then we might be immoral, like Hugh Hefner, or we might even be religious, but we really don't care about the Lord, as shown and we'll know by how much delight we take in God's word, in all of God's word, not just the poster verses.

And that causes the prophet in verse 11 to say, because they have rejected God's word, he says, I am full of wrath. And remember, Jeremiah is saying, I'm angry, angry at the false religion, all about people, all about their feelings, that just uses verses here and there, but is never really interested in what the whole word says.

I'm so angry, Jeremiah says, I'm weary of holding it in. And so, God responds in verse 11, what do you think he says? Hey, calm down, Jerry. Don't worry about it. No, and he doesn't rebuke him for his anger.

He didn't tell him to be more affirming, be more positive, be more uplifting, as some people might think. He says, pour it out. In other words, let them have it, Jeremiah. And if the adults won't listen to the temple, they just turn away because they don't want to hear it, well, then go to the streets and find a bunch of kids playing there and traumatize them by warning them of the coming disaster.

You know, tell those kids that their houses, their future houses, their future fields, their future wives, they're all going to be taken away by invaders. And he said, for I will stretch out my hand against the inhabitants of the land.

Just go give it to the kids until they go away crying.

Why?

What have they done? All of them, he says, you know, not just the top 1 and not just the welfare cheats abusing the system, but all of them are greedy for unjust gain. They are living for things. They're living for money, for houses, for cars, for the newest electronic gadgets, maybe the newest, in their day, the newest donkey, whatever.

Even the prophets and the priests, he says, are materialistic and false. They say what gets them ahead, what keeps their jobs, what keeps the paychecks rolling in. You know, if their members are racist, they don't dare say anything against that.

They may lose their jobs. If they believe in themselves and the power of positive thoughts and strategies of how they can have their best life now, well, they give them that. Give the customer what he wants, like any good business.

And so, they never address the real source of the problem, the wound. In verse 14, they don't touch that. And so, God says, they have healed the wound of my people lightly. Kind of like a doctor puts a Band-Aid over a cancerous tumor.

Everything will be all right. Don't worry about it. That's what the patient wants to hear, after all. You know, if you got sick, you had something that felt funny, you hope the doctor says, that's nothing, don't worry about it.

And that's what they tell them. The spiritual leaders today, it could be the pastors, the preachers, tell them, it's just a problem, it's just low self-esteem, not enough positive thinking. Just a few behavioral changes is all you need.

Maybe keep the Ten Commandments, get baptized, say a prayer, repeat after me, smile, remember to pay your tithe, and I'll see you next week. Everything is going to be fine. The wound, they say, is easily fixed.

Just come forward, say the magic words, cheer up, turn that frown upside down. That's all. But that's false. The wound is sin, and it takes the grace of God to heal it. But like a quack doctor, God says, they have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, peace, peace, when there is no peace.

And probably nothing better describes the sham old-time religion that is so prominent today than that verse, verse 14. There it is, described for us 2 ,600 years ago, as if nothing has changed. They treat the wound lightly, as if it were just a matter of not having said the right prayer, and not done this little ritual, not having agreed to a few doctrines, whatever, or gone to the right church, which is, of course, is always ours.

And when they agree, and they agree with that, they are proudly proclaimed, saved, and never doubted, even if your life afterward shows no positive change whatsoever. And they say to them, peace, peace, you'll have peace with God.

You're okay.

You have assurance now, eternal assurance. That kind of religion is all about selling assurance for the pay and the boasting. You know, give me the money and give me the right to boast about how I got you saved, and I will give you the peace, or at least the promise, the assurance.

Peace, peace, ever downward. Meanwhile, at the end, God says, there is no peace. It should be a shame, something to be ashamed of, to sell assurance, this false assurance of peace, because it comes from the ancient of days, from eternity past.

Walk that way, even if it's narrow and harder sometimes, even if it means feeling lonely sometimes because everyone else seems to be going,.

You know, the other way.

Walk that way.

They're even promised rest if they walk that way. But the people respond, we will not walk in it. And next, the Lord says, he has set over them watchmen, means prophets, who sounded God's word, like a trumpet is sounded.

And God said, pay attention to them, to the prophets like Jeremiah. For us, it would be pay attention to the word of God, pay attention to it, hear what it has to say, heed it, pray like Psalm 119 verse 29, read for us earlier, put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law.

But they said, we will not pay attention. So, since they are not paying attention, the Lord turns to the other nations, the Gentile nations, all around Judah. And starting in verse 18, here's what I'm going to do.

He addresses this other nations, since Judah won't pay attention. I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices. That's what destruction is, it's the product of their devices. And those devices in verse 19 are that they have not paid attention to my words.

But it's not as though they aren't religious.

You know, put it just like that, you think, they're not paying attention because they just don't care at all about this religious stuff. They're just running wild. They're partying all the time or maybe they're working.

They're not caring at all about religion. Maybe they're missing church because they party too late on a Saturday night or maybe they just want to work more on Sunday morning so they can make a little more money or maybe they just want to get in a round of golf.

You know, they're kind of people like that, we think of. But the people God is speaking to here are religious people. You notice that in verse 20, they buy expensive imported frankincense to burn in their incense as part of their offerings to God.