WWUTT 2304 To Those Who Say They Have Not Sinned (Jeremiah 2:26-37)

WWUTT Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

If Israel had turned back to the Lord, he would forgive them, but they continue to go their own way, even declaring,

00:08

I have not sinned. Judgment will come upon them swiftly, and we need to learn that lesson too, when we understand the text.

00:25

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the

00:30

Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our

00:38

Q &A on Friday. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we're looking at finishing up chapter 2 here today, where God has been rebuking

00:49

Israel for whoring themselves out with false gods. They have gone after the pagans around them.

00:55

God even comparing them to a donkey in heat. That was in the passage that we read last week.

01:00

Now eventually God is going to turn this rebuke toward Judah, guilty of the same sins. In fact, we'll see a little bit of that in the passage we're looking at here today.

01:08

So let me begin by reading verse 26, and I'll go through verse 32. Hear the word of the

01:14

Lord. As a thief is shamed when caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed, they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, who say to a tree, you are my father, and to a stone, you gave me birth.

01:32

For they have turned their back to me and not their face. But in the time of their trouble, they say, arise and save us.

01:40

But where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you in your time of trouble.

01:47

For as many as your cities are your gods, O Judah. Why do you contend with me?

01:55

You have all transgressed against me, declares the Lord. In vain have

02:00

I struck your children. They took no correction. Your own sword devoured your prophets like a ravening lion.

02:07

And you, O generation, behold the word of the Lord. Have I been a wilderness to Israel or a land of thick darkness?

02:16

Why then do my people say, we are free, we will come no more to you? Can a virgin forget her ornaments or a bride her attire?

02:25

Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number.

02:32

And then we have one more section, verses 33 to 37, which we'll read to close things out here today.

02:38

You know, I wish that the timing was right for us to be in Jeremiah 10 this month during the

02:45

Christmas season because it's there in Jeremiah 10. A couple of verses have been ripped out of context and used to make fun of Christmas trees.

02:53

So this is Jeremiah 10, verse 3. For the customs of the peoples are vanity.

02:59

A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an ax by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold.

03:08

I mean, what could that be talking about but a Christmas tree? You cut down a tree in the forest, you put it up in your house, you cover it, decorate it with silver and gold, but all you have to do is keep reading and you understand the context.

03:20

They fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak.

03:30

They have to be carried for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them for they cannot do evil.

03:36

Neither is it in them to do good. So really, what are we reading about here?

03:42

We're reading about going out of a forest, cutting down a tree, taking that hunk of wood, and shaping it into an idol, covering it or decorating it with silver and gold that's covering it with silver and gold plating.

03:54

This is about idols, not about Christmas trees. But I was thinking of that in reading this section today because in verse 27, it says, you say to a tree, you are my father.

04:05

And even the next line could have a Christmas connection to it. And to a stone, you gave me birth.

04:13

What's the Christmas connection there? Well, it is believed, incorrectly, I might add, that Christmas Day, where we celebrate the birth of Jesus, is a repurposed holiday.

04:25

It was previously the birthday of a false god named Mithras. And it was said that Mithras, atheists and skeptics like to say this,

04:33

Mithras was also virgin -born. So not only did Christianity rip off the day, but they even ripped off the virgin birth myth, is what the skeptics will say.

04:43

But that isn't true, because Mithras wasn't born of a virgin. Mithras was born of a rock.

04:50

That's a common theme that you'll see among a lot of pagan gods, that they were born out of these inanimate natural objects,

04:58

Mithras coming from a rock. Well, December 25th was not Mithras's birthday anyway.

05:04

His birthday was never celebrated on that day. I don't think he had a day in which he was particularly celebrated.

05:09

And the December 25th date, that of course has become the day of Christmas, it's not a repurposed pagan holiday at all.

05:20

Hippolytus of Rome was the first one to come up with December 25th as being the birth date of Jesus.

05:27

And that predates any pagan holiday on that particular day. So anyway, even though it won't work out for us to be in Jeremiah 10 in the month of December, I've covered it anyway.

05:40

So let's come to this section here, verse 26, where God says, as a thief is shamed when caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed.

05:50

Like you've got a thief stealing in the midst of the night, and he's sneaking out into the darkness, and then boom, searchlight grabs him, and he freezes in place, and he's ashamed of what it is that he has done, because I've been caught.

06:03

Now I know I'm in trouble. I'm going to be arrested, go to jail, so on and so forth. So just as a thief is shamed when he is caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed.

06:13

They're not going to continue on in this sin. Eventually they will be found out, and their evil will be exposed.

06:21

And that needs to be something that strikes fear in our hearts as well. We cannot sin in secret.

06:27

We cannot keep these things hidden and expect that we're not going to have to pay any consequences for this.

06:32

Maybe the people in your life don't know of the secret sins that you are hiding. But God certainly knows.

06:39

He knows the thoughts and intentions of the mind and the heart. You cannot keep anything from God.

06:46

And He will judge every person according to their works. None of your works will remain hidden.

06:53

None will be in secret. Those who have sinned against God will be shamed if they do not repent and come to the

07:00

Lord Jesus Christ. So this is the case with Israel. Their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, all of them have been conspiring together against God.

07:13

Verse 27, God says, They say to a tree, You are my father. And this plays out in the

07:20

Jeremiah 10 passage, where a tree is cut down, it is shaped into an idol, and then they bow down to it.

07:25

We saw the same kind of rebuke made by Isaiah to the people of Israel as well, who make this idol, they made it with their own hands, but then they bow down to it and expect it to bless them.

07:38

Or they'll say to a stone, You gave me birth, because they'll also make their idols out of rock.

07:45

For they have turned their back to me and not their face. They're turning away from God, not turning toward God, facing

07:53

Him and seeking Him and asking for His forgiveness. Remember the answer that God gave to Solomon in 2

08:03

Chronicles 7 .14. If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then

08:15

I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

08:20

If they seek me and turn from their wicked ways, so they would turn their face toward God and their back to their sin.

08:28

But in this case, Israel has turned their face to their sin and their back toward God.

08:36

The end of verse 27. But in the time of their trouble, they say, and now see when trouble comes upon them.

08:42

Oh, then they remember me. Then they turn around and will ask of God, Arise and save us.

08:48

We saw that over and over again in the book of Judges, right? Seemed to be the pattern that the people of Israel would disobey

08:54

God. They would go after false gods, the false gods of the pagans around them. Then God would send an enemy to oppress them.

09:02

Then the people would cry out to God for deliverance. And then God would send them a judge who would deliver them.

09:08

That was the pattern that we see all the way through the book of Judges. So right here, rebuking

09:14

Israel for this attitude. You don't really seek God. It's just when trouble comes your way. And then you turn around and say,

09:20

Arise and save us. And here's God's rebuke to them in verse 28. But where are your gods that you made for yourself?

09:27

What about these gods that you've fashioned out of wood and stone and have bowed down to and think that they can do something for you?

09:35

Let them arise if they can save you in your time of trouble. And then this line at the end of verse 28, for as many as your cities are your gods.

09:48

Oh, Judah, as though to say as many cities as you have there in Judah, it's as if you have a different false god that you are worshiping in every city.

09:58

None of you are turning to the Lord, your God, the one true God. There's so many different false gods you are chasing after and following in their customs as well, which would have included sexual immorality, even murder and violence.

10:13

All kinds of cheating and lying and deception. The behaviors of the pagans were being exhibited by the

10:22

Jews and by Israel, not just bowing down to these false gods, because really that's what they want.

10:30

They want the sin. And so they will worship the false god that represents the sin that they desire.

10:37

Now, we live in a time and in an age in which people might think of themselves as being, oh, so much more civilized than all of those primitive peoples who would bow down to those stone gods of theirs and and wood and gold and things of that nature.

10:52

We don't do that anymore. Well, you can go down to five below and buy yourself a little idol. I think they even have them at Walmart.

11:00

You can get the little Ganesh or Buddha statues to decorate your house with. So, yeah, idols are still pretty prevalent in our culture.

11:07

It's not like we've become more sophisticated somehow to move ourselves out of idol worship.

11:15

It is very prevalent in our culture. But while you may not see a big

11:21

Buddha statue like you probably would in East Asia somewhere, probably don't see those around the

11:26

United States, although I'm sure there are Buddha statues somewhere, but I'm talking like the big ones that are like skyscraper size, though you may not see that in the

11:36

United States. Nonetheless, idol worship is very plentiful here. Anybody who doesn't worship

11:42

Christ and him alone worships idols. As John Calvin said, the human heart is an idol factory.

11:50

It is constantly finding ways to make idols, things to worship so that these things that we go after will give us the passions of our flesh that we desire.

12:02

It's the very thing that Paul talks to Timothy about in Second Timothy, Chapter four, where these people will turn away from the truth and wander off into myths.

12:12

They'll have itching ears and accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

12:17

So they go after the teachers that will tell them that they can do the things that their flesh desires that they want to do.

12:25

And it's the same case with these false gods. They will accumulate for themselves false gods to suit their own passions.

12:34

And this is what Israel has gone after, not just the gods, but the behaviors that these gods would allow them to practice.

12:43

And so verse 29, God says, why do you contend with me? You have all transgressed against me, declares the

12:53

Lord. In vain have I struck your children. They took no correction.

12:58

So in the times in the past, like referencing the book of Judges once again, in times past, when

13:04

God brought judgment upon the people of Israel to teach them a lesson, they didn't learn the lesson.

13:10

They just fell into deeper and deeper depravity further away from God.

13:16

They were struck in vain. It was an empty punishment because it did not yield the result that punishment is supposed to yield.

13:25

They took no correction. And then Israel took their own sword.

13:32

Your own sword devoured your prophets like a ravening lion.

13:38

Those that would have taught you. Here's what the Lord is saying. Here's the correction that you need to make.

13:44

And the Lord will bless you. Well, those men are not around to tell you those things, to show you your error and to deliver this correction because you've struck them down.

13:53

You devoured them with your own sword. And so where are your prophets who would speak to you the word of the

13:59

Lord? Verse 31. And you, O generation, behold the word of the

14:04

Lord. Have I been a wilderness to Israel or a land of thick darkness?

14:10

Why then do my people say, we are free, we will come no more to you?

14:17

Has God been a wilderness to Israel? No, he's given them bounty and plenty. He brought them through the wilderness and gave them the promised land.

14:26

Thick darkness came upon the Egyptians. But thick darkness has not come upon Israel. You have not received these curses.

14:34

And yet you behave in such a way as though you need to get away from God who gave you all of these things.

14:41

Why then do my people say, we are free, we will come no more to you? Thanks for giving us what we wanted.

14:46

We don't need you anymore. That's kind of the cry of atheism today, isn't it?

14:51

We don't even need God anymore. I remember a story about a group of scientists.

14:58

This is a joke, by the way, kind of a parable of sorts. Anyway, a group of scientists came before God and they said to God, we don't need you anymore.

15:08

We've actually got this whole thing figured out. We know how to create life. We know how to take care of life.

15:14

We know how to sustain life so that we can make it last forever. So we've accomplished everything that needs to be done for humanity to be self -sustaining.

15:25

We're just coming to you and letting you know that we don't need God anymore. And God says to this group of scientists,

15:31

OK, you claim now that you can create life just like I created life. The scientists say, yep, we've got all this figured out.

15:39

So God said, all right, I want you to prove it. I want you to create life the same way

15:44

I created life. I want you to get down in the dirt and create man from the dirt, just as I did in Genesis chapter two.

15:52

And the scientists say, all right, you want us to create life from the dust like you did.

15:58

And God says, yes, let me see you do it. The scientists say, OK. So they get around in a group and they get down on the ground and they start forming the dirt on the ground, attempting to make this human being that they claim they can make.

16:10

But then God stops him and goes, hang on, hang on there. You have to get your own dirt.

16:17

Moral of the story, of course, being everything comes from God. Even if mankind wants to be so proud as to say that we don't need

16:24

God anymore, I can do all of this on my own. OK, fine. You find your own oxygen, then.

16:32

The only reason why you are still alive and God has not struck you down is because he is merciful toward you.

16:39

And as it says in Romans chapter two, do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

16:50

You still have this time in this moment now that God has given to you so that you would turn from your sin to the

16:56

Lord Jesus Christ. And here Israel is not doing that. Verse 32, can a virgin forget her ornaments or a bride her attire?

17:07

Yet my people have forgotten me days without number. Now, as I mentioned a moment ago,

17:14

Israel has not just worshipped these false gods, but have even adopted the practices, the wicked sinful practices of the pagans around them.

17:23

And here's how the Lord addresses them in the close of this chapter. Verse 33, how well you direct your course to seek love.

17:33

Now, this is Eros love, an erotic love, not genuine or true love, so that even to wicked women you have taught your ways.

17:45

In the book of Proverbs, Solomon taught his son, don't go after the way of the wicked woman, dedicated three chapters to it, five, six and seven, that the son would keep his feet on the right path and not even go down the street toward her house, but would stay far away from her for her lips drip like honey.

18:06

Yet her feet lead to shield, lead to death, to the grave. And so what have you done?

18:13

God is saying to Israel, you have taken your ways, your purity, you who were my bride and have gone to wicked women and taught your ways to them.

18:24

Verse 34, also on your skirts is found the lifeblood of the guiltless poor.

18:31

You did not find them breaking in. Yet, in spite of all these things, you say,

18:37

I am innocent. Surely his anger is turned from me. Behold, I will bring you to judgment for saying,

18:45

I have not sinned. We have a similar rebuke in Malachi 2, 17.

18:50

You have wearied the Lord with your words, but you say, how have we wearied him?

18:56

By saying, everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delights in them or by asking, where is the

19:04

God of justice? If I was really doing wrong, wouldn't God strike me down?

19:11

And here the Lord is promising, I will bring you to judgment for saying,

19:17

I have not sinned. How much you go about changing your way, he says in verse 36, you shall be put to shame by Egypt as you were put to shame by Assyria.

19:31

From it too, you will come away with your hands on your head for the

19:36

Lord has rejected those in whom you trust and you will not prosper by them. And that goes back to something we had addressed earlier in the chapter where Israel had turned to Egypt for help, but they weren't going to get help from Egypt either.

19:50

Egypt was just taking advantage of them and was not actually going to come to their aid. They should be turning to the

19:55

Lord, but instead they're trying to find a solution through their own means so they can still worship their false gods and keep the sins and the passions that they love.

20:07

My friends don't make excuses for your sin. If you know it's wicked, stop doing it.

20:12

Turn from it to the Lord. 1 John 1 says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

20:24

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

20:32

But if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

20:40

The word of God exposes to us our sin and need for a savior.

20:47

So do not take for granted God's kindness to you. You have this moment now to be convicted in heart to turn from your sin to the

20:56

Lord Jesus Christ and he will forgive you. Do not continue in the way that eventually leads to judgment for God will bring judgment on the person who says

21:07

I have not sinned. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here today and I pray that even a word such as this continues to be convicting upon our hearts.

21:17

We understand that you have called us to holiness. So teach us to turn from our wicked ways to the

21:24

Lord Jesus Christ to walk in his steps and do as he has directed us according to his word.

21:31

Forgive us our sins and lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake. It's in Jesus name we pray, amen.

21:39

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

21:50

.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

21:58

and let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word when we understand the text.