"HEAR O' EARTH "- JEREMIAH III
JEREMIAH III
Chapters 5, 6 & 7
Taught by: Carolyn Sissom
September 30, 2008
“Hear O Earth”
Jeremiah’s second sermon is universal devastation of Judah. The issue is NATIONAL CORRUPTION. The failure to keep God’s word results in total destruction which falls, in the words of the curses (Deut. 28) upon all classes of law-breakers, their property, means of livelihood and families. He addresses false prophets who proclaim a false peace. False prophets win wide acclaim while a true prophet is too uncomfortable to be popular. (Luke 6:26) “Woe unto you, when all men speak well of you! For so did their fathers to the false prophets.”
I asked the Lord tonight if He had another word or should I continue as directed in Jeremiah? I have no other word.
Shanna pointed out to me that the number of the stock market drop at the end of the day was 777. She asked, “Mother does that mean God has his hand on it.” Yes God is in the midst of all that is going on in this nation. There are still righteous, Godly people who are seeking the Lord and because of this, our nation will be pardoned.
Chapter 5: The Lord instructed Jeremiah to run to and fro throughout Jerusalem and see if he could find a man that executes judgment and seeks the truth. If Jeremiah could find one man, the Lord said He would pardon Jerusalem.
I believe the United States still has righteous men and women of God who seek truth. I believe we will be pardoned. Though, as we measure the sins of our nation against the sins that brought the devastation of Judah, as a nation we stand guilty.
In Verse 2, the people knew the Lord lived, but they swore falsely, there was no repentance and they refused to receive correction.
While the poor might possibly be excused by ignorance of His law, this would not hold for the leaders. Yet both alike have broken the covenant and perverted what has been given them by God. (D. Wiseman)
They practiced promiscuous sexual indulgences, even among the married. They scoffed at the prophet’s warning and were wholly given to deceit, oppression and robbery. The leadership and government were rotten, but the people were satisfied and content to have it so.
The destroyer (10-19) is summoned to ravage land and people on the grounds of their proven faithlessness.
The greatness of God as creator, sustainer, giver and avenger is contrasted with the meanness of man. The sovereign God who set a boundary to the sea cannot be thwarted by man’s wrong exercise of freewill. This results in all kinds of sin, stubbornness and hostility, backsliding (23) lack of fear of God and perversion of what is right.
Sin withholds good to the doer.
(25) “Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good things from you. For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, and he that sets snares; they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great and waxen rich. They are waxen fat (fat cats), they shine: yea they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge.”
I think this pretty much sums up the present financial markets and the bail out bill which was just overturned. The fact that the bill was overturned will prayerfully save us from the judgment of verse 29.
“Shall I not visit for these things? Says the Lord: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this. A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will you do in the end thereof?
Jeremiah declared judgment was now fully declared for corruption of conduct. The second reason was that they did not believe the message. And lastly, the final judgment was because of the revolting and rebellious heart of the people. Prophets, priests, and people were united in their sin!
Chapter 6: The trumpet is sounded. Destruction was coming from the north. The target is Jerusalem. His neighbors, the Benjamites who had already withdrawn to Jerusalem were now to move 12 miles south (Tekoa) from which position they could watch for the fire-signal from Ramat-Rahel (Beth Hakerm) the highest hill between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
The Benjamites ignored the warning. Over and over the prophet warns the people of God that a wholesale repentance is their last possible chance to escape ruin. War has been declared! Jerusalem will be besieged.
Among the destruction (cut down…trees) (6) search is still made for a repentant sinner, but there is no remnant.
The prophet describes the thoroughness of the judgment under the figure of a gleaning.
(9) Thus says the Lord of hosts, they shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine; turn back your hand as a grape-gatherer into the baskets. To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? Behold their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.”
He appealed to the past and the present, but they would not hear him.
(12) And their houses shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, says the Lord.” For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one deals falsely.
(14) “They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abominations? Nay, they were not all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, says the Lord.”
(17) “Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, we will not hearken.”
(18) HEAR O EARTH; behold I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it.
The description of the Babylonian army (the Destroyer under Nebuchadnezzar) is so terrible that it is described as terror on every side. Jeremiah was well aware of his role as “fire” testing the nation. (27) I have set you for a tower and a fortress among my people that you may know and try their way. They are all grievous revolters; walking with slanders; they are brass and iron; they are all corrupters.” Their refusal, however means that the process is not completed and the people are rejected silver, and as such, are rejected by the great Assayer. “(30) Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord has rejected them”.
Chapter 7: Again in this chapter Jeremiah tells Judah that repentance is her only hope! (2) “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all ye of Judah that enter in at these gates to worship the Lord.”
Jeremiah delivered this message at the Temple Gate to give added emphasis to the corruption of Judah’s religious system and worship. He used sarcastic language(4) because they constantly referred to the temple of God as being their defense instead of putting their trust in the God of the temple! Jeremiah announces the destruction of the Temple (8-15) because of their failure to heed the prophets. God restrained His prophet from praying for the people. (16-20) three things comprised Judah’s disobedience.
- Refusing to incline their war.
- Walking in the counsel of their evil hearts.
- Going backward instead of forward.
Jeremiah’s first sermon was “The Sin of the Nation.” His second message was concerning “`The National Corruption” and his third sermon is The Temple.
Like the two preceding sermons it was a stern rebuke, warning, and exhortation, but this message I centered in the religious conditions in Judah.
This second movement of Jeremiah’s prophecy begins at the Gate of the Temple with the prophet’s rebuke for their putting their trust in natural and external things. (Stock Market). He bade them to take a lesson from the history of Shiloh. All their sacrifices and offerings were refused. This was the idolatry of religious formalism.
They had erected idols in the Temple (30) and felt that God would not let Jerusalem be destroyed because His Temple was there! Trust in the temple itself becomes idolatry.
(4) “Trust not in lying words, saying, the temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these. For you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if you thoroughly execute judgments between a man and his neighbor; If you oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt; then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers for ever and ever. Once again the people are urged to a true repentance shown by a life according to God’s requirements.
Their persistent idolatry works as much against themselves as against God. The worship of the Queen of Heaven is Ashtoreth, the principle female Canaanite deity, whose worship was accompanied with the most degrading forms of immorality.
30-32: The children of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the Lord: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name to pollute it. They have built the high places of Tophet which is in the valley of the son of Hinnon, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart.”
“Hinnon” is the valley on the south side of Jerusalem, where children were insanely sacrificed to the heathen deity Molech (the modern plague of abortion), afterward came to be used as the name of Hell, “Gehenna”. They had defiled the Temple and built Tophet as a place of worship. It would become “the valley of slaughter”.
Matthew 21:13: “It is written, my house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves.”
God has never changed His mind about what he wants. He wants a people to dwell and a people to dwell in. “I will cause you to dwell! Eph. 2: 19-21: “You are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together grows unto a holy temple in the Lord: In whom you also are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.”
Three things are built in the Old Testament:
- Altars ----in the wilderness
- Houses – Kingdom begun
- Cities – Kingdom established.
Altars are foundational. God took Judah back to the wilderness of Captivity so that their foundation could be re-built. The Holy nation had become a wilderness. God’s love would not allow them to come to a full end. Therefore, the Lord chose the wilderness of the captivity to turn the nation. Jeremiah was the voice crying unto the wilderness. The wilderness births within us a longing for permanence. Instead of choosing god, Judah chose the high places of Tophet which is the place of false worship! The N.T. equivalent of the valley of the Son of Hinnon is Ge-Henna (hell). Thus, the valley of the Son of Hell Gehenna was Jerusalem’s smoldering trash heap and was located outside the walls of the city.
Jeremiah the Spirit Man was crying out to their wilderness to let God first root out, pull down, destroy and throw down, and then build and plant and cause their wilderness to blossom as the rose. Judah was not going to Hell; she was already there and becoming a responsible citizen. They had chosen this location. There fore a new cause was introduced in 7:34. god has give us the keys to hell and death. Then Jeremiah identified with Hell in Jer. 19:11-14! Hell had enlarged itself (Isa. 5:14). They had made an agreement Hell, but it would not be able to stand. (Isa. 28: 15-18). The Lord took Israel through the wilderness to dwell in the double portion, the portion of the firstborn. God in his mercy redeemed Israel and sent His son to redeem the United States of America and the nations of the earth in each individual who will receive Jesus Christ.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.