A STUDY OF THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
Serving God Brings Pain and Suffering
Jeremiah 19-20 SCC 1/15/17
WHEN IN CONFLICT WITH GOD YOU STAND YOUR GROUND
PERILOUSLY
19:1-2
God told Jeremiah to Go and buy a
potter’s earthenware jar, probably a narrow-necked pottery flask used for
carrying water because the Hebrew word is a word suggesting the sound water
made as it was poured out. Next he was to take some of the elders and some
of the senior priests and go to the valley of Ben hinnom, which is by
the potsherd gate and deliver the message that the Lord would give him. The
Hinnom Valley ran along the south and west of the city and served as
Jerusalem’s community dump. The Potsherd Gate is where the people carried their
potsherds (broken pieces of pottery) and other refuse through to throw it in
the Hinnom Valley.
19:3 The prophet was to
call everyone in Jerusalem to hear the Lord's message, from the kings to the
ordinary citizens. Israel's God, Almighty God, was about to bring a calamity of
unheard of severity on Jerusalem.
19:4-5 The calamity would
strike because the people because: (1) they
had forsaken God and (2) they had
turned the valley of Hinnom, and all Jerusalem, into a place of heathen worship, including child sacrifice. Their forefathers did
not do this, and God had never commanded these atrocities.
19:6-7 Because of these
sins, the Lord predicted that the place would receive a new name: The Valley of
Slaughter v 6. The Lord would also
turn the wise advice of the people of Judah and Jerusalem into foolishness v 7. As they had worshipped nothings there, so their wisdom would
come to nothing. Their enemy would slaughter them there, as they had
slaughtered their innocent children. No one would bury their dead bodies. They
would become food for carrion birds and wild animals.
19:8-9 God would also
destroy Jerusalem so that everyone who passed its ruins would whistle in
amazement because of the devastation v 8.
The siege of Jerusalem would be so bad that the residents would eat their own
children, and one another, rather than die of starvation v 9.
19:10-11 Jeremiah was to
break his jar in the sight of his hearers as a symbolic act, and announce that
in similar fashion, the Lord would destroy the people and the city v 10. They would not be able to recover
from this catastrophe any more than one could repair a shattered earthenware
jar v 11. The only burial places
would be in Topheth. The fireplace
would become a cemetery. Judah was a
hardened vessel incapable of changing. All the Lord could do with it now was
break it.
9:12-13 God would also make
Jerusalem a place of fire like Topheth, and its people a sacrifice
v 12 because all the people, from
the ordinary citizens to the kings, had turned their houses into altars
dedicated to pagan god’s v 13. The
people had offered burnt offerings and poured out drink offerings on their flat
rooftops to astral deities and other idols.
19:14-15 Jeremiah then
returned from Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom to the temple courtyard v 14. There he preached to the people
that the Lord was about to bring this calamity on Jerusalem and the towns of
Judah because they had stubbornly refused to repent v 15.
NB: So
repentance is admission of guilt and desire to change and go another direction.
It includes confession of wrongdoing and commitment to get off that path. God
places a high premium on repenting because it the only way to communicate
agreement with God. Repentance is the way to agreement. Otherwise God describes
you as stiff-necked. You are so to your own peril.
SERVING AGAINST GOD OR FOR HIM BOTH BRING PAIN AND
SUFFERING
Getting in God’s way guarantees your demise 1-6
20:1-2 Pashhur was the priest,
...the chief officer in the house of the Lord. Probably his job was to
maintain order within the Temple area 29:26. He had Jeremiah the prophet
beaten, and put him in stocks for public ridicule. This is the first
recorded act of violence done to Jeremiah. It
reminds us of the captain of the temple guard who, years later, similarly
imprisoned Peter and John in Acts 5.
20:3-6 When Jeremiah was released the next day, he did not change his message. Instead,
he changed Pashhur’s name to God’s new name for him, Magor-missabib,
meaning terror on every side v 3. Because Pashhur refused to pay
attention to God’s message, while your eyes look on, Pashhur would see
God’s wrath v 4. This is the first
explicit reference to the place of exile in the book. He would watch in terror
as his own friends would fall to the sword. The wealth of the city would be
taken by the Babylonians v 5. Pashhur,
who would terrorize Jeremiah for the message he proclaimed, will be terrorized and
his family would go into captivity to Babylon, where they will die v 6 because you have falsely prophesied (2:8;
10:21; 14:14-15; Lamentations 2:14).
NB: Never
put words in God’s mouth. Never take words out of his mouth. Never exchange his
words for yours. Never have God speak out of both sides of his mouth. Never
make God stutter. Never ignore Gods words. Don’t Pashhur the Words of God!
Staying true to Gods Word guarantees pain and
suffering 7-18
20:7-10 Jeremiah opened up his
heart to God. He felt God had deceived him by letting him be a laughingstock
and mocked by the people for his message v 7. He felt betrayed by the Lord. He faithfully proclaimed violence
and destruction, but was rewarded by reproach and derision v 8.
Application: God’s message is Good News to us but to the world it
is foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18) and it stinks (2 Corinthians 2:14-16).
Jesus said that in the world you will
have tribulation (John 16:33). Jesus also said, If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated
you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you
are not of the world, therefore the world hates you (John 15:18-19).
Discouraged, Jeremiah
considers withholding God’s Word to avoid persecution. But when he did, then
in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary
of holding it in, and I cannot endure it v 9. He heard the
mocking of his message Terror on every side! His trusted friends were
watching for his fall. They wanted a false prediction so they could
accuse him of being a false prophet and take our revenge on him v
10 (Deut 18:20). He
had become a Magor-missabib (terror on every side) of sorts himself and
the people may well have applied this nickname to him.
Application: If Jeremiah wasn't ashamed to preach bad news, we
shouldn't be ashamed to preach the good news. David also said, “Even my close
friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me”
(Psalm 41:9, 12). The Lord Jesus Christ
suffered similar opposition.
20:11-13 Though Jeremiah felt deceived because of his persecution,
he still realized that the Lord is with me like a dread champion v 11.
Since Jeremiah and God were on the same side, Jeremiah is confident my
persecutors will stumble and not prevail. That God dost test the
righteous v 12. He sees the mind and the heart so the testing is revealing about our
thought and motives.
Application: God’s motive in testing is your maturity (James
1:2-4). Maturity is full development through continual growth. God wants us to
fully mature in godliness, Christlikeness. So testing.
His request is let me
see Thy vengeance on them because to Thee I have set forth my cause. This
perspective allowed Jeremiah to sing to the Lord, praise the Lord v 13!
He is confident God would deliver his soul from the hand of
evildoers.
20:14-18 In a sudden change of emotion, Jeremiah again plunged
to the depths of despair v 14.
Perhaps he realized that the vindication which he desired could come only
through the destruction of the city and nation which he dearly loved. Normally
the birth of a male child was the best news a man could receive v 15. The messenger of Jeremiah's birth
would have been better off, from the prophet's perspective, if he had been
slain by the Lord, as when the Lord overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah v 16. The prophet wished the Lord had
slain him in his mother's womb rather than bringing him to birth v 17. Similar to Job, his agony made
him wish that he had never been born v
18. He asks, why did I ever come forth from the womb to look on trouble
and sorrow? These verses
indicate that human life exists in a mother's womb before birth. Jeremiah
existed as a person in his mother's womb. His self-pity could not erase the
fact that he had been selected by God while in the womb for the task he
was performing (1:5).
Application: What can we learn about Jesus suffering in Gethsemane (Luke 22:39-45):
(1) Suffering
purifies faith. When God can see Christ in us, then the suffering has done its
work. God chips away everything that’s not Christ.
(2) Suffering
focuses our faith on God and not on others. Hopeless, we look up not in.
(3) Suffering clarifies our faith. We see God in a
new light. God’s purposes are much deeper and His ways beyond our finding out. Suffering
delivers a greater capacity to discern Gods work in your life.
SO WHAT?
1. If you love God and love
men and have compassion for them, you will pay a real price emotionally,
personally, and spiritually as you serve.
2. What does God expect of
Jeremiah? What does God expect of every person who delivers the truth into a
lost age like ours? He expects you to go right on with his truth even if people
are against you.
3. Service in the kingdom, doing the will of
God, obeying Jesus Christ, will regularly be costly. Doing God’s will may get
you in trouble.