Truth and Consequences:
A study in the prophecy of Jeremiah
Chapter 14
INTRODUCTION
And thank you friends for joining us today here in the Zoom room, as we unpack this painful and real story of Jeremiah 14. Let’s dig into it and find out what God has to say to us as 21st Century people wherever you live and for those on YouTube, from wherever and whenever you are watching.
We are soaked here on the East Coast of Australia. Floods are abundant, even now, water is pouring into the Warragamba Dam and engineers are attempting to release enough to keep it healthy, but at the same time they are flooding downstream. Tens of thousands have been forced to evacuate their homes and businesses up and down the coast, from far south of Sydney all the way up to Brisbane. The once-in-a-100 year episode from either last year or 2011 has now been replaced by a once-in-a-500 year nomenclature. It’s like in the days of Noah, only we don’t yet have a boat.
Contrast that with the scene in Jeremiah chapter 14. There we see verse after verse of devastation and loss, all caused by a drought. And we are going to hear cries of “woe is me” and “We have sinned” from the people to whom Jeremiah is preaching. And it seems that God, from heaven, says his phone line is busy or engaged. He seems reluctant to forgive us our sins. In fact, the phone line has been cut off entirely. What’s the deal with that?
You might remember we spoke about this some weeks back. There are three audiences to whom Jeremiah is speaking. One, the people who actually heard him speak and cry out. They are the ones who will be going into captivity, whose life is characterised by the sins he has chronicled and listed over chapter after chapter. For them, it is too late. Prayer is of no consequence. The national problem of exile is in the cards and their weeping will not stop the just hands of the Almighty from the dispensed punishment.
That is not to say that any individual who cries out to the Lord won’t be heard. This fact is substantial that you understand this. The reality is exile; the individuals who are going to be led off into Babylon are EVERYone. But as Yeshua taught, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. We as a people were going to experience the penalty of our collective national sin. Individually, we had options to repent and to ‘give glory to God’ as we saw last week.
Think about it this way. Each of us has been under the blight of covid the last two years, but by mitigating it, by whatever methods we had to avoid or live through it, we have done so. Same with our floods just now. Some have died, but most have avoided the power and the tragedies associated with this flooding. The area is swamped. The bridges are out. The SES crews are working tirelessly. Reality is soaked. BUT you can stay a bit higher and drier individually. Games are washed out. Maybe even the Mardi Gras parade will be awash. But individuals can be safe and sound. See how that works?
So it is with this notion of justice and punishment. The people to whom Jeremiah is speaking have a choice. Each person has a choice. The choice is not whether to go into exile. That’s settled. The choice is what kind of person I will be today and tomorrow. The choice is how I will respond to God’s justice meted to us as a people.
Think of the folks in Ukraine. They are under severe assault by a madman named Putin. The people of the armies of Russia, nearly 200,000 from the Belarus border around to the Crimean peninsula, are all not of one mind. Many soldiers are not happy about attacking their neighbours. Even so, they are doing so, relentlessly. And the people of Ukraine, upwards of 1 million so far in less than 10 days, have fled the country. Last year, they didn’t plan to leave home. But they have done so. The situation defines their life. BUT, and here’s the key, what they do with their life in the midst of the situation is what really defines THEM. We are individuals in the midst of society. What will the Ukrainians do in Romania or Poland? What kind of people will they be back who remain back in Kyiv, Odessa or Kharkov?
I said Jeremiah is writing for three sets of people. First is the people of his day.
The second group is the people of the exile who will be given the choice and the chance in 70 years to return to the Land and to live right. Knowing the consequences of wrong living, what choices will the people in two generations make while living displaced? The prophecy of Jeremiah is for them, so that they will make good choices and listen to the Word of the Lord. It’s given to encourage faithful leaders, shepherds and prophets, who will stand up among them and teach well. God’s word to them will be a warning mixed with the reality of their recent history and their own geography, and as such will be powerful.
The third group to whom Jeremiah is writing is us. That is, people who are around on the planet long-since the season of life he foresaw. We who have the advice of this Book of Life can also make choices. We, too, can practice what he preached or we can enjoy the dainties of this life and fall to the same judgment Jeremiah predicted. God, in his mercy, gives us hope.
In the next section of the prophecy from chapters 14 to 17, Jeremiah delivers four different sermons or messages and drops into the writing the prayers he associates with them. They are his prayers. They show the depth of the prophet himself. God also will answer his prayers in this section. You should know chapter 17 may well be my favourite chapter in this whole book. And we will get there, Lord willing, in a few weeks.
With all that as backdrop, let’s dig into the text.
Sermon One: Chapter 14: The first message concerns the Drought
1. The plight of the land (.1-6)
Nothing escapes the effects of a drought. Remember, folks in the US have rivers and so do the Europeans and the Nile runs powerfully through Egypt, but the Jordan River is hardly enough to irrigate the country of Judah. The people depended on rain to provide needed agricultural assistance. Not too much, as we are experiencing just now in Australia, but enough. And there was NONE, so Jeremiah uses that information to teach the people of God’s ways.
As a result of drought, the land was suffering, and thus everyone suffered with it. Four times in these opening verses emptiness and such is mentioned. Verse 3 “no water”, verse 4 “no rain”, verse 5 “no grass” and verse six “no vegetation.” It’s batting 0 for 4, and that’s a picture of emptiness. Hopelessness. The big goose egg on the scoreboard.
Look at the progression. Verse 3 it starts with the nobility, the wealthy sending their servants to the grocery store for the provision and they only find empty shelves. The farmer is equally devoid of hope and provision, and even the animals of the fields are penalized for the sins of Judah. Nothing and no one is exempt. The land is experiencing the plight of loss.
The image of a funeral is in both verses 3 and 4 with covered heads, humiliation and shame.
2. From plight to plea. (.7-9)
Yes, things seem hopeless, but Jeremiah knows that he too has a responsibility in the matter. He is after all, the son of a priest. He is the weeping prophet. He has to proclaim God’s truth, no matter the cost. And now the cost includes his own participation in the people’s situation. NOT in the people’s sins. But in their punishment and their plight.
Hear verses 7 and 8 as the prayer we all can pray just now. We all can join in one voice to the Lord with “
“Although our iniquities testify against us,
O LORD, act for Your name’s sake!
Truly our apostasies have been many,
We have sinned against You.
8 “O Hope of Israel,
Its Savior in time of distress,
Why are You like a stranger in the land”
Jeremiah changes from 2nd person to 1st person. It’s not “YOU GUYS SIN” but “we have sinned.” Like Daniel and Isaiah, like Moses and Paul, and most notably like Yeshua himself, we find a man who identifies with his people and cries out on behalf of them, including himself. Our iniquities in verse 7. Our apostasies. We have sinned. Can you say that today? Can you identify with our people in that way? Or are you an outsider, saying “THEM” and “they deserve your just punishment?” The cries of a prophet, and dare I say, of an evangelist, ought to come from the inside, not from a distance.
What does Jeremiah call him? Saviour, Hope, Stranger. What? Yes, he’s inviting God back into the conversation. He’s crying out and pleading with the Lord to rejoin. You have been on vacation, far away, a stranger, but now come, take up your holy throne. We invite you not only into the conversation but as the ruler of our lives.
Jeremiah even invokes the old “we represent” and thus "if you shame us, it’s going to reflect poorly on you" device. But God won’t fall for that one. God has already said he’s going to wear us and what we do DOES reflect on him. But as often is the case, we see only the immediate and not the big picture. God’s justice is only the penultimate issue. His plan is to have mercy and to restore. But not just yet. We want niceties and kindness and we want it without cost or pain and we want it now. God, let’s just say, has other plans.
3. God’s answer to the plea (.10-12)
It may surprise you to learn that God isn’t always interested in our prayers. In fact, this is now the 3rd time in this prophecy that God tells Jeremiah to stop praying for the people. (7.16, 11.14) When he’s done, he’s done and there’s nothing you can do about it. Look at his pronouncement in verse 12. I’m not going to accept them; I am going to make an end of them by the sword, famine and pestilence.
Jeremiah told God he seemed like an alien, a stranger, but God answers that they were wandering (.10, also 2.17-19, 2.23-25, 2.31). The judgment is clear. It’s comprehensive. The exile is coming.
4. Jeremiah makes a protest appeal (.13-16)
God won’t hear of it, though. Jeremiah says it’s the false prophets who are leading the people astray. And God agrees, but still, the people are responsible for whom they follow. (Deut. 13, Deut 18).
5. The pain and prayer of agreement with God (.17-22)
Finally, God gets through to Jeremiah that his rule is going to prevail and the people are going into exile. And as before, and as Ezra and Nehemiah and so many others, the language shifts from ‘they’ to ‘we’ and Jeremiah takes the role of intercessor. We have sinned. God have mercy. And listen to the final words in verse 22.
“Are there any among the idols of the nations who give rain?
Or can the heavens grant showers?
Is it not You, O LORD our God?
Therefore we hope in You,
For You are the one who has done all these things.”
God is the one on whom we can rely. And he alone. He alone can forgive and cause rain. Jeremiah takes on himself the sins of the people, in a way, and points us to the Eternal One.
Yeshua, of course, is the most notable of the prophets who takes the sins of the people on himself. At the end of his public ministry, from the cross, Yeshua cries, “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” His atoning work, his death as a sacrifice, as a substitute for the sins of the Jewish people, and really all people, is the greatest love gift ever extended to humanity. If you are new to this study, if you are new to the questions of faith and God himself, keep your eyes on Yeshua, the author and finisher of all things faith, and he will bring you to himself, to eternity, to confidence and to forgiveness for all your sins. What a Hope for Israel. What a Saviour of the world!
CONCLUSION
God is calling each of us to know him and to walk with him, today and throughout our days. Have you received Yeshua as your messiah and Lord? Have you renounced your sin, your idolatry, your forsaking God and given him First Place in your life? If not, please, do so now, just now, as we pray together. Use your own words, if you want, but yield, surrender, to the Lord of life.
PRAYER
Then please write us (admin@jewsforjesus.org.au) to tell us what you have just done, and we will send you literature and encourage you. You are part of our family; we love and appreciate you. And we want you to enjoy the presence of the Lord who calls, who knows, who blesses and builds us up.
We hope to see you again next week as we study chapter 13. Until then, Shabbat shalom!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barnes, Albert, Albert Barnes’ Commentary on the Old Testament,
Craigie, Peter; Kelley, Page; Drinkard, Joel. Word Biblical Commentary. Book of Jeremiah. 1991.
Henry, Matthew, Commentary.
Weirsbe, Warren. Be Decisive. David Cook Publishers, Colorado Springs 1991.
Wright, Christopher, The Message of Jeremiah, The Bible Speaks Today, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2014.
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ACTUAL TEXT
Jer. 14:1 That which came as the word of the LORD to Jeremiah in regard to the drought:
2 “Judah mourns
And her gates languish;
They sit on the ground in mourning,
And the cry of Jerusalem has ascended.
3 “Their nobles have sent their servants for water;
They have come to the cisterns and found no water.
They have returned with their vessels empty;
They have been put to shame and humiliated,
And they cover their heads.
4 “Because the ground is cracked,
For there has been no rain on the land;
The farmers have been put to shame,
They have covered their heads.
5 “For even the doe in the field has given birth only to abandon her young,
Because there is no grass.
6 “The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights;
They pant for air like jackals,
Their eyes fail
For there is no vegetation.
7 “Although our iniquities testify against us,
O LORD, act for Your name’s sake!
Truly our apostasies have been many,
We have sinned against You.
8 “O Hope of Israel,
Its Savior in time of distress,
Why are You like a stranger in the land
Or like a traveller who has pitched his tent for the night?
9 “Why are You like a man dismayed,
Like a mighty man who cannot save?
Yet You are in our midst, O LORD,
And we are called by Your name;
Do not forsake us!”
Jer. 14:10 Thus says the LORD to this people, “Even so they have loved to wander; they have not kept their feet in check. Therefore the LORD does not accept them; now He will remember their iniquity and call their sins to account.” 11 So the LORD said to me, “Do not pray for the welfare of this people. 12 “When they fast, I am not going to listen to their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I am not going to accept them. Rather I am going to make an end of them by the sword, famine and pestilence.”
Jer. 14:13 But, “Ah, Lord GOD!” I said, “Look, the prophets are telling them, ‘You will not see the sword nor will you have famine, but I will give you lasting peace in this place.’” 14 Then the LORD said to me, “The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility and the deception of their own minds. 15 “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who are prophesying in My name, although it was not I who sent them — yet they keep saying, ‘There will be no sword or famine in this land’ — by sword and famine those prophets shall meet their end! 16 “The people also to whom they are prophesying will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and there will be no one to bury them — neither them, nor their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters — for I will pour out their own wickedness on them.
17 “You will say this word to them,
‘Let my eyes flow down with tears night and day,
And let them not cease;
For the virgin daughter of my people has been crushed with a mighty blow,
With a sorely infected wound.
18 ‘If I go out to the country,
Behold, those slain with the sword!
Or if I enter the city,
Behold, diseases of famine!
For both prophet and priest
Have gone roving about in the land that they do not know.’”
Jer. 14:19 Have You completely rejected Judah?
Or have You loathed Zion?
Why have You stricken us so that we are beyond healing?
We waited for peace, but nothing good came;
And for a time of healing, but behold, terror!
20 We know our wickedness, O LORD,
The iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against You.
21 Do not despise us, for Your own name’s sake;
Do not disgrace the throne of Your glory;
Remember and do not annul Your covenant with us.
22 Are there any among the idols of the nations who give rain?
Or can the heavens grant showers?
Is it not You, O LORD our God?
Therefore we hope in You,
For You are the one who has done all these things.
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