Truth and Consequences:
Lesson Twenty-three: Who’s who in the world of religion?
INTRODUCTION
Thank you, friends, for joining us today here in the Zoom room, as we unpack chapter 23 of Jeremiah. 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.
If you on YouTube haven’t yet read the chapter, please pause your playback, read Jeremiah 23, and then re-join us. Also today please read Matthew chapter 7 and you will see the amazing dovetailing of God’s information to us. Thanks.
I title today’s talk, “Who’s who in the world of religion?” because that seems to be the question God is asking and Jeremiah is sharing as a good prophet. The false prophets and shepherds of the people are hiding behind the sanctimonious phrase “I had a dream” and yet God is going to call them on it and say, “I never gave you that information.” Let’s see how this plays out today AND let’s not miss the dramatic nickname God gives us of his messiah as the chapter begins.
Verses 1-4. False shepherds exposed. And God’s promise to bring in replacements, not scabs who walk through picket lines, but real replacements. God says he’s done with the fake shepherds, the ones who lied and did not attend to the needs of the flock. In fact, he says in verse 2, you did not shepherd them, you did not attend to them, you simply scattered them. Sheep easily disburse when allowed. They are fairly dumb creatures, but if someone cares for them, and calls and welcomes them, they gather to him or her. The indictment in this opening section is clearly on the leadership of the Jewish people there in Judah. God in fact says since you didn’t attend to the sheep, I will justly attend to you, for the evil of your (in)actions.
Don’t miss a small but potent word of possession in this opening section. Whose sheep are these? Verse 2 “My people”, “My flock” and same in verse 3, “my flock.” God’s ownership is not only in view; his personal care and affection certainly is as well. In fact, this term of affection is used more than 40 times in this book of the Bible, especially in 30-33.
Who is the responsible agent of the diaspora of the Jewish people? Verse 2 we see it’s the kings/ shepherds. Verse 3, God himself takes responsibility. “I have driven them.” This again highlights the penultimate action of the Lord, the judgment, which for me highlights the ultimate restoration which is ever in his view. That’s why there is hope for us!
Listen to the sound in verse 3 of the Creation account. “Fruitful and multiply” God is saying of himself, I’m the God who was there in the beginning. You don’t have to stress. I’ve got the world in my hands. I’m sovereign. Yes, people of Judah, your kings have messed you around, but don’t fret. The day is coming when their rule will end, and a new king will arise to give you good government. That’s a day of hope. BTW, that’s a constant pinging announcement that opposition parties always sound when it’s election seasons in democracies, that their new government will change the way things are and that there is reason for hope. But it’s a rarity. God’s appeal is to his eternal nature, his being at Creation, and thus we can trust his appointments.
Listen to verses 5 and 6. After Coniah was declared the ‘end of the line’ of David, God says, “nope, that’s not the end of the line.” In other words, like often we hear sung in the chorus in the Scriptures, not that line, but another. Not Esau, but Jacob. Not Ishmael but Isaac. Not Levi but Melchizedek. Hosea said it. Yeshua said it about taking from the one to whom much was given and giving it to another. So David’s line through Coniah would not sit on the earthly throne in Jerusalem because the Babylonians were coming and would take the line down, but God would have his way. He would cause someone else to arise, and to our surprise, he was also from Coniah’s line! (Matthew 1.18)
I wish the Bible editors would not have broken chapters 22 and 23 like they did. Coniah, you will not have a child on the throne, but a righteous branch WILL reign as king. He will be from David. He will be a replacement like, but not like, his family. He will rule justly. He will act wisely and bring justice to bear on the country. All the evil of the previous kings, lowlighted in chapter 22, will be replaced by one, a stunning and surprising one. A branch. Not the trunk of the tree, just a branch. And he will bring about righteousness and justice Ba’aretz. Remember last week we cried “The land, land, land!” God says, I’ve got land in view, and always have had land in view, and I’ll take care of my business and my land.
I love these two verses. Security (Heb: b’tach meaning ‘trust’) and salvation are going to be in Judah. That’s a big shift from judgment which Jeremiah has been announcing for 20 chapters!
And it’s based on a person who rocks up. It’s not about our religious devotion. It’s not based on anything we accomplish or war we win. It’s the Righteous One, the Branch, Adonai Tsidkenu.
By the way, if you ever want to address the deity issue of Yeshua with say, a Jehovah’s Witness, this verse says that the one who is born, the Davidic king is Jehovah.
Verses 7 and 8 along with 5 and 6 are a unit. The answer to Judah’s sin problem and justice problem and wrong shepherds and wrong kings is in a person, whom the prophet could see, but couldn’t see… Yeshua himself. David’s greater son. Messiah. Our righteous one. (1 Cor. 1.30) The only one who brought justice in his own person.
No wonder it says we won’t call on God in Exodus terminology. We’ll see that again in chapter 31. The Exodus is the greatest event in Older Testament history and memory. And now Jeremiah says, “you think THAT was good? Buckle your seatbelt. It’s going to be greater when David’s greater Son shows up.”
Beginning in verse 9 we get back to the troubling ones. The prophets, priests, and other shepherds. Whereas chapter 22 highlighted the political leadership and its failures, now Jeremiah turns again to the religious leadership and showcases their plummeting dark side. Verse 9, we read “all my bones tremble.” Do you know that davening is normal in synagogues around the globe, like we saw last Shabbat in Singapore or the fortnight before in Melbourne. Many Jews rock when they pray and much of that is simply convention, but if someone needs to self-justify, this is the verse they use along with Psalm 35.10. All my bones are involved in response to God and thus in prayer I rock.
OK, Jeremiah says that what follows verse 9 is under the heading “concerning the prophets.” What is it that follows? Verse 9, the drunken like inabilities, verse 10, parched ground and empty silos. The land even mourns. The country and the city alike is in ruin. The prophet and priest are bringing their wickedness into the house of God. They break God’s laws and the land is full of spiritual and physical adultery. It’s a bad scene. God takes it personally in verse 11: my house!
Verses 12 and following makes us hang our heads in shame and dismay. Jeremiah compares us to Sodom and Gomorrah and to the Northern tribes which had been taken into captivity in 722 BCE, some 140 years earlier. We KNEW what happened in Sodom. The story is told annually in Torah readings. We need what happened when Assyrian forces took our brothers up north away from the Land of Promise. So now to hear the indictments against us as being on par with those fallen and judged memories of the Jewish experience is gut-wrenching.
Committing adultery, walking basheker, in falsehood, lies, and if you have ever noticed this is still true. When you walk away from the Lord and devise wrong plans against your neighbour or the guy who stole your briefcase or the police who didn’t serve you as you deserved and expected…when you live in a world of self-defined entitlement, you live in lies. You make yourself out to be the hero and yours are the teams for which everyone should cheer. You are #1 and that’s the biggest lie of all. Instead of living for God and keeping your ears attentive to his voice, you listen to your own voice and listen to your pleas for deservedness, and you begin losing. You will not win. Basheker. In lies.
Verse 14, they ‘strengthen the hands of evildoers.’ One of the things I see in this fallen world is that when someone wants to perform evil, they usually don’t want to sin alone. Satan recruited Eve to join him, after he already had recruited a third of the other angels. Proverbs 1 begins with these words in verse 10, “My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause.”
The prophet is well aware that sinners like to sin with others. Hey, let’s all go to the pub and drink and then let’s go bash some guy’s new Mercedes, you know the guy who looks at us as if we are less than he is? Sinning together almost justifies our actions of wrong. The ‘strengthening of the hands of evildoers’ sounds like the opposite of Job who ‘strengthened the hands of those who were weak!” (4.4)
God concludes their sentencing in verse 15 with “Due to pollution in the land, they will drink poison and wormwood.” I’ve had it up to here, and they are going to get their due punishment. Be assured of this, God is not mocked. What a man sows, that will he also reap. (Galatians 6.7)
False prophets sing songs of merriment when woe is the right word. IT’s really hard to distinguish between true and false. I get that. The people in the days of Yeshua had a hard time sorting out sheker (lies) from emet (truth). He said if you want to know who’s who, and determine who is speaking God’s truth, Yeshua said “you will know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7.16). He goes on to say something about figs, and we will speak about those next week particularly.
Listen to the rest of this quote of Yeshua recorded in Matthew chapter 7
“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? 17 “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7.15-20)
What are the fruits Yeshua is describing? How will we ever know how to decide which tv preacher or ad hoc motivational speaker or philosopher of the New Age—how should we determine the correctness of the information presented? By their fruits. He’s speaking about authentic life in God. Things which the prophets ask of us and which they lay down for themselves as appropriate… do those match what the Almighty has already described as Good? Clean living. Kindness and mercy. Behaving as if the other guy deserves the musical chair before you can jump into it. Giving is better than receiving. Loving is better than being loved. You get it, sounds like the prayer of St Francis of Assisi. Which is a GREAT prayer to offer to the Lord with regularity. Yeshua is saying what Jeremiah is saying here in chapter 23—the shepherds are false because they lead you away from the words of God and away from the actions a good person who follows the Lord should be performing.
From where do those evil thoughts come in the mouths of the false prophets? From their imagination (verse 16: Hebrew; lev= heart), I didn’t give them these thoughts; they ran (away from God) (verse 21) and spoke lies to comfort you, but that comfort will be short-lived. They spoke away from God’s council (v. 22) and not in it. If, God says, they would have stayed inside my advice and counsel, they would be alive and sharing my plans to this day, but they didn’t.
Verse 23 and following says, “Am I not a God who is near and far? Can a person hide? Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” In other words, I’ve got this. NO one can escape. I fill the universe with my presence. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice your deceptions?
In verse 29, we see two tremendously destructive forces, both the hammer and the fire. Nothing can escape God’s judgments when they come. And they are linked to God’s word. Don’t mess around with what God says. His word can give grace; his word can just as dramatically bring justice.
Through verse 32, God says over and over that he didn’t send the dreamer/ preachers. He didn’t initiate and he won’t stand by idly while they defame his name. Listen to the declaration “I am against them.” Wow, they always say choose your friends well and your enemies even better. God is against these false representatives. They tried to comfort people with niceties but assuring the Jewish people of their comfort and ease when they were approaching Niagara or Victoria Falls may sound nice, but it’s a death sentence. The prophets should have been crying out, “Repent” and “return” but they didn’t. As a result. God is their opponent.
The chapter ends with God’s further declaration about the prophets who hid behind the phrase “the oracle of the Lord.” Taking God’s name in vein is exactly what is going on here. Saying, “God said” when God didn’t say is tantamount to breaking the 2nd and 3rd commandments. It’s the Great Sheker which for many reasons people tend to believe because they really want good news to come, especially to them because they (think they) deserve it. In verse 33 God says he will abandon us. In 34 God says of the priest he will bring punishment on that person. Why?
Verse 36, every man’s oracle is their own and they believe it and they live by it. This is a shake-my-head reading every time I get to Jeremiah 23 in my reading schedule. God is offering his own name, his own life, his own realities, and yet we often choose our own systems and teachings and improvements on what he has said.
What is his response? Get away from me, you workers of iniquity, I never knew you. (See Matthew 7.21-23) Because you do not know me! God’s way is the right way; it’s the only way to peace and prosperity and goodness. Everything else is sheker and lies and deception and the wrong way. No wonder Yeshua taught this as being the narrow way.
Matt. 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Have you found the narrow way?
Yeshua is the gate that leads you into following the Lord on the narrow way, not the Broadway of human popularity and human sophistication and human enterprise away from the Lord of life.
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? He is risen from the dead! 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 18. 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.
McConnville, Gordon, Jeremiah, New Bible 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.
For other links:
FB: https://www.facebook.com/jewsforjesusau
The videos, especially the Bible teachings are always free. However, if you are enjoying and learning from them, and would like to share in the costs $ of putting them together, to donate use this link: https://www.jewsforjesus.org.au/giving
T: http://www.twitter.com/jewsforjesusau
I: https://www.instagram.com/jewsforjesusau
If you haven’t yet done so, please click the red box to the right which says ‘SUBSCRIBE’ and you will be notified of any new content on our channel. Thanks!
ACTUAL TEXT
Jer. 23:1 “aWoe to the shepherds who are bdestroying and scattering the csheep of My pasture!” declares the LORD. 2 Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel concerning the shepherds who are 1tending My people: “You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them; behold, I am about to aattend to you for the bevil of your deeds,” declares the LORD. 3 “Then I Myself will agather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and bring them back to their pasture, and they will be fruitful and multiply. 4 “I will also raise up ashepherds over them and they will 1tend them; and they will bnot be afraid any longer, nor be terrified, cnor will any be missing,” declares the LORD.
Jer. 23:5 “Behold, the adays are coming,” declares the LORD,
“When I will raise up for David a righteous 1bBranch;
And He will creign as king and 2act wisely
And ddo justice and righteousness in the land.
6 “In His days Judah will be saved,
And aIsrael will dwell securely;
And this is His bname by which He will be called,
‘The cLORD our righteousness.’
Jer. 23:7 “aTherefore behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when they will no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ 8 abut, ‘As the LORD lives, who bbrought up and led back the descendants of the household of Israel from the north land and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ Then they will live on their own soil.”
Jer. 23:9 As for the prophets:
My aheart is broken within me,
All my bones tremble;
I have become like a drunken man,
Even like a man overcome with wine,
Because of the LORD
And because of His holy words.
10 For the land is full of aadulterers;
For the land bmourns because of the curse.
The cpastures of the wilderness have dried up.
Their course also is evil
And their might is not right.
11 “For aboth prophet and priest are polluted;
Even in My house I have found their wickedness,” declares the LORD.
12 “Therefore their way will be like aslippery paths to them,
They will be driven away into the bgloom and fall down in it;
For I will bring ccalamity upon them,
The year of their punishment,” declares the LORD.
Jer. 23:13 “Moreover, among the prophets of Samaria I saw an aoffensive thing:
They bprophesied by Baal and cled My people Israel astray.
14 “Also among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a ahorrible thing:
The committing of badultery and walking in falsehood;
And they strengthen the hands of cevildoers,
So that no one has turned back from his wickedness.
All of them have become to Me like dSodom,
And her inhabitants like Gomorrah.
15 “Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets,
‘Behold, I am going to afeed them wormwood
And make them drink poisonous water,
For from the prophets of Jerusalem
Pollution has gone forth into all the land.’”
Jer. 23:16 Thus says the LORD of hosts,
“aDo not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you.
They are bleading you into futility;
They speak a cvision of their own 1imagination,
Not dfrom the mouth of the LORD.
17 “They keep saying to those who adespise Me,
‘The LORD has said, “bYou will have peace”’;
And as for everyone who walks in the cstubbornness of his own heart,
They say, ‘dCalamity will not come upon you.’
18 “But awho has stood in the council of the LORD,
That he should see and hear His word?
Who has given bheed to 1His word and listened?
19 “Behold, the astorm of the LORD has gone forth in wrath,
Even a whirling tempest;
It will swirl down on the head of the wicked.
20 “The aanger of the LORD will not turn back
Until He has bperformed and carried out the purposes of His heart;
cIn the last days you will clearly understand it.
21 “aI did not send these prophets,
But they ran.
I did not speak to them,
But they prophesied.
22 “But if they had astood in My council,
Then they would have bannounced My words to My people,
And would have turned them back from their evil way
And from the evil of their deeds.
Jer. 23:23 “Am I a God who is anear,” declares the LORD,
“And not a God far off?
24 “Can a man ahide himself in hiding places
So I do not see him?” declares the LORD.
“bDo I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the LORD.
Jer. 23:25 “I have aheard what the prophets have said who bprophesy falsely in My name, saying, ‘I had a cdream, I had a dream!’ 26 “How long? Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood, even these prophets of the adeception of their own heart, 27 who intend to amake My people forget My name by their dreams which they relate to one another, just as their fathers bforgot My name because of Baal? 28 “The prophet who has a dream may relate his dream, but let him who has aMy word speak My word in truth. bWhat does straw have in common with grain?” declares the LORD. 29 “Is not My word like afire?” declares the LORD, “and like a bhammer which shatters a rock? 30 “Therefore behold, aI am against the prophets,” declares the LORD, “who steal My words from each other. 31 “Behold, I am against the prophets,” declares the LORD, “who use their tongues and declare, ‘The Lord declares.’ 32 “Behold, I am against those who have prophesied afalse dreams,” declares the LORD, “and related them and led My people astray by their falsehoods and breckless boasting; yet cI did not send them or command them, nor do they dfurnish this people the slightest benefit,” declares the LORD.
Jer. 23:33 “Now when this people or the prophet or a priest asks you saying, ‘What is the 1aoracle of the LORD?’ then you shall say to them, ‘What 1oracle?’ The LORD declares, ‘I will babandon you.’ 34 “Then as for the prophet or the priest or the people who say, ‘The aoracle of the LORD,’ I will bring punishment upon that man and his household. 35 “Thus will each of you say to his neighbor and to his brother, ‘aWhat has the LORD answered?’ or, ‘What has the LORD spoken?’ 36 “For you will no longer remember the oracle of the LORD, because every man’s own word will become the oracle, and you have aperverted the words of the bliving God, the LORD of hosts, our God. 37 “Thus you will say to that prophet, ‘What has the LORD answered you?’ and, ‘What has the LORD spoken?’ 38 “For if you say, ‘The oracle of the LORD!’ surely thus says the LORD, ‘Because you said this word, “The oracle of the LORD!” I have also sent to you, saying, “You shall not say, ‘The oracle of the LORD!’”’ 39 “Therefore behold, aI will surely forget you and cast you away from My presence, along with the city which I gave you and your fathers. 40 “I will put an everlasting areproach on you and an everlasting humiliation which will not be forgotten.”
No comments:
Post a Comment