Jeremiah’s Journal

Jeremiah 4:5–6:30

Main Idea: The call of a prophet is a lonely call.

1. Prophet Feels like God Is Sending Mixed Signals (4:10).
2. A Prophet Despairs (4:19; 6:9-12).
   1. They are not holy, so they cannot understand the word (6:10b).
   2. God offends them, so they have no pleasure in the word (6:10c).
3. A Prophet Is Tested (6:27-30).

The world is a mess. As I write these words, I am grieving the loss of forty-nine people, citizens of my country, who were massacred. The world really is a sick place. Immorality, terrorism, injustice, greed, and hate—they are epidemic. One would think it had reached a boiling point. But the appetite for more of the same has not been satiated. In fact, I’m writing these words confident that greater tragedy awaits the world before this book goes to publication. Perhaps it will even be a friend or family member of mine who is killed.

Jesus is the only answer. Maybe it reads trite, but it is no less true that the only cure is Christ, which brings us to an even tougher problem: The people who have the answer are silent. The gross failure to speak out condemns the church. Those who have the cure, those doctors of truth designated to perform both diagnostics and healing, are silent. It’s like the cure is under lock and key. Those charged with giving medicine act like it’s too harmful. To put it bluntly, preachers don’t explain Scripture. They do not re-present God’s Word.

Imagine you went to church and your preacher told the unfiltered truth: If you act like hell, you probably are not a Christian. Abortion is murder. Prosperity preachers are lying. Preachers who do not explain Scripture are culpable to God. The institutional church is so addicted to its own machinery that it does not cry out in desperation to God. We spend more money on dog food than on missions. If your pastor stood in his pulpit and said these things, he would be a lone voice. He would feel ostracized—not by the world but by the church!

Prophets rarely have honor. That much has not changed. Jeremiah 4:5–6:30 is the journal of a lonely prophet who feels isolated in his calling. Let’s set the stage.

Context

Judgment is coming. It is absolutely certain that God will not turn a blind eye to all the wickedness of Israel. They have sinned, God has seen it, and now he will use other nations to judge his people. God hates sin, and he will allow the consequences to come on them and to punish them.

Jeremiah warns them of this coming punishment in 4:5-8. The people are warned to flee the “disaster from the north” and to “mourn and wail” the consequences of the Lord’s wrath. He further says in verses 23-26 that the punishment will be devastating, virtually reverting the earth back to the chaotic state of “formless and empty.” The destruction is certain, and it will be profound, but it will not be total (vv. 27-28).

So the people are wicked, God is responding, yet the prophets, the ones who should be calling the people to repentance, are not helping! This is tragic, and God condemns the prophets. While God says he is bringing destruction, the people reject the word of the coming destruction. They do not want to hear it (5:12). So the prophets, seemingly drunk on man’s approval, agree with the people. They suggest that the people are right. In doing so, they become only wind (v. 13). They speak, but there is nothing to it.

These are the cultural dynamics of Jeremiah’s life:

• God is bringing destruction.
• The people don’t care.
• The other prophets are not saying anything about it.

To speak the truth in this type of environment would be a shock to the system! To speak the truth would make enemies from the people who did not want to hear the message and from the prophets who were not willing to say the same thing. So here is a question: What goes on in the heart of a prophet? When God calls you to speak truth in a world that does not want to hear truth, what happens? Remember, Jeremiah contains the sermons, songs, and journals of the prophet Jeremiah. In this section let’s focus on Jeremiah’s journal. Yet, as we will see, while this is an individual’s journal, it reflects the experience of many.

If you are following Christ, then you will be called to present the message of the kingdom in an environment where the people, and the other prophets of the kingdom, do not agree with you. This is true culturally. It might be true of your own family. So this might be your journal if you have ever been called to speak truth in a hostile environment.

Jeremiah’s journals reveal two feelings and one call.

A Prophet Feels like God Is Sending Mixed Signals

Jeremiah 4:10

When we are speaking in a hostile environment, we may feel God is sending mixed signals.

In this first entry of Jeremiah’s journal, we have the feeling that God has confused his own people. This is a pretty honest, and pretty harsh, critique of God’s work. Jeremiah complains,

I said, “Oh no, Lord God, you have certainly deceived this people and Jerusalem, by announcing, ‘You will have peace,’ while a sword is at our throats.”

What does he mean by this? The false prophets were suggesting that none of this destruction is going to happen (6:14; 8:11). After all, there were visible signs of God’s blessing. So Jeremiah concludes that God is intentionally confusing his various prophets; God is telling the false prophets one thing, a message of peace, but delivering something else, a sword. Of course this is not the case, but we cannot blame Jeremiah for feeling this way. Remember, this is his journal. He feels like even though God has called him to pluck up, break down, destroy, and overthrow (1:10), other prophets, false prophets, are promising peace. Why would God allow this confusion to go on? In other words, why would God allow the false prophets to exist? The reason may be wrapped up in the mercy of God, inasmuch as God is being gracious to the false prophets by giving them another opportunity to repent.

What we do know is that it is extremely difficult to speak truth in a context of confusion. Today is no different. Think of how confusing these messages are:

• The Scriptures plainly teach that all violations of God’s law are sin (Rom 3:23).

Yet many preachers suggest we choose what we do because of the conditions of our society.

• The Scriptures teach that sexual sin, like any other sin, incurs the wrath of God (Rom 1:18-23).

Yet many preachers preach that God condones sexual sin.

• The Scriptures teach that all who follow Christ will suffer (2 Tim 3:12).

Yet many preachers suggest that all suffering is a result of sin.

• The Scriptures teach that wealth is to be stewarded back into the kingdom (Luke 16:1-13).

Yet many preachers suggest wealth is to be hoarded.

• The Scriptures affirm their own authority (2 Tim 3:16).

Yet many preachers profess that Scriptures are to be interpreted in light of our cultural and political bias.

This is just so confusing. When an open Bible is contrary to a preacher, there is nothing short of confusion.

So perhaps you are confused. Or perhaps you have wondered why God would allow such things to go on. Welcome to the club! You have just joined the rarified air of the prophet Jeremiah whose journals seem to implicate God in the confusion.

But again, God is not the source of confusion. Confusion is the residue of mixing clear truth with lying preachers—preachers who do not re-present God’s Word when they preach. It’s confusing. The confusion all around us can lead to despair. It did for Jeremiah.

A Prophet Despairs

Jeremiah 4:19; 6:9-12

When we are speaking in a hostile environment, we might feel despair.

Jeremiah is filled with despair (4:19). He knows that wrath is coming, and he is upset about it. In fact he is so filled with despair that he is about to burst (6:9-12)! Embedded in this journal entry is one of the most concise statements of the problem. Verse 10 provides a twofold description of someone who will not repent.

They Are Not Holy, so They Cannot Understand the Word (6:10b)

He has become tired of preaching because “their ear is uncircumcised.” What a provocative metaphor! Circumcision was a sign of the covenant promise. As the only circumcised people in the region, this was their distinctive. It made them different from the Canaanites. It made them set apart, consecrated to God, and holy. They were God’s tithe, dedicated to the Lord.

Yet their ear, the means of listening, was not holy. They were filled with the voices of the false prophets, and they could not hear truth—a truth they did not want to hear because their ears were not holy, were not bent toward the things of God. An unholy ear cannot hear and therefore cannot pay attention. Attention to God’s word is given when the spiritual ear is receptive to God. They were circumcised in the flesh but not in the heart.

They could never echo the words of Psalm 119:33-35:

Teach me, Lord, the meaning of your statutes,

and I will always keep them.

Help me understand your instruction,

and I will obey it and follow it with all my heart.

Help me stay on the path of your commands,

for I take pleasure in it.

God Offends Them, so They Have No Pleasure in the Word (6:10c)

See, the word of the Lord has become contemptible to them—

they find no pleasure in it.

The Hebrew word translated “contemptible” means they loathe it. Yet the word also is used in the Old Testament to describe resentment, something that is a disgrace and is to be shunned. It is hatred with a hint of sass. It is so tragic that the word that protected them from their enemies, that protected them from themselves, that led them out of slavery, is now rejected.

I love my wife’s voice. It is raspy, fun, lively, and a lot of other adjectives. It’s not the perfect voice, whatever that is. She will not do voice-overs for animation or be asked to read audiobooks. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I love her voice because I love her. Her words breathe life into our home. Conversely, the foul odor emanating from Israel is her lost love. She does not love her God; she does not love his voice. What once seemed like a sweet note now sounds off-key; the melody is completely dissonant in their ears.

One cannot help but see in this Jesus’s parable of the soils (Matt 13:10-23). The soil does not even receive the word in some hearts because the hearts are so hard. In other soils it takes root, but after some persecution it becomes distasteful. In a third soil it grows, but it is choked out by distractions that are more attractive than the word. In a final soil it takes root and bears fruit.

The people of Israel are like the second soil. They have heard the word. They received the word at one point, but it is simply too demanding. They dislodge it and get rid of it before they choke on his words.

When someone gets an organ transplant, such as a kidney, there is no guarantee that the body will accept the organ. The body can reject it. The body perceives that the organ is a foreign object, and the immune system triggers a “blood transfusion reaction or transplant rejection” (“Transplant Rejection”). In other words, the immune system confuses a friend for an enemy. It rejects the help. This is Israel in Jeremiah’s day, but one day God will provide the ultimate organ transplant by removing their old heart and giving them a new heart (Ezek 36:26).

So it’s understandable that Jeremiah feels like he is getting mixed signals and that he is in despair. The question is why? The answer is that God is using Jeremiah to test the faithfulness of the people. The one who administers the test is never the favorite person.

A Prophet Is Tested

Jeremiah 6:27-30

When we are speaking in a hostile environment, we might wonder if God is testing us.

God brought Israel up out of the iron furnace of Egypt (11:4), away from the hot persecution of Pharaoh and, in keeping with his covenant, put them in the promised land. Yet the sick reality is that they did not love God. They wanted him for what they could get from him and not for himself. His blessings were welcome, but his directives were detestable. “God, just leave your favor at the door and kindly walk away, thank you very much.”

None of this makes sense in light of what God has done. Yet any honest God follower can relate to wanting God’s stuff more than God.

Dropped into this hot house of lost love is the prophet. He is going to be used of God to test the love they have for God. Look at the provocative words in 6:27-30. Jeremiah’s responsibility was to be an “assayer.” The word refers to one who tests the purity of metals. This was done in a hot environment where a furnace was heated up to a point of smelting. The metal was purified, and the true quality of the metal was shown. However, God’s people did not pass the test. So God eventually calls them “rejected silver.” They are rubbish. Dross. Refuse. Trash.

This is tragic.

Notice, however, that God is not testing them. No, Jeremiah is the tester. So is every prophet of God. When the prophets stood to re-present God’s word, when the New Testament preachers stood, when any preachers in church history stood, or when a preacher stands today, they are awaiting an assessment, a response. The difference between teaching and preaching is that preaching calls for an assessment, a response. A prophet of God never speaks where there is no response; one is always demanded. All preachers are children of Jeremiah; they are awaiting a response. To press the metaphor, the pulpit is the furnace, and the words are the fire. The word going forth from the pulpit tests the hearts of men. This is why the prophet of God must faithfully re-present God’s Word and be hot in the heart. No man-centered talk ever flamed the coals that would melt a heart toward God. Hard hearts need hot flames.

Back in Jeremiah’s journal, we get a sense of what he is going through. As a tester, he has the unenviable position of exposing people to their own impurities. And so do we. Even those of us who are not preachers live holy lives in an unholy world. If we are doing it right, we will be persecuted. Jesus said it would be so (John 15:18-25). If we are doing it right, we will smell sweet to some and stink to others (2 Cor 2:16). If we are doing it right, we will strive to live peaceably with all men. We will live well in this kingdom while we wait for the next. This means we won’t be obnoxious jerks. But even the most gracious Christian is a Christian, and as people get close to you, they will inevitably feel the heat. They will sense that you have something they do not have. They might, over time, be drawn to the flame. They may allow the hot fire of God’s word to purify them, to save them. However, it is possible that they will fail the test. They will reject God and reject you. Your presence is a test for them.

Conclusion

In one of the most stinging rebukes of God’s prophets, God says,

They have treated my people’s brokenness superficially,

claiming, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. (6:14)

Imagine your child has had an accident and is hospitalized with serious wounds. You go into the hospital room to find that the medicine that was provided was not applied. The doctors look you in the eye and tell you that your child didn’t like the procedures so they stopped. They quit practicing their profession. They were completely negligent. To say you would be angry would be an understatement. These are medical professionals, professionals you hired to care for your child. They were equipped to heal, but they did not do so.

If you can imagine this, you can get a sense of God’s anger. We have, in these false prophets, those who are in charge of the healing of his children. Yet they so fear the approval of the patient that they will not apply the right medicine!

God commissioned Jeremiah to right this wrong. And while the competing voices are confusing, heaven and hell hang in the balance.

Reflect and Discuss

1. What three “cultural dynamics” summarize Jeremiah’s life?
2. Jeremiah recorded two feelings and one call in his journal. Name and explain them (4:10; 4:19; 6:9-12).
3. Who performs the test in this passage? Does God or Jeremiah? Why is this significant?
4. What is the twofold description Jeremiah used in 6:10 to explain the person who refuses to repent?
5. What does Jeremiah mean in 6:10 when he says, “Their ear is uncircumcised”?
6. What are the implications of the Hebrew word translated “contemptible” in 6:10?
7. What is the difference between preaching and teaching with regard to “assaying”?
8. What does this passage teach us about how God views false prophets and disingenuous preachers?
9. How should preachers understand giving a biblical invitation in light of this text?
10. What does this passage teach us about the necessity of biblical clarity in preaching and teaching?