OVERVIEW:
God’s instruction for Jeremiah to search for the righteous (5:1–9); God’s promise to judge the wicked (5:10–6:30); Jeremiah’s first message to the people concerning their faith in the temple and external religion (7:1–8:3); Jeremiah’s message concerning rejecting the truth of God’s word (8:4–22).
HIGHLIGHTS & INSIGHTS:
Before God actually begins to EMPOWER Jeremiah to preach against the sin of the people in chapter 7, He takes the events recorded in the first six chapters to IMPASSION him. As chapter 5 begins, God doesn’t send Jeremiah on a “search-and-destroy” mission, but a “search-so-I-won’t-destroy” mission! God wants Jeremiah to understand the depths to which His people had apostatized, and why His judgment against them was so deserved. Just as God told Ezekiel in his day to search for one single man to “make up the hedge and stand in the gap” (Ezekiel 22:30), God tells Jeremiah to see if he, too, could find just one man somewhere in the land who simply sought truth and executed judgment. (5:1) But just as Ezekiel’s search ended with the pitiful words, “But I found none.” Jeremiah’s search produced the same empty result. The people were so incredibly perverted in their thinking, they even viewed God’s mercy as weakness! (5:11–13) Through the “fiery” preaching of Jeremiah (5:14), God promises the invasion of a mighty army to destroy them.
As you read 5:31, allow it to not only acquaint you with the horrific spiritual climate of Jeremiah’s day, but to remind you of the horrific spiritual climate of our own day: “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priest bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so.” God said something strangely similar through what the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy concerning our day: “After their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” (2nd Timothy 4:3–4)
As we move into chapter 6, it becomes clear why Judah had become so debauched that God says that “from the least of them even to the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even to the priest every one dealeth falsely.” (6:13) The key is in verse 10. Very simply, the people had come to the place that the word of God held no delight or significance in their hearts. It is a great commentary on how our world has gotten to the place it has, and how churches have gotten to the place they are. Week after week in most churches, both from the pulpit, and in the personal lives of the people, truth sits forsaken. Perhaps this is a great time to be reminded that the goal of our 365 Days of Pursuit isn’t simply to go through the word of God, but to so delight ourselves in the God of the word, that we allow His word to go through us, and find a resting place everywhere it “reproves, rebukes, and/or exhorts” us! (2nd Timothy 4:2)
As we come into chapter 7, God now takes the things He revealed to Jeremiah in chapters 1–6, and turns him loose to carry out the six-fold ministry He delineated to him in chapter 1 and verse 10. God strategically places Jeremiah at the entrance to the temple so he can specifically confront those who thought that because of their great temple and their great involvement there (7:4), that they were doing fine spiritually. Oh, may we never confuse “blessings” and “busyness” at church with spirituality! God’s words through Jeremiah are just as potent and pertinent today as they were then: “For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour; If ye 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.” (7:5-7) The New Testament equivalent is 2nd Corinthians 7:1: “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” The entire chapter emphasizes the fact that our personal and holy God is neither impressed, nor the least bit interested in external religion!
In chapter 8, Jeremiah’s message to the people was similar to his message in chapter 7. The same attitude the people had about themselves spiritually because they were in possession of the temple (7:4), they had about themselves because they were in possession of the law of Moses. (8:8) Again, it is such a reminder that God is interested in so much more than that we simply attend church services and read our Bible. Obviously, those things have their place, but God is interested in holding His rightful place as Lord in our lives!
Because of the many implications and applications of Jeremiah’s words to those of us living in the last days of the Laodicean Church Period, notice that much of Judah’s problem was rooted in the fact that their spiritual leaders did not properly proclaim the truth of God’s word. (8:8–12) Their prophets turned the truth of God into lies (2nd Timothy 4:4), telling the people that God was going to be okay with them continuing to live the way they were living. Oh, where are the “Jeremiahs” that will unashamedly, lovingly, and yet, dogmatically proclaim the truth of God’s word regardless of the consequence in these spiritually dark Laodicean days?!
CHRIST IS REVEALED:
As THE ONE WHO DEMANDED A CLEANSED TEMPLE — Jeremiah 7:1–11 (Mark 11:17)