Jeremiah was a bullfrog…1
As it turns out, Jeremiah was a prophet, too. Probably not the same dude.
Permission to be transparent? These prophets are intense, and sometimes hard to understand…at least for me. As I feel like I’ve been saying a lot, I’m really attempting to lean into listening to what these dudes have to say to the time, place, and culture they found themselves in, but it remains difficult for me to not draw parallels between the Israelites facing exile and the Church today. We’re all God’s people, and let’s be honest, a lot of us be cray. Why, yes, I do include myself in that “us.”
Jeremiah was a prophet during the reign of King Josiah of Judah to the reign of Zedekiah, and then through the beginning of the exile. God called him to a life of singleness. Stationed in Jerusalem, Jere prophesied to the Israelites that Judah would fall to Babylon and that they would be sent into exile. He wasn’t well liked, and yet he spoke the words God asked him to speak. That’s probably a lesson in itself. The best I really know to do here with Jere’s fifty-two chapters is to simply work through my notes and hit the highlights that stood out to me in my reading this time. Jere’s chapters are not in chronological order which means that this summation may seem out of whack. Disorder drives my Type A-ness batty, but let’s proceed anyway.
The Israelites appear to place a high value on the compassionate forgiveness of God; but like only in the way where they do what they want, so they can ask forgiveness, and then go do what they want again. God informs them that He desires obedience more than sacrifice. Verse 28 tells us that truth has vanished.
Chapter 8 states that God’s people don’t know God’s requirement due to lack of biblical literacy and “tickling ears” preaching. This is strictly my interpretation yet 8:10b - 11 seems to support my theory, “From prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have treated the brokenness of my dear people superficially, claiming, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”
God is shown for who He is in chapter 10. There is no other God save Him. This chapter also shows us Jere’s heart for his people and his God as he grieves over the state of things.
Did you know that it’s not necessarily wrong to ask questions of God? But we can sometimes take it too far. When that happens, as with Jeremiah in chapter 12 and also Job in the book by his own name, God will remind us of who He is and could very well, justifiably so, call us to repentance. This is yet another kindness of God to bring us back into right relationship with Him, and it appears to be how he treats his prophet.
In speaking about false prophets in chapter 14, God called to mind 1 John 4 where we are instructed to test the spirits. I will again ask you: how are we expected to test the spirits if we are not in the word and don’t know what God says? There is so much coming at us these days and a lot of it sounds good. I’ve amen-ed a lot of things myself, only to receive a well-deserved Gibbs slap2 from the Lord. Spurgeon said, “Discernment is not a matter of telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.” Dang it. I said I wasn’t going to make a modern-day correlation. My bad.
As I continue through my notes, I’m beginning to see a theme of speaking about false prophets and not handling the word of God correctly or responsibly. Perhaps that’s the main thrust I’m catching in my reading this time through. Or perhaps, I’m correlating again. Unfortunately, that is what seems to be apparent in a lot of the western post-modern Church today, so my mind’s eye gravitates to it a little more willingly.
Let me stop here and remind you of something…I’m just a chick reading the word. I’m trying to make sense of things myself. I have my own lens through which I see the world and the word. I am not a scholar. This is where I’m landing today. I could be totally right, or I could be totally wrong, or I could be somewhere in the middle. I could look back on these words in a decade and think, “what an idiot” or I could look back and have an even firmer stance. Regardless, Jeremiah’s words were collected into the canon for a reason, and we’d be wise to wrestle our way through them.
Aight. I’ll stop beating a dead horse. At least I’ll try. I watched a podcast3 recently where it was stated that some of the prophets didn’t travel to the other nations that received judgment in their prophecies. That seems to be the case here. Jeremiah was in Jerusalem, yet he also predicted Babylon’s downfall, but not to Babylon’s face. Why? Because it’s a comfort to God’s people to know that He hears, He sees, and His justice will be done.
Additionally in Jeremiah, there are beautiful passages about the new covenant to come. Chapter 31:31-34 is the best-known example of this, but earlier verses in chapter 31 cause my heart to swell as the Lord talks about lament being turned to joy and repentance bringing on restoration. Chapter 33 is about Israel’s restoration and God’s covenant with David, but in my notes, I state, “All I see is Jesus. 💗”
Of course, Jere’s words don’t go over well with the establishment. He ends up angering a whole bunch of people and he’s thrown into a cistern. Jere’s apparent only friend, Ebed-Molech, a Cushite court official, goes to the king on Jere’s behalf and receives permission to pull him free from the cistern so that he won’t die. Ebed’s kindness never fails to floor me. Not only did he stand up for his friend, not only was he provided men to help him, but before he goes to pull Jere out, Ebed heads to the storeroom to get cushioning to protect Jere as he’s pulled up. The intentional thoughtfulness of this friend always makes me smile.
As it turns out, God’s word never fails. Jerusalem is sacked. Exiles are taken. Some remain in Jerusalem, of which Jeremiah is one. He’s spared by Nebuchadnezzar. A dude named Gedaliah is placed in charge of the remnant that remains. Of course, it can’t be that easy. Someone else, Ishmael, wants the lead role. Ged doesn’t listen to the rumors of Ishmael’s plot against him. He should have. The remnant in Jerusalem is scared about what may come down the pike from Babylon. They want to travel to Egypt, so they inquire of Jeremiah. Jere tells them to slow their roll and stay put. They don’t listen, head off to Egypt and take Jere with them.
Sheesh. That’s a lot, and I skipped A LOT of my notes. But in the interest of your time, because I could chat about this stuff forever, let’s get to the question I’m asking of each book as I read it this year:
What does Jeremiah teach me about God?
God is patient. His patience is not just shown in Jeremiah or in the prophets, but truly in the whole of the bible. If we limit our look at his patience to the prophets who have their own books, the time lapse between them is a couple of centuries. God began warning. He warned a lot. He gave plenty of opportunities. If Israel would have repented like Nineveh, could they have been spared exile? I guess we’ll never know. And of course, Nineveh ends up getting hers, but still…the patience of God is extreme, in the best of ways, and I am grateful.
God provides us with reminders. Chapter 11 is a reminder of the covenant God has made with Israel and that Israel has entered into with God. Israel isn’t the most faithful of peeps, they basically cheat on God with golden calves right after agreeing to His covenant. God takes the time to remind people of what He’s all about and what they should be all about with Him…obedience among other things. God is kind to take His time, provide reminders, and call us to repentance. His judgment seems harsh to us, but it’s not like it’s not without years of provocation through disobedience of His people, and years of faithful love and patience through Him.
God ain’t no joke. You know this is my favorite one. Each prophet in his own way makes this one clear. The overwhelming point, at least to me, in Jeremiah is disobedience and a whole bunch of false teaching. The beginning of chapter 23 is a beautiful description of God with His sheep. Verse 9, however, begins a whole long section of the condemnation of false prophets. It’s hardcore. God takes His word seriously. He will not sit idly by while we mock Him with a perversion of the very words He spoke, the very essence of who He is. It’s just not going to happen. We’d be wise to take Him at His word and to treat it, and Him, with the reverence due.
God is kind, and His kindness leads us to repentance when we take the time to get over ourselves. Constantly in the prophets, there are promises of redemption and restoration. There are foreshadows of Christ and salvation. There are pictures of perfect communion between God and man. Why? Because God is always making a way where there seems to be no way. Chapters 31 – 33 are all shades of marked up in my bible with underlines, stars, hearts, and notes. One reads, “such a kind Father.” It’s true. I hope you know that. He’s kind. He sees. He loves. He understands. He’s just. He’s holy. Why? Because He’s just good like that.
For my younger friends, may I present Joy to the World by Three Dog Night. Musicology 101 is always in session.
For those of you not familiar with NCIS, here ya go.