Jeremiah 17

Our modern age is a pushover for the shallow and the shortcut. We want to change everything except the human heart. J. Wallace Hamilton

Preaching that costs nothing accomplishes nothing.” The famous British preacher John Henry

Jowett made that statement, and it certainly applies to the prophet Jeremiah. Pained by the sins of his people, declaring unpopular messages that majored on judgment, and perplexed by what the Lord was allowing him to suffer, Jeremiah paid a great price to be faithful to his divine calling. If ever an Old Testament servant had to “take up his cross” in order to follow the Lord, it was Jeremiah.

In these chapters, the prophet delivered four messages, and interspersed with these messages are his own prayers to the Lord and the answers he received. Jeremiah was bold before men but broken before God, and yet it was his brokenness that gave him his strength.

President Calvin Coolidge came home from church one Sunday, and his wife asked, “What did the preacher preach about?” “Sin,” the president said in his usual concise manner. “What did he say about it?” Mrs. Coolidge further inquired, and the president replied, “He was against it.”

Jeremiah was against the sins of his people, six of which he named in this chapter.

Idolatry (vv. 1–4). Instead of giving their devotion and obedience to the true and living God, who had blessed them, the Jews adopted the idols of the nations around them and made these false gods more important than Jehovah. At the high places in the hills, they built altars to various gods and planted obscene symbols of the goddess Asherah. This defiled the land—their rich inheritance from Jehovah—and because of their idolatry, their inheritance would be plundered. They would lose everything, and it would be their own fault.

God’s holy law should have been written on their hearts (Prov. 3:3; 7:3; Deut. 6:6, 11:18; 2 Cor. 3:1–3), but instead their sin was engraved there. We may forget our sins, but our sins never forget us. They’re inscribed on our hearts until we ask the Lord for forgiveness, and then He cleanses our hearts and makes them new (1 John 1:9; Heb. 10:15–18).

The apostle John’s final admonition to believers in his first epistle is “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). There were many false gods in that day (1 Cor. 8:1–5), but there are false gods in our world today, such as money, possessions, fame, success, power, pleasure, achievement, and many more. Anything that we love and trust more than the true and living God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is an idol and must be torn from our hearts.

Unbelief (vv. 5–10). The leaders of Judah were prone to trust their political allies and lean on the arm of flesh instead of depending on the power of God. To emphasize the difference, Jeremiah contrasted a desert bush with a fruitful tree by the water (see Ps. 1:3–4). Unbelief turns life into a parched wasteland; faith makes it a fruitful orchard. Soon, the Babylonian army would overrun the kingdom of Judah, and the land of milk and honey would become a wasteland.

The heart of every problem is the problem in the heart, and the human heart is deceitful (Jacob in the Hebrew) and incurable. We often say, “Well, if I know my own heart,” but we don’t know our own hearts. God does. He searches the heart and mind and knows exactly how to reward each person. If we want to know what our hearts are like, we must read the Word and let the Spirit teach us. The hearts of the Jewish leaders were turned away from the Lord and His truth. Consequently, they made unwise decisions and plunged the nation into ruin.

The Jewish people have a record of unbelief. It was unbelief that kept the people of Israel out of the Promised Land (Num. 13—14). It was unbelief that caused them to worship idols and invite the chastening of God during the time of the judges. During the time of the kingdom, it was unbelief that kept the leaders from repenting and turning to God for help, and they became entangled in the costly politics involving Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon. Would they ever learn?

Greed (v. 11). During those tumultuous days, the rich exploited the poor and became richer, and the courts did nothing about it. “For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness” (Jer. 6:13). Jeremiah quoted a familiar proverb about the partridge, who is supposed to hatch eggs she didn’t lay and have the brood desert her—a picture of wealth deserting the rich people who unjustly acquired it. What good would their wealth be when the judgment fell on the land?

Forsaking the Lord (vv. 12–13). The throne of Judah was stained with sin and clouded by shame, but God’s throne was glorious and exalted. The Jews considered the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies to be God’s throne (Ps. 80:1; 99:1), but even if the temple were destroyed, God’s heavenly throne would endure forever (Isa. 6:1). God had never forsaken His people, but they had forsaken Him. This is why Judah was facing terrible judgment. Instead of being written in the Book of Life, those who forsook God were written in the dust, where their names perished with them (Ex. 32:32; Ps. 69:28; Phil. 4:3).

Rejecting God’s servant (vv. 14–18). This is the fourth of Jeremiah’s personal prayers to God for help, and this time the emphasis is on deliverance from his enemies. The people called him a false prophet and kept asking when his dire predictions would come true. They didn’t realize that God’s delays were opportunities for the nation to repent and be saved from ruin. Except for one episode of unbelief (Jer. 15:15–21), Jeremiah had not tried to run away from his responsibilities, nor had he altered the messages God had given him to deliver. But he needed God’s help and protection, and the Lord answered his prayers.

Profaning the Sabbath (vv. 19–27). God had given the Sabbath to the Israelites as a special token of their relationship with Him (see Ex. 16:29; 20:8–11; 31:13–17). It was to be a day of rest for the people, their farm animals, and the land. The people, however, repeatedly disregarded the law and treated the Sabbath like any other day. Their sin was evidence that their hearts were devoted to material gain and not to the Lord.

A mechanical obedience to the Sabbath law wasn’t what God wanted, but obedience that came from their hearts because they loved and feared the Lord. If this were the case, then they would obey all His law, and God could then bless the people, their kings, and their city. If they continued to disobey the law and desecrate the Sabbath, however, God would have to punish them by destroying their city and their temple.

Jeremiah faithfully and courageously delivered his sermons to the people; he lifted his supplications to the Lord; he poured out his grief over the sins of the nation; and yet the people only hardened their hearts and stubbornly resisted God’s truth.

In an age of unconcern and indecision, Jeremiah was burdened and decisive, and God honored him. Humanly speaking, his ministry was a failure, but from the divine perspective, he was an outstanding success. We need men and women of Jeremiah’s caliber serving in the church and the nation today. There’s a price to pay, but there’s also a crown to win.