Category: sermon-archive

TO BARUCH

Jeremiah 45:1-5 NET.

¹ The prophet Jeremiah spoke to Baruch son of Neriah while he was writing down in a scroll the words that Jeremiah spoke to him. This happened in the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah. ² “The LORD God of Israel has a message for you, Baruch. ³ ‘You have said, “I feel so hopeless! For the LORD has added sorrow to my suffering. I am worn out from groaning. I can’t find any rest.”‘” ⁴ The LORD told Jeremiah, “Tell Baruch, ‘The LORD says, “I am about to tear down what I have built and to uproot what I have planted. I will do this throughout the whole earth. ⁵ Are you looking for great things for yourself? Do not look for such things. For I, the LORD, affirm that I am about to bring disaster on all humanity. But I will allow you to escape with your life wherever you go.”‘”

Forty-seven years ago, I packed my bags and headed to Lenox, Massachusetts, to attend college. It was a unique institution. It was a four-year Bible college, but its professors were all top-notch scholars. It was just where I wanted to be because I wanted to be a minister of the gospel and to know everything possible.

One of my professors taught the biblical languages. He was Dr. Fred Ehle. Even before I went to college, I knew I wanted to learn the languages in which the Bible is written. The only resource I had as a teenager was the dictionaries in the back of Strong’s Concordance. That is where I started. But when I signed up for my first Hebrew class with Dr. Ehle, I was ecstatic. After we learned the basics, Dr. Ehle would start each day’s class with a look at a Bible text.

I remember the day Dr. Ehle introduced us to Jeremiah 45. He asked us whether we knew there was a whole chapter in the Bible dedicated to a secretary. Then he opened his Hebrew Bible and slowly read and explained the chapter. He explained that Baruch was depressed because his life seemed to be going nowhere, and he felt insignificant. But God wanted Baruch to know that he was not looking at life from the proper perspective. It was a lesson in humility and in being faithful to God in the small things, because God himself would take care of the big things.

I was really impressed with Dr. Ehle’s lesson that day. I hope I can explain the text to you as well as he did that day. I think the lesson is relevant to every Christian. We sometimes feel trapped in our current situation. We want to be great and have significance beyond the normal life we live. But we get frustrated because success and significance seem to be things others achieve, while we too often find ourselves lower down the ladder. Let’s look at the text.

Baruch’s job (1).

The prophet Jeremiah addressed Baruch, son of Neriah, while Baruch was recording Jeremiah’s words in a scroll. Baruch was not a prophet. He was a secretary to a prophet. He was not top dog. He was an underdog. Even Jeremiah, Baruch’s boss, was the least respected of all the prophets in Judah at that time. The other prophets had predicted that Israel would resist the great Babylonian empire and remain intact despite Nebuchadnezzar’s armies. But Jeremiah said no. That made him public enemy number one in his own nation. That made Baruch a turncoat who helped the enemy.

Baruch had ambition. He did not want to be a second fiddle to a radical prophet. He wanted to be a person of stature and influence. Everything that happened left Baruch disgruntled. He would do his job, but he didn’t like it. He would write what Jeremiah told him to write, but he was restless. He was unsatisfied. He felt he was missing the boat. He grew to regret his life choices.

The event described in today’s text occurred in the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign over Judah. It was before the fall of Jerusalem and before the reign and capture of Zedekiah. The historical records of Jeremiah end at chapter 44, and everything from this chapter to the end of the book is like footnotes. That’s why the Scriptures date this text. It is not in chronological order. This incident occurred while Jeremiah was being persecuted for prophesying bad news, and the kings of Judah did not want to hear what he had to say. That makes Baruch the one responsible for recording the books the King wanted destroyed.

It would be the same king, Jehoiakim, who would get hold of a scroll that Baruch had produced of Jeremiah’s prophecies and would cut it up and burn it in the fire. We read about that event on Monday. It is recorded in chapter 36. Baruch had to start again and rewrite the scroll. This shows why Baruch was not feeling too optimistic about his life’s plan. He was depressed and felt that even if he did his job well, it would not matter.

Baruch’s fear (3).

Baruch’s words are recorded in verse three: “I feel so hopeless! For the LORD has added sorrow to my suffering. I am worn out from groaning. I can’t find any rest.” These are the words of a gerbil who is running on the wheel, but no matter how fast he runs, he doesn’t get anywhere. The Greeks told a myth about Sisyphus, who was condemned to the punishment of pushing a boulder uphill for eternity, only for it to roll downhill, and then he would have to start it rolling again. So now, when we want to describe something we work hard at but that never accomplishes anything, we call it a Sisyphean task.

This is what Baruch feared. Writing was hard work, and he took his job seriously, but he was haunted by the idea that it would eventually be meaningless and accomplish nothing.

Baruch’s blindness (4).

Now, listen to what God told Baruch through Jeremiah. He said, “I am about to tear down what I have built and to uproot what I have planted. I will do this throughout the whole earth.”  Why would God say that to Baruch? Notice that God says he was going to do the very thing that Baruch feared. If a person tears down what he has built, all his effort would be meaningless. Great architects do not get famous by tearing down their work. They get famous because something they did lasts.

Baruch wanted to be part of something that lasted. He did not want to be forgotten. But here God tells him that he would be torn down, along with everything else God had created. God was going to pull up the plants that he had planted. That is not good news to a farmer. If you pull up what you have planted, you will have no harvest.

What’s more, God tells Baruch that he himself will not be spared. He said he will do this throughout the whole earth.

Baruch’s problem was basically blindness. He could not see anything beyond his personal ambitions. He could see no future that did not involve the projects he was personally working on. He did not see the significance of the time he was living in. He was blind to history.

Baruch’s blessing (5).

The LORD asks Baruch, “Are you looking for great things for yourself?” Many are doing the same thing today. In fact, in today’s culture, everyone is encouraged to seek greatness and believe in their own potential for excellence. Even religion today seems to call on everyone to strive for fulfillment and significance. Despite Jesus himself challenging his disciples to serve everyone, our preachers keep telling us to answer the call to become great leaders.

But God told Baruch not to look for greatness. He said that he was about to bring disaster on all humanity. In times of great disaster, people stop worrying about greatness. They are too busy worrying about daily survival. That would be the blessing God was going to give Baruch. The name Baruch means “bless.” God’s blessing for Baruch was that he would allow him to escape with his life.

Baruch’s importance (2).

Verse two has Jeremiah (Baruch’s boss) telling him that God had a special message for him. That is why there is a whole chapter in the Bible written to a secretary. He serves as a perfect example for all of us who struggle to make sense of the life we are living.

When we went through a series of sermons on Hebrews 11, we discovered a few heroes of the faith who accomplished much and left a great testimony. But we also discovered that countless faithful believers believed, remained faithful, never saw any miracles, and died. We don’t know their names. But God does.

The message God is telling us today is the same one he gave to the prophet’s secretary. It is the same one another prophet summarized: what God wants from us is to promote justice, be faithful, and live obediently before him.

 He is not impressed by our achievements. He wants us to walk humbly before him.

Communion Meditation:

“He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:8).

No one knew this lesson better than our Lord Jesus Christ. He was the exalted Son of God. Yet he humbled himself and became like a slave. He did not take up his cross because he deserved it. He took it up for us. He emptied himself of the greatness he deserved because it was necessary for our deliverance. So he chose to be obedient, even though obedience meant a horrible, agonizing, shameful death.

We now live on the other side of that decision. This meal we take is to remind us that it took place. We celebrate the event because it resulted in him who knew no sin becoming a sin offering for us. We benefit from his loss. He died so that we may live. He was broken so that we could be healed.

Think about all the great accomplishments of humanity from the beginning of creation until now. Now, consider what God said to Baruch. All those great buildings are being torn down. All those plants are being plucked up. The only lasting accomplishment that will matter is the work of Christ on the cross.

REVERSE REPENTANCE

Jeremiah 34:14-18 NET.

¹⁴ “Every seven years each of you must free any fellow Hebrews who have sold themselves to you. After they have served you for six years, you shall set them free.” But your ancestors did not obey me or pay any attention to me. ¹⁵ Recently, however, you yourselves showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own. ¹⁶ But then you turned right around and showed that you did not honor me. Each of you took back your male and female slaves whom you had freed as they desired, and you forced them to be your slaves again. ¹⁷ So I, the LORD, say: “You have not really obeyed me and granted freedom to your neighbor and fellow countryman. Therefore, I will grant you freedom, the freedom to die in war, or by starvation or disease. I, the LORD, affirm it! I will make all the kingdoms of the earth horrified at what happens to you. ¹⁸ I will punish those people who have violated their covenant with me. I will make them like the calf they cut in two and passed between its pieces. I will do so because they did not keep the terms of the covenant they made in my presence.

Whenever we read the Old Testament, we need to keep in mind that God had a message to his people then, in the context of their place in salvation history. We also need to keep in mind that everything that happened to God’s people then has a special relevance to God’s people now. Some themes recur throughout the Old Testament and apply to us now. One of those themes is the kingdom of God.

Initially, the kingdom was defined by a divine theocratic government, and the arrangement Yahveh made with Israel through the law given to Moses at Mount Sinai, meant to be visible in the Promised Land. However, the Hebrews rebelled against this kingdom. Their rebellion led them to desire a monarchy like other nations, rather than God’s direct rule. They asked for a king to lead them, as neighboring countries did. The elders of Israel approached Samuel, requesting a king because his sons did not follow his ways. Saul was eventually appointed as king in God’s anger, but he was later rejected in wrath.

God raised David, whose reign pleased Yahveh and led to success in defeating Israel’s enemies, symbolizing the ultimate victory over all enemies of Christ. Due to David’s faithfulness, Yahveh promised him an everlasting throne after he expressed a wish to build a house for Yahveh. Prophet Nathan delivered Yahveh’s message: Yahveh chose David from humble beginnings, was with him, and helped him defeat his enemies, making his name great. Yahveh also vowed to establish a lasting dwelling for Israel where they would live securely, free from enemies or wickedness.

This divine promise to David guarantees Israel’s permanent presence in Canaan and a future peaceful reign, unlike their current suffering and persecution. It also speaks of making David a house, meaning a dynasty of kings, not just the temple, with an everlasting throne.[1] The ‘house’ symbolizes a kingdom, as mentioned to Hezekiah.[2]

Another theme that began in the Old Testament and was reflected in the New is that of the temple. All temple details—materials, sizes, patterns—were given to David by the Spirit, as Moses received the tabernacle’s pattern. The design was written by Yahveh, granting wisdom for its creation. During construction, stones were prepared beforehand, and no iron tools were heard, symbolizing the spiritual house of “living stones.[3] The temple of Solomon thus represented a spiritual temple, with the sanctuary as Yahveh’s dwelling.

These scriptural facts demonstrate that the foundation of David’s throne was not physical, but symbolic of discipline and unmet expectations. Concerning Solomon, God stated, “I will be his father, and he shall be my son,” promising mercy and an eternal throne, as Nathan told David (2 Samuel 7:14-17). This shows the kingdom’s growth started with David, not Saul, because David followed God’s directives to defeat Israel’s enemies, unlike Saul.

The kings of Israel were governed by the conditional law covenant from Mount Sinai, leading to fluctuations in their history. All blessings depended on obedience, while disobedience brought curses, making Israel’s royal stability hinge on this covenant. If they had obeyed, they would have stayed in Canaan, and Jerusalem would have remained glorious like in Solomon’s reign, with the kingly line intact. David recognized this, as shown in his prayer in 2 Samuel 7:18-19, where he acknowledged God’s promises and the vital role of obeying His law.

The king ruling Judah in the time reflected in Jeremiah 34 is Zedekiah. The chapter begins with Jeremiah approaching King Zedekiah and promising him that he will not die in battle or be executed. Jeremiah promises this while the city of Jerusalem is surrounded by Babylonian armies and under siege.

God had made known his will through his covenant.

Zedekiah knew this. As king, he knew the covenant God had made with the Hebrews who had escaped Egypt under Moses. Zedekiah knew that the kingdom he had inherited and ruled had broken that covenant drastically and comprehensively. They were not living according to the rules that God had given them. The king knew that God would be fair to them if he allowed the Babylonians to conquer them and destroy them all. He had probably lost a few nights’ sleep wondering when the walls would come down, and the soldiers would go in and kill him and all his family.

But the prophet Jeremiah comes and tells him, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that he was not going to die in battle or be executed. I imagine King Zedekiah responded to that prophecy by thinking he could turn the event to his advantage, making it seem as if he were a true spiritual leader. He was not, but he might have thought that he could fake it. What Zedekiah decided to do was lead his nation in what he called repentance.

The people repented of breaking that covenant.

Well, at least it would look like repentance. It is possible to do the right thing for the wrong reason, and that is what Zedekiah cooked up for the city of Jerusalem to do. Remember, they are under siege. Enemy armies are surrounding the city, making it impossible for anyone or anything to come into the city or out of it. When a city was under siege, it faced the real danger of dying of starvation or disease, or of being weakened to the point where the invading armies could break through the defenses and annihilate it.

But Zedekiah thinks that won’t happen. Because of Jeremiah’s promise that he would not die in battle or be executed, he believes God is going to intervene. Now, Zedekiah begins to think deviously. He imagines that if he puts on his spiritual leader hat and gets the city to do something obedient to the covenant, then when God delivers them from the siege, the people will think it was because of Zedekiah. So he goes into his archives and searches for the stipulations of the covenant. He is looking for something the citizens are supposed to be doing under the Mosaic Law, but are not. There were many things, but he is not concerned with changing everything. All he wants is one thing that he can get the people to do. That’s when he finds this verse in Deuteronomy:

“If your fellow Hebrew — whether male or female — is sold to you and serves you for six years, then in the seventh year you must let that servant go free.”[4]

Now, remember, the inhabitants of Jerusalem are under siege. The wealthy landowners had accumulated lots of slaves over the generations because they had not been keeping this command to free their slaves every seventh year. But now they are stuck in the city. They have a bunch of slaves who cannot go out into the countryside and work their farms because of the blockade. That means that the slaves are now a liability, not an asset. Extra slaves mean extra mouths to feed.  So, the “repentance” that Zedekiah leads the city to do is something they are ready and willing to do.

Zedekiah initiated a formal covenant with the people. He made them promise to set their slaves free. The slaughter of a calf sealed the promise. They split the animal in half, and all the landowners had to walk between the two halves. It symbolized a curse upon themselves if they broke the covenant. If they didn’t free their slaves, they were asking to be cut into like the calf.

But then they withdrew their repentance.

The passage does not tell us why the people changed their minds. History explains why they repented and then reversed their repentance. All the slaves that had been held onto and not granted their freedom suddenly found themselves without a home and without a means of support. But at least they now had their freedom. So, why did the slave owners take their slaves back?

The armies that had surrounded Jerusalem and had laid siege to it were eventually recalled. They heard that Egypt was going to come and fight them, so they headed South to battle against the Pharaoh. All of a sudden, Jerusalem was no longer under threat. Then the landowners remembered why they had held on to their slaves instead of obeying God’s Law. The Bible does not tell us how, but they somehow managed to round up all those former slave families and reinslave them.

God withdrew their protection under the covenant.

Now all the important people were happy. The king was delighted because he came off as being spiritual when he was not. The landowners were glad because they had retrieved their workforce. But God was not happy, and neither was the prophet Jeremiah. God said through Jeremiah, “You turned around and showed you did not honor me. Each of you took back your slaves, whom you had freed as they wished, forcing them to become slaves again. The LORD says: “You have not truly obeyed me or given freedom to your neighbor and fellow citizen. As a result, I will give you freedom—freedom to die in war, from starvation, or disease. I, the LORD, declare it! I will make all the kingdoms of the earth horrified by what happens to you. I will punish those who broke their covenant with me, making them like the calf cut in two and passed between its pieces. I will do this because they did not uphold the covenant they made in my presence.

Because the people withdrew their token repentance, God withdrew his hand of protection from them and their land.  The Babylonian armies came back, and this time they completed the siege. Jerusalem was destroyed, and multitudes died. But King Zedekiah did not die in the siege, and he was not executed. God was true to his promise. They did capture him, and they killed his sons in front of him, making him watch. Then they gouged his eyes out so that the last thing he saw was the slaughter of his own sons. He was taken prisoner as a blind, useless king with no throne and no people.

Jesus also covenanted with us.

This terrible story in the Old Testament is a reminder to all of us that a covenant with God is not something to be taken lightly. It is serious business. We are not under the Mosaic covenant, but we are under a covenant. Jesus is our King, and he has made a covenant with everyone who puts their faith in him.  His blood is the blood of the new covenant.[5]  

The New Covenant is not based on the letter but on the Spirit.[6] We agree to let God’s Holy Spirit rule our lives and change our behaviour so that we live Christlike lives. When we repented of our sins, we decided to live according to this promise.

Have we reversed our repentance?

Seeing how horribly God’s wrath was visited on the Israelites who withdrew their promise, we should be careful make good our promise. Jesus did not set us free from our sins for us to turn around and reenslave ourselves. When our Savior returns, it will be to set up a new eternal universe. Nothing impure will be allowed into that new universe. Paul wrote that “no person who is immoral, impure, or greedy (such a person is an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God”.[7] When we came to Christ, we made a promise to live in his kingdom today. Let us all learn to be faithful to that promise.  

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[1] 2 Samuel 7:8-14

[2] 2 Kings 20:1

[3]1 Peter 2:5; Ephesians 2:21

[4] Deuteronomy 15:12.

[5] Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25

[6] 2 Corinthians 3:6.

[7] Ephesians 5:5.

HIDEOUT                          

Jeremiah 7:1-11 NET.

¹ The LORD said to Jeremiah: ² “Stand in the gate of the LORD’s temple and proclaim this message: ‘Listen, all you people of Judah who have passed through these gates to worship the LORD. Hear what the LORD has to say. ³ The LORD God of Israel who rules over all says: Change the way you have been living and do what is right. If you do, I will allow you to continue to live in this land. ⁴ Stop putting your confidence in the false belief that says, “We are safe! The temple of the LORD is here! The temple of the LORD is here! The temple of the LORD is here!” ⁵ You must change the way you have been living and do what is right. You must treat one another fairly. ⁶ Stop oppressing foreigners who live in your land, children who have lost their fathers, and women who have lost their husbands. Stop killing innocent people in this land. Stop paying allegiance to other gods. That will only bring about your ruin. ⁷ If you stop doing these things, I will allow you to continue to live in this land which I gave to your ancestors as a lasting possession. ⁸ “‘But just look at you! You are putting your confidence in a false belief that will not deliver you. ⁹ You steal. You murder. You commit adultery. You lie when you swear on oath. You sacrifice to the god Baal. You pay allegiance to other gods whom you have not previously known. ¹⁰ Then you come and stand in my presence in this temple I have claimed as my own and say, “We are safe!” You think you are so safe that you go on doing all those hateful sins! ¹¹ Do you think this temple I have claimed as my own is to be a hideout for robbers? You had better take note! I have seen for myself what you have done! says the LORD.

We are now in the 24th book of the Bible. I want to congratulate y’all for staying with me through this adventure. We must spend some quality time in the Old Testament. One evangelist I used to watch on television said that the trouble with some people is that they don’t use the whole sword. They have the handle but not the blade. The handle is the New Testament, and many are familiar with it. But some of the most powerful truths the New Testament authors knew are found in the Old Testament. It is the blade of the sword.

Jeremiah is classified as a major prophet. That doesn’t mean his teachings are more important than those of the minor prophets. It just means he was more prolific. He wrote more. Probably, when people look back on my ministry, they will say the same thing. They might say I wasn’t very influential, but I sure wrote a lot. Well, I identify with Jeremiah, and not just because I write a lot. He was called the weeping prophet. He suffered much during his ministry. He paid the price for standing up for God and his word. His life was not easy, nor was his ministry. His message was not peace and prosperity.

I think it is ironic that some people who hold to the prosperity gospel use a verse in Jeremiah as their life verse. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the LORD. ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope.” People think that if they keep quoting that verse and believing its words that they will eventually succeed financially and improve their health. But Jeremiah 29 is not about getting rich and healthy. It’s about turning back to God. All of Jeremiah is about that. The prophet Jeremiah was called to proclaim God’s word to a people who had already turned their backs on him.

A Sermon at the Gate (2).

The LORD told Jeremiah to preach a sermon on his behalf. He didn’t ask him to stand at a pulpit in a church building. He told him to go to the gate of the temple in Jerusalem. This was a significant venue. Everyone who was committed to the temple and its religious rituals would frequent that gate. They would have the opportunity to hear what Jeremiah was saying. He probably preached this same sermon many times – perhaps over several days. We know, for example, that Jeremiah preached a similar message, and that was recorded in chapter 26. So, people who might not have been paying attention one day would hear the rerun the next. The words would eventually become embedded in the minds of these listeners. They would find themselves quoting the crazy prophet in their conversations.

He was obnoxious. He was confused. He was too negative. He was many things. People hated him. They hated his message. They tried to get rid of him by throwing him into a mud pit. But thousands of years later, Jeremiah is still shouting his message at the temple gate. It is still relevant. It is still significant. It still speaks to people who are outwardly religious but struggle to live out their faith. Jeremiah spoke to people who had substituted ritual for reality. They regularly worshipped God at the temple, but their lifestyle had not changed as God required.

A Misplaced Faith (4).

God tells the crowds entering the temple to stop placing their confidence in the false faith – faith in the temple itself. They cry out, “We are safe! The temple of the LORD is here! The temple of the LORD is here! The temple of the LORD is here!” They see the temple as a magical place to hide from the cares of the world. They see it as a place they can run to on a regular basis, and just by going there, the ugliness and corruption of the city will not cling to them. They think that as long as they practice the temple rituals and enter the temple courts regularly, the temple will protect the nation.

Later in this chapter, Jeremiah will point out the danger of misplaced faith. He will remind them that before the temple existed, there was the tabernacle. One of the places where the tabernacle resided was called Shiloh. Jeremiah invited the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go on a hike and visit Shiloh. He told them to go to the place in Shiloh where he allowed himself to be worshiped in the early days. He wanted them to see what he did to Shiloh because of the wicked things his people, Israel, did. God made Shiloh a desolate place. Its inhabitants had worshipped the place rather than the God it was supposed to represent. As a result, God turned Shiloh into a desolate place. When the place becomes more important than God, God afflicts it with desolation.

Fast-forward to Jeremiah’s time, and we now see God saying that what he did to Shiloh he is prepared to do to the temple in Jerusalem. God says he will destroy this temple, which he had claimed as my own, the temple they trust to protect themselves. He will destroy this place he gave to them and their ancestors, just as he destroyed Shiloh. And he will drive them out of his sight, just as he drove out their relatives, the people of Israel.

It is wonderful to have a place where people can come to seek God’s face. It is a blessing to have a place where our relationship with God can be nurtured and made a priority. Yet there is always a danger that this incredible place might evolve into something evil. When God’s place takes the place of God himself, that place risks becoming a hideout for robbers.

That is what Jeremiah proclaimed about the Jerusalem temple in his day. It had become not a place of spiritual renewal and nurture. Instead, it had become a hideout where people could rest, then go back out to commit more crimes.

A Call to Repentance (3,5).

God’s purpose for his temple had not changed. But the people had created a new purpose for that place. The place had not changed, but the people had. So God demanded that they change back. He wanted them to repent.

However, even as I use that word, I need to define it because people seldom use ‘repent’ nowadays, and when they do, they often think it means only admitting their sins. Admitting you are a sinner is part of what it means to repent. Trusting in God’s grace to forgive your sins on the basis of the blood of Christ is part of repentance as well. But Jeremiah did not merely ask his listeners to admit that they were sinning. Through the prophet, God commanded them to change their ways.

The Hebrew verb Jeremiah used for “change” was יָטַב. It is related to the word טוֹב, which means “good.” The verb means to make something good or right, or beautiful. Jeremiah used it to describe the process of repenting. It means turning away from the bad, wrong, and ugly things in one’s life and exchanging them for good, right, and beautiful things. Instead of hiding behind a veneer of religious propriety, Jeremiah wanted his people to turn away from their sins and seek a genuine relationship with God, as evidenced by their good behavior.

Jeremiah knew this was a nation of hypocrites. He could not leave his message there because the people had convinced themselves they were not doing anything wrong. So Jeremiah had to list the crimes the people were committing to show them that he knew what they were hiding. Here is the list:

• They were not treating one another fairly (5). Their courts and justice system had become corrupt and were used to exploit people.
• They were taking advantage of the weak in their society and exploiting them (6). The weak people that Jeremiah identified were foreigners who lived in their land, children who had lost their fathers, and women who had lost their husbands. These people who needed protection the most had become prey to the powerful.
• They were killing innocent people (6). That was a general statement, but one of the particular incidents was the sacrifice of innocent children to Molech. This was a detestable practice. It involved taking a new infant and burning it alive. It was an unthinkable sin, but it was practiced because some were teaching that the gods would make you more fertile and prosperous if you did it.
• They were paying allegiance to other gods (6). You would think that if a people had become obsessed with the Jerusalem temple and put their trust in it for their safety, they would want nothing to do with other gods. But the devil had convinced them to sin in both ways. They had rejected an authentic relationship with God and had substituted a faith in a building: the temple. But lacking a genuine spiritual life in Yahveh, they sought out other gods.

This list was not exhaustive. There were many more things Jeremiah’s audience was doing wrong. But God, in his mercy, said that if they changed these behaviors, he would allow them to continue living in the land he gave to their ancestors as a lasting possession (7).

History tells us that Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple was lost, and the people were exiled from the land. They did not listen to the prophet, refused to repent, and failed to stop sinning. They put their confidence in the temple and wound up losing both the temple and the land.

Long after that temple was destroyed, Herod built a new one. But the people in Jesus’ time were just as guilty of hypocrisy and a lack of repentance as the people in Jeremiah’s time. That’s why Jesus quoted from Jeremiah 7 when he saw corruption in the temple during his time. He said that God’s house was supposed to be a house of prayer, but they were turning it into a hideout for robbers.[1]

We no longer worship in a temple. We are the temple. We worship in a church building. Yet we can still sin against God by trusting in this physical building instead of the God it is dedicated to. We can still sin against him and against others, as Jeremiah’s people did. We can still run to the building every week and hide our sins by appearing respectable. But God sees everything.

The same God who pleaded with his people to repent in Jeremiah 7 is pleading with us to do the same. He still wants a genuine relationship with us. We can learn to turn from our evil ways to his good ways while we are in this building. Or we can learn to hide our sin well. But we can’t fool all the people all the time, and we can’t fool God ever.

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[1] Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46.