Jeremiah

Study of Jeremiah 

Chapter 5

The prophet Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet. He loved his country and his people so much that he was grieved for their destruction. He risked disfavor and ridicule to warn the people of God's judgment. He boldly warned them that their sin was destroying them as individuals and as a nation. 

God is still the same God today. Sin is still destroying us. Preachers of righteousness are still being ridiculed even by some churches. It is not popular to tell people they need to repent of sin. 

• Jeremiah 5: 1 Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it.

The preaching of repentance was important even before the coming of Jesus Christ. God only asked for them to repent and turn back to Him and they would be restored as a nation. After the coming of Jesus, we now have the Holy Spirit to abide with us and teach us how to live for God. Now we have less of an excuse for sin then Israel did in the days of Jeremiah. God gave us His only Son, His written word and His Holy Spirit to empower us to live for Him. 

• Jeremiah 5:2 And though they say, The LORD liveth; surely they swear falsely.

It doesn't matter how we go about talking about God and acknowledging His existence, if we fail to fear God and ignore His word, it is a false confession. 

• Jeremiah 5:3 O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.

This is a sad cry from the heart of Jeremiah. God sent judgment, warning and calamities but they did not grieve over their sin or receive correction. The message of repentance was needed then and is still needed. When we sin as an individual or as a nation, we need to repent and turn back to God who loves us and is out for our good, not our evil. 

• Jeremiah 5:4  Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD, nor the judgment of their God.

Yes we are truly poor if we do not acknowledge the way of the Lord or recognize Him and neglect to receive His correction. 

• Jeremiah 5:5  I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the LORD, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.
• 6  Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased.
• 7  How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses.

Definition of a harlot

A primitive root (highly fed and therefore wanton); to commit adultery (usually of the female, and less often of simple fornication, rarely of involuntary ravishment); figuratively to commit idolatry (the Jewish people being regarded as the spouse of Jehovah): - (cause to) commit fornication, continually, great, (be an, play the) harlot, (cause to be, play the) whore, (commit, fall to) whoredom, (cause to) go a-whoring, whorish.

• Jeremiah 5:8 They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour's wife.

Definition of adultery
A primitive root; to commit adultery; figuratively to apostatize: - adulterer (-ess), commit (-ing) adultery, woman that breaketh wedlock.

To commit adultery is to break wedlock. In a spiritual sense it means to apostatize which means to leave the teachings and commandments of God. This could be to serve idols or to become humanistic and ignore God altogether. 

From Jeremiah 5:7 we see that spiritual adultery or departing from God for other gods or ideals is almost always accompanied by actual adultery, fornication and sexual perversion. We may see that in today's ministries that when sexual sin is present, it usually has been accompanied by a departure from the truth of the word first. 

• Jeremiah 5:9 Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
• 10 Go ye up upon her walls, and destroy; but make not a full end: take away her battlements; for they are not the LORD'S.
• 11 For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have dealt very treacherously against me, saith the LORD.
• 12 They have belied the LORD, and said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine:
• 13 And the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them.
• 14 Wherefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.
• 15 Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say.
• 16 Their quiver is as an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men.
• 17 And they shall eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat: they shall eat up thy flocks and thine herds: they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees: they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst, with the sword.
• 18 Nevertheless in those days, saith the LORD, I will not make a full end with you.
• 19 And it shall come to pass, when ye shall say, Wherefore doeth the LORD our God all these things unto us? then shalt thou answer them, Like as ye have forsaken me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours.

Bad happened to Israel when they forsook the Lord. Their nation was taken from them. 

If a church forsakes the word of God and no longer is bearing fruit, God will raise up another who will obey Him. If our nation refuse the ways of God and continues to remove God out of our schools and society, we will lose our place, our power and all that this nation has at this present time.

The United States is probably the most powerful and greatest nation that has ever existed. However, we should never be high-minded about that. We could lose everything in one hour if God should choose to turn His back on us. Because of His believers, we still are standing but if we continue to wink at sin and do not repent, we will lose what we have had. I don't care how great our armies are, we will not stand if we don't fear God and have respect to His word. We cannot trust in the greatest armies in the world because without God's help, we are nothing. 

• Jeremiah 5:20 Declare this in the house of Jacob, and publish it in Judah, saying,
• 21 Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not:
• 22 Fear ye not me? saith the LORD: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?
• 23 But this people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone.
• 24 Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the LORD our God, that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season: he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of the harvest.
• 25 Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you.

Sin separates us from God. That is why we need to come to Jesus Christ with a seeking repentant heart so that He can remove the sin that separates us and bring us back into fellowship with God. Israel could have been restored to God at any time. 

• Jeremiah 5:26 For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.
• 27 As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich.
• 28 They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge.
• 29 Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
• 30 A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land;
• 31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?

There is false prophets and teachers even today to tell us that it is okay to sin and we will still make heaven as long as we believe in Jesus. Some will go so far as to say that we don't have to believe in Jesus Christ. However, God gave us a way to escape the judgment of sin by sending us Jesus Christ to pay for our sins. He is the only way to be saved from sin. Rejecting Jesus Christ (the gift of God) would cut us off from any escape from hell and doom us to an eternity without God. 

Every time Israel strayed against God, God would send warning prophets, if they rejected the warnings, then God would allow another nation, usually a wicked nation to take over and force them into bondage. We see clearly the sins listed that God was displeased with Israel over and we can learn from them.

One thing mentioned above is the neglect of the orphans (fatherless). Many prospered but did not help the needy. The rich have a great responsibility to the poor around them. To live comfortably while others are suffering will bring the judgment of God. God would rather see this done by us willingly I'm sure, than to see high taxation but we need to give to the poor as much as possible. This was just one of many sins that showed that their hearts had departed from the ways of God.  We are known by our fruits.  

In this day and age the church needs to take heed and fear God. We should listen to the teachers and preachers that preach against sin and preach righteous living. In doing so, we could spare our nation. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. 

Instead I see preachers that preach righteousness made fun of and accused of being legalistic, preachers of doom and gloom and of being hate mongers. I will admit that some do the opposite extreme and get judgmental and legalistic by adding to God's commandments and making requirements that God doesn't make or that Christ has fulfilled. This does happen. Some go so far as to substitute their own traditions for God's word and have their own set of laws. This is called religion and it is just as bad as sinning against God with idols, unfaithfulness, theft, murder, wickedness etc. Both types of sin needs to be forsaken and we need to turn back to our creator, our savior and our God.  

Who are the hate mongers? Is it those who risk ridicule, criticism, even persecution to warn of the perils of sin and the judgment of God against sin or is it the men pleasers who pat you on the back and let the nation stumble on in the darkness until it is too late. What is hate and love? Isn't true love, truthful? 

What kind of parent would we be if we let our children smoke and drink because that is what they want to do and they might get mad at us if we try to warn them against such things? We love them so we will warn them of something that might harm them. 

So keeping quiet about the dangers of neglecting God and His word is not hate. It is the very opposite, it is love. It might not sound like love at first. Fire and brimstone preachers sometimes sound like they are mad but in reality, they are mad at what they see is going to happen to those who refuse to hear the Word of God. They see a soul eternally burning in hell with no escape. Would they be showing love if they just preached things that everyone wanted to hear and let people die and be lost, without God forever? 

People that live lifestyles that God specifically warns against in His word want Christians to accept them as they are and accuse us of hate if we don't. We can't do that. To refuse to warn them of their choices or what they might call the right to choose, would be to hate them. Their lifestyle, if left unchecked and not repented of, will destroy them both physically and spiritually. Romans chapter one tells us exactly how this happens to any society. If we do not retain God in our knowledge, we will be given over to a reprobate mind and nothing will seem wrong. The sad thing is that it will destroy our society and leave us with confused children. We have kids now that do not even know which gender they are.

If anyone does not come to Jesus Christ and seek deliverance and forgiveness, they will die both physically and spiritually. It is not hate to want anyone to avoid that kind of fate.

People who live together without the commitment of marriage, also are living in sin. They are taking something that God created for man and women in marriage and turning it into something cheap and dirty. 

Yes, I might sound old fashioned and out dated but I see the moral decay of this nation and lack of sound teaching, destroying us. People are losing their natural affection for their children. They think nothing of aborting a baby to keep from having the responsibility of caring for it. 

These things are a result of sin. We have lost our fear of God and our respect for His word. We have lost the message of repentance. Repent means to change, to turn from sin and turn back to God. 

If we did not love, we would keep quiet and let things be. We need God....people......We need God. We get to God through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only way to salvation. The free gift of salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ. 

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 

To believe does not mean just to believe Jesus Christ once existed. To believe means to receive, welcome, come to and to accept His word. To believe in Jesus unto salvation means to believe that He died for our sins and He was raised from the dead and is now at the right hand of God. 

We can't say we believe in Jesus and still do things our old way and ignore the word of God. To believe in Jesus means to receive Him, allow Him to change our lives, and have respect unto His word. If we love Him, we will keep His commandments.

Its like a good marriage. When a woman gets married, she takes on the name of her husband and they become one flesh. They become a family. They start to live together, do things together and become one in purpose and unity in the bond of marriage. That is a good reason not to marry outside one's faith. 

To "believe" in Christ is to come to Him with all our heart, soul, mind and body. We come and believe. We partake of His holiness and become new creatures in Christ.  DC

I close with the word of God written in the book of John 

• John 14:1-6  Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.  In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.  And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.  Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?  Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

God doesn't warn without giving us a way out of our mess. He made a way of escape and a way to a new life.

• Romans 10:9-11 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

Jeremiah 6