PROPHETIC MESSAGES Lesson # 11
INSINCERE REPENTANCE
JEREMIAH 3:19-4:4
I. Introduction:
Q Do you know people who made insincere religious professions? How were they insincere?
Q Do some people have good intentions but wash-out?
Q How many of you know someone who has started out well but washed out spiritually?
Q How many of you are like me and have done this? Raise your hand.
Note: The book of Jeremiah is quite aware that this trait is common to all ages, all peoples, all of us. Jeremiah’s sermons are pressing for the people to return to God after they have been insincere.
II. God’s Intentions Revealed In His Pondering: Jeremiah 3:19-21.
>>>> Have someone read Jeremiah 3:19-21.
I myself said, “How gladly would I treat you like my children and give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful inheritance of any nation. I thought you would call me ‘Father’ and not turn away from following me. But like a woman unfaithful to her husband, so you, Israel, have been unfaithful to me,” declares the Lord.
A cry is heard on the barren heights, the weeping and pleading of the people of Israel, because they have perverted their ways and have forgotten the Lord their God.
Note: I wondered what to call this and I came up with the phrase: “God’s Pondering”.
Q What does God ponder?
An = Israel is fickle. In 3:19, God tells us His intentions.
God intends to bless them, give them honor (treat them as His sons), give them dignity (land) and give them a treasured father-son relationship.
Q According to 3:20 what did Israel do?
An = tells us that Israel was treacherous. The metaphor of a” treasured child” exchanged with the metaphor of a “treacherous wife”. Then in looking at 3:21…
Q What condition were they in?
An = They were miserable. They weep.
RQ Have you ever been miserable when you finally saw how fickle you once were?
Note: Once in a while, for a brief period God has shown me myself and the experience was exceedingly painful, almost unbearable.
Note: Notice God’s response in 3:22 a + b.
>>>> You read 3:22 a + b:
“Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding.”
The phrase “Return, faithless people” is an attempt to say in English the literal phrase in Hebrew which is “turn, sons of turning”. In Hebrew it sounds poetical: shunu bunim shunuvim. It is seven syllables.
Note: God calls us home, even if we are fickle. He wants the fickle sons to become real sons again. Q So how do we come home?
An = What is beautiful in what follows is that God gives us the words to say. Then He will give us instructions to keep us “fickle ones” honest. He is willing to work with us. Here are the words we are to say….
>>>>Have someone read Jeremiah 3:22c-25
“Yes, we will come to you, for you are the Lord our God. Surely the idolatrous commotion on the hills and mountains is a deception; surely in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.
From our youth shameful gods have consumed the fruits of our ancestors’ labor – their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters. Let us lie down in our shame, and let our disgrace cover us. We have sinned against the Lord our God both we and our ancestors; from our youth till this day we have not obeyed the Lord our God.
Q What are we in essence to say?
An = “We come to Thee” (22c) and “We accept and acknowledge our shame.” Israel was to “come” to the Lord and “acknowledge” their sin.
Note: If we re-look at 3:22c-25 we notice there are reasons we are to come to God. 1) He is our God, 2) our former worship was a deception and 3) our salvation is in the Lord. Then the reasons we are to be ashamed are listed: 1) our actions have consumed our labor and our father’s labor, i.e. our herds and children. 2) we have sinned against the Lord our God and 3) we have not obeyed His Word.
In essence we come to Him because He is true and false gods hurt us (22c-24).
In essence we acknowledge our shame because it is true (25).
>>>> Re-read to them 3:25.
Note: Sometimes it really helps to approach God and verbalize to Him the truth. That is why He gives us this set of verses. Now we know what to say.
B. Final Instructions to Help Stay Sincere: Jeremiah 4:1-4
>>>> Have someone read Jeremiah 4:1-2.
“If you will return, O Israel,” declares the Lord, Then you should return to Me. And if you will put away your detested things from My presence, and will not waver, and if you will swear, “As the Lord lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness; then the nations will bless themselves in Him, and in Him they will glory.”
Note: Now God tells us four things we can do and not merely say.
Q What are they?
An = 1) In 4:1 a-c, He says if you will turn, then turn to Me. You are so changeable, now change back to Me.
2) In 4:1 d, He says to get rid of the junk in your life: the detestable things.
Q Is it important to get rid of the things that hurt our spiritual life? Can things improve if we let the things that hurt us remain? Why not?
An = Can a doctor leave the cancer in our body, when it is quite removable and expect us to be healthy just because we say we want to be healthy?
3) In 4:1 e, we are told it must be long lasting. We need to return to the Lord and then stay with Him. We cannot be inconsistent Christians.
4) In 4:2 a-b, we are told to stop lying but to speak the truth.
Q Why is it important for spiritual growth to speak the truth?
An = We cannot grow out of being wishy-washy until we stop lying. Our words to others and to ourselves must be in truth.
Q What does it mean we are to swear in justice and in righteousness?
Q Can we confess we are Christians and yet allow injustice or evil practices to remain?
Q What will happen if we change according to the end of Jeremiah 4:2?
An = Others will be blessed. When people see “fickle us” really change, then others will see God.
If we truly want others to find God then we must be willing to change in the ways spoken of above.
>>>> Have someone read Jeremiah 4:3-4.
For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem,
“Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns.
Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart,
Men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest My wrath go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.”
Q What is God asking them to do in 4:3 and the first half of 4:4?
An = There are four imperatives (commands) here, grouped around two metaphors: agriculture and the issue of circumcision. Each metaphor has two imperatives.
The first metaphor comes from the realm of agriculture (4:3).
Q What does this farming metaphor mean?
An = It is important to break up the soil when you farm or garden.
Q What happens if we plant good seeds or plants without plowing or sow among weeds left in the ground?
An = The crop we intended to have will not do well.
Q What do you think will happen to our new hope and faith in God if we do not get rid of sinful actions in our life that we presently practice?
An = We will lose our faith. We must break bad habits, and not continue to sow among sinful weeds. Those of you who have worked with new believers have no doubt noticed that the initial choice to become a believer must have “follow-up”. Our work has only begun. It is like giving birth to a child and then never caring for it. Once the new life is born, our work has just begun.
Q What metaphor is used at the beginning of 4:4?
An = It is the issue of circumcision. If you do not know what circumcision is I am not going to explain it in class. See Mark.
Q What does this metaphor mean spiritually?
An = Circumcision is a physical action that has religious meaning. Jeremiah is saying do rituals from the heart! All Jews were circumcised but at this time few were real believers. Most people in our churches are baptized but that does not make them true Christians.
Jeremiah 4:4 says do the ritual “to the Lord”, remove the filth of your heart, or the filth in your mind.
Q If we are baptized is it necessary to not be merely religious? What does the phrase mean: “to the Lord”?
Note: If we are just fulfilling social convention then our baptism is meaningless. Our baptism must wash and clean our minds or it is meaningless. Jeremiah’s sermon was addressed to the believing community of his day and for us that would mean the Christian church of today.
>>>> Have someone re-read Jeremiah 4:d-f.
You people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest My wrath will flare up and burn like fire because of the evil you have done — burn with no one to quench it.
Q What will happen if we do not change bad behavior and do not do our religious actions truly unto God and really change in our thinking patterns and inner souls?
An = We will meet His wrath, and it will not stop this time! Jesus says the same thing.
>>>> Have someone read Luke 11:23-26.
When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”
Note: Next week we will continue in Jeremiah 4.