Jeremiah 11
McGeeCHAPTERS 1113THEME: Israel disobeyed God’s covenant made in the wildernessIn chapters 11 and 12 Jeremiah delivers this tremendous message after the Law has been read to the people. I must remind you that following the giving of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, God went on to pronounce certain judgments if the Law were disobeyed. These are the things that Jeremiah emphasizes, the aspects of the Law which condition the way we live our livesthe way you treat your neighbor, the way you conduct your business, and the kind of social life you are living. Are you one of these church members who is actually worshiping sex? I know men who have left their wives to marry some little girl who didn’t have anything upstairs but had a whole lot downstairs, and they think they can still serve the Lord! Jeremiah makes it clear that if you have done that, you’ve gone down a detour and are far away from God. Many people talk about being fundamental and correct in their doctrine (I hope you understand that I insist upon that), but what is equally important is the kind of life that you are living. How honest are you? How clean are you in your living? That is what Jeremiah is insisting upon here. Most of us, if we were honest, would get down before God and confess our need to walk with Him, to be close to Him. But the people didn’t do it in Jeremiah’s day, and there won’t be many who do it in our day either.
Jeremiah 11:1
“This covenant"When the Law was found and read to the people, King Josiah called in the leaders and they made an oath that they were going to follow the Word of God.
Jeremiah 11:3
Before they found the Book of the Law, the people did not know the Law. Now they know it and their responsibility is great: God says, “Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant.” I have said many times that I would rather be a heathen in some dark corner of the earth bowing down before an idol, than to be a member of a church where the pastor faithfully preaches the Word of God and to have done nothing in response to it. May I say, I have more respect for that heathen man, and God may yet bring the gospel to him. But that church member who has heard the gospel and rejected itGod will certainly judge him. Now this chapter closes with the fact that Jeremiah is actually rejected by his hometown, Anathoth.
Jeremiah 11:19
God tells Jeremiah, “There is no use speaking to Anathoth anymore. They have rejected Me, and they want to kill you. Don’t bother to prophesy to them any longer. There are churches today who no longer stand for the things of God or teach the Word of God as they once did. And some people think it is terrible that their memberships are dwindling and that the churches are being deserted. What is terrible is that the Word of God is not being taught in their pulpits. Jeremiah stopped giving the Word of God in Anathoth. He went somewhere else, because the people were going to kill him; they had rejected the Word of God. What a picture we have here! It cost this man Jeremiah something to stand for God. It broke his own heart and alienated his hometown from him. In Joh_4:44 we read, “…Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country.” Our Lord had to leave His hometown of Nazareth and move His headquarters to Capernaum. That is what young Jeremiah had to do also. Jeremiah is delivering a message to these people unlike any we hear today. Today we say, “Come to Jesus, and He will give you a new personality, and He may even make you rich. You’re going to get along real well.” That’s not what we learn from Jeremiah and his life. Jeremiah says that it will cost you something to turn to Godbut it will be worth everything you have to pay. In spite of the fact that Judah made a covenant to serve God, the revival in the land proved to be a largely surface movement. There is no question that the words of Jeremiah had their effect and that there were some who in genuineness turned to the Lord. Jeremiah had preached, “Then the LORD said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them” (v. Jer_11:6). However, things in the nation were deteriorating. After the revival, interest in spiritual things began to wear off, and the people returned to their old ways. Even King Josiah made a grave blunder. He went out to battle against the king of Egypt, Pharaoh-nechoh, and they fought at Megiddo. Josiah was fatally wounded, and Jeremiah mourned for him: “And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations” (2Ch_35:25). Jeremiah wept because he knew that the people not only would return to idolatry but they would sink even farther into immorality. And, of course, they did. Jeremiah had to give the people a message that they didn’t want to hear. They rejected his message and were plotting to kill him, so that he had to leave his hometown of Anathoth. Had Josiah still been alive, he would have protected Jeremiah, but Josiah was gone now. Jehoahaz came to the throne but reigned for only three months. Pharaoh-nechoh then raised Jehoiakim to the throne of Judah. Jehoiakim had to pay a tax to Egypt, so he taxed the land heavily. It wasn’t very long until Nebuchadnezzar defeated the Egyptian king and Jehoiakim became a vassal of Babylon. This lasted for three years, and then Jehoiakim rebelled against the king of Babylon, ignoring Jeremiah’s warning not to do so. Jeremiah had also warned earlier against the alliance with Egypt as a source of false confidence, but the kings of Judah paid no attention to him and continually became more corrupt.