Jeremiah 4
McGeeCHAPTERS 46THEME: Jeremiah deals with backsliding of the peopleWe are in that period of time when Josiah the king was carrying on a reformation, but it was before the Word of God had been found in the temple. Therefore it was reformation and not revival. That which was taking place was very shallow. Josiah was sincere, and he was certainly moved toward God. He listened to Jeremiah. But the people were not turning back to God in any genuine sort of way, even though Jeremiah had struck home in some of the prophecies he had given. We are in the second message which Jeremiah gave (it began in ch. 3 and continues through ch. 6). He deals with the backsliding of the people. “And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD” (Jer_3:10). They were turning to God in a merely outward manner. They were going to the temple and were going through the rituals, but their heart was not in it at all. It was something Josiah was trying to produce. This reveals that there can be reformation without revival. Reformation without revival is never a genuine change. I am not quite sure that what we are seeing around us as I write this book is true revival. This renewed interest in the Word of God could become revival, but it may be merely an experience jag that a great many people are on at the present. It remains to be seen whether they are genuinely converted or not. Although in Jeremiah’s time there was reformation rather than a real turning to God, it was enough to prompt Jeremiah to give a tremendous prophecy in Jer_3:16-18. He says that “in those days” all the nations will gather to the house of God in Jerusalem. Even that fact should have alerted Judah not to make their temple worship ritualistic, but they did not respond. Yet the Lord continues to plead with them. “Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings” (Jer_3:22). At the beginning of chapter 4 we find an expression of the Lord’s response to any movement on the part of the people toward Him.
Jeremiah 4:1
He is vitally interested in them, and He wants to bring them back into a right relationship to Himself. He tells them that He will not remove them from the land if they will but turn to Him.
Jeremiah 4:2
In other words, reformation is no good. You can sow the seed on the ground, but the ground must first be prepared for it. There is no use sowing seed on thorny ground. Our Lord expressed it another way, “…neither cast ye your pearls before swine …” (Mat_7:6). I believe there are certain times and certain places where there is no point in giving out the Word of God. There are times when men attempt evangelism because it is spectacular and sensational. God says, “Break up your fallow ground.” As Dr. H. A. Ironside has put it, “The plowshare of conviction must overturn the hardened soil of the heart.” In the remainder of this section, there will first be an impeachment of the people. God will pronounce a judgment upon them and will call to them to return to Jehovah. Finally, there will be a clear foretelling of judgment. Believe me, Jeremiah will not mince words about that. My feeling is that there ought to be more of the message of the prophets rather than the message of comfort in our own day. The fallow ground needs to be broken up. We are a nation in danger. We say we are one of the greatest nations in the world, but we could fall overnight. Babylon the great fell in one night; Alexander the Great died in a night, and his entire empire crumbled; the Roman Empire fell from within, and we can go down just like that. Our greatness does not depend upon our atom bombs or the almighty dollar. We are decaying from within. There is deterioration, moral deterioration. Somebody needs to be saying something about it, but very little is being said. It seems to me that we are sowing seed on ground that is thorny. The Lord warns us against doing that. God continues to offer to Judah an opportunity to come back to Him.
Jeremiah 4:4
They were going through the outward form of circumcision. Circumcision was a badge that showed they belonged to the nation Israel, but God hadn’t given it just as a form or a ceremony. Circumcision has been shown to have a very definite therapeutic value, but the important thing was its spiritual value. Their hearts needed to be turned to God. Now Jeremiah lets them know that there will come a power out of the norththat will be Babylonwhich will eventually destroy them.
Jeremiah 4:6
Judah had seen the ten tribes of the north go into captivity. Now Jeremiah is asking them to take warning from that. God is raising up a power, a new power in the north, and that power will come down and will finally destroy them. The natural man cannot produce any righteousness at all. That is why Jeremiah calls the people to a circumcision of their hearts. But we see here that the people refused to turn to God; and, when a nation or a church or an individual rejects God, God rejects them. Remember that the Lord Jesus came and offered Himself as the King to Israel. When they rejected Him, He in turn rejected them. He said to them, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Mat_23:38). Read that whole chapter of Matthew 23if that doesn’t make you blanch with fear, nothing will. Don’t talk about the gentle Jesus! They rejected Him as their King, and then He rejected them. Friend, you are free to reject Godthat is your free will. But remember, if you reject God, God will reject you. He is gracious; He is good; He is patient and longsuffering; He gives you ample opportunity to turn to Him. But it is sobering to see what happens to any privileged people who refuse God, be it Israel or be it the church. God finally refuses them, and then all other men count them as reprobate, refuse, and worthless. We have too many people today who give a pretense of being followers of the living and true God. Many of them are members in the churches today. We often hear the expression that we are a Christian nation in America. I say we are not a Christian nation. There is no emphasis on the Word of God, and we are not following the living and true God. The Reader’s Digest published an article quite some time ago entitled, “The Book Almost Nobody Reads.” Of course, they were referring to the Bible. I agree with that title. But notice what was said: “In short, one way to describe the Bible, written by many different hands over a period of 3,000 years and more, would be to say it is a disorderly collection of 60-odd books which are often tedious, barbaric, obscure and teeming with contradictions and inconsistencies. It is a swarming compost of a book, an Irish stew of poetry and propaganda, law and legalism, myth and murk, history and hysteria.” Now that is a lie, my friend! The man who wrote the article knows nothing about the content of the Word of God. I say to you that we are in the same kind of position today as were those people in the days of Jeremiah. The nation at that time had rejected God, but the people were still making a pretense of following Him. Such a people will find themselves rejected by God and by the world. America is following that same path. We are not loved by the world today. After World War II we were the pious people who were going to bring democracy to the world. What have we done? We have brought lawlessness into our own land. Do you think we should bring lawlessness into the trails of the jungle as we have into the streets of our cities? Is that the kind of civilization we are going to bring to people? We find ourselves despised by other nations. God said it would be that way. No people can pretend to be God-fearing, be hypocritical about it, and still expect the world to look up to them. God has ordered it that way. I know it is not popular to say thisJeremiah wasn’t very popular in his day, either. I am not expecting to win any popularity contest. The chamber of commerce will never elect me to be the man of the year. They would rather give me the boot, I am sure. But I must tell you honestly the message of this Book: A people who turn away from God will find that God turns away from them. Now let me lift out some high points as we go through this message.
Jeremiah 4:22
It is interesting to note that our government uses the help of those they call the intellectuals. Perhaps it was Franklin Roosevelt who started this with his “brain trust"this idea of going to Harvard or some other prestigious university and getting the advice of some of the boys with high IQs. Oh, we are wise in doing evil! We think we have been real clever cookies in our dealings around the world. We think we are big business. We are big in everything but righteousness, my friend. We are not very big on knowing God. God says that those who pretend to know Him and don’t really know Him are foolish. The man who wrote the article that I just quoted was no more competent to write about the Word of God than I am to write about the Congressional Record or the Smithsonian Institution! I know nothing about those things. These famous intellectuals who are not real believers are not capable of writing about the Word of God. They do not know God, and you must know Him in order to know His Book. It is interesting that you can read a human book and understand it without knowing the author of the book. A human book by a human author can be understood by another human being. But if you want to know the Bible, you need to know the Author and have Him as your Teacher. Only the spirit of God can make the Word of God real to you.