Jeremiah 9

Jeremiah 9:1

JEREMIAH SHARES GOD’S HEARTBREAKChapter 9 begins with an expression of Jeremiah’s personal heartbreak as he sees his people spurn the tender solicitude of God. This is the effect it had on Jeremiah. How did he give his message? Was he a hard-boiled kind of man who liked to criticize others and rule them out? No, he stood there and gave his message with tears streaming down his face. The message that he gave broke his heart. Centuries later, people of Israel saw Jesus weeping over the city of Jerusalem when He had a harsh message to deliver to that city and were reminded of Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, and some of them even thought Jesus was Jeremiah who had returned to them.

Jeremiah 9:2

He longed to get away into a wilderness place where he would not have to see the sin of his people which was bringing his nation to ruin.

Jeremiah 9:23

These are two wonderful verses of Scripture. They can stand alone and are often quoted alone. However, we need to remember that they were spoken to a people who had rejected the Word of God. As a nation, what are the things we glory in? Obviously, we trust in human wisdom, in riches, and in power. We need to be reminded that our strength is not in the brain trust in Washington. Our strength is not in Wall Street, the stock market, and the economy. Our strength does not lie in the cleverness of politicians. Our strength is not found in the fact that we have nuclear weapons.

Any strength that we have must lie in our spiritual values, our moral values, our character, and our purpose. And these things are not even taught in our schools and colleges today. We have brought forth a generation that is rude, a generation that has no sense of moral purpose. In fact, we have lost our wayas Jeremiah said to his peopleon the dark mountains. In our day America is just coasting along; and, when you start coasting, you are going downhill. I know it is not popular to say these things. I am afraid I am not making friends and influencing peoplebut neither did Jeremiah. I am going to stand with him, because I believe there is still hope for revival in our land. “Let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me.” What we need desperately is a group of leaders who know something other than the present godless philosophy. We need people who know God, who know His Word and are obeying it. The great need in this country today is a return to God. We need to set aside our hypocrisy and our sophistication and our illusion that we are such a smart people. We brag about our achievements when our great need is to walk in a way that will glorify God. Chapter 10 concludes Jeremiah’s message in the gate of the Lord’s house, and it begins a section (chs. 10-12) of reform and revival after finding the Book of the Law. The finding of the Book of the Law had a tremendous effect on King Josiah. He realized how far the people had fallen from God’s intention for them. It moved that man, and he was tremendously changed. He brought his people into a covenant with God that they would serve Him.