The importance of staying close to the Lord.

The God of Creation is a god of action.

Choosing the way of the world or the way of the Lord. 

A timeless message about life’s true meaning.

Deception in the house of God.

“Beware of your friends; do not trust your brothers. For every brother is a deceiver, and every friend a slanderer. Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sending. You live in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me,” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 9:4-6)

Jeremiah’s whole life was spent coping with opposition. From the time of his call to ministry, when he was probably still in his late teens, he was warned by God of the problems ahead: “They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you, declares the Lord” (Jer 1:19).

Cost of Faithfulness

He was born into a family of priests in the rural area of Anathoth and his family were regarded as much lower down the scale of public esteem than the priests who lived in Jerusalem and were responsible for the Temple.

To have a prophet as outspoken as Jeremiah in a family of priests was a tragedy! No doubt when they came into Jerusalem to take their turn of serving in the Temple, his brothers and other family members would have been greatly embarrassed to hear what the Temple priests were saying of their relative. But Jeremiah did not soften his words to please his family or to spare their discomfort; he declared the word of the Lord fearlessly.

But there was a cost and many times he feared for his own life – even on one occasion at the hands of his own brothers, who were plotting against him saying, “Let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.” Jeremiah describes himself as “like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter” (Jer 11:19). He says in today’s reading, “Do not trust your brothers. For every brother is a deceiver”. Probably he had been invited to some family gathering but God had warned him not to go by revealing their plot to deceive him.

Jeremiah did not soften his words to please his family or to spare their discomfort; he declared the word of the Lord fearlessly.

Idolatry in the Temple

Jeremiah’s main target was not the ordinary people, nor the political leaders – it was the religious leaders, the priests and prophets who were the great deceivers of the nation. They were the educated elite who were able to read the Hebrew scrolls and to know the teaching of the Lord that was given to Moses. There was no excuse for them. The ordinary people did not know the requirements of the Lord, but the priests and prophets had full access to the word of God. They were the arch-deceivers because they misused this power and authority: “The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority” (Jer 5:31).

As we have said before in this series, the most serious act of deception by the Royal Temple priesthood was that they perpetuated the myth of the Temple’s inviolability, saying that God would never allow any enemy to destroy it and therefore Jerusalem was safe from attack, because God would always defend the city. Jeremiah knew this to be a terrible lie because God is a God of righteousness who demands faithfulness and loyalty from his people.

Yet the people of Jerusalem were worshipping other gods – especially Astarte, the goddess of the Babylonians, who they thought might help them by keeping the Babylonians away from the land of Judah. Once again, it was not only the people who were practising idolatry; there were even secret altars to foreign gods in the Temple itself. “Prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, Peace’, they say, when there is no peace” (Jer 6:13-4).

It was not only the people who were practising idolatry; there were even secret altars to foreign gods in the Temple itself.

Deceiving in God’s Name

God hates deception, especially in spiritual matters. When people declare something in the name of God that deceives others – that is particularly abhorrent! But that is what the prophets were doing in Jeremiah’s lifetime: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you”, he said. “They fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The Lord says you will have peace’” (Jer 23:16-17).

These were wicked lies and deception that would have disastrous consequences because the people did not change their ways. They carried on in idolatry and God eventually removed his cover of protection from over Jerusalem, allowing the Babylonians to destroy the city.

In Western nations today, we are surrounded by deception in the media, in politics and in the world of commerce and advertising. But the most dangerous deception by far is coming from the Church. When the word of God is not faithfully taught and prophetically declared by the religious leaders of a nation, God holds those leaders responsible for the fate of that nation.

This is a sobering biblical truth that ought to be constantly in the minds of church leaders today – even if it means they have to pay the price that Jeremiah had to pay.

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Click here to read previous instalments.

Jeremiah’s most devastating prophecy.

“At that time,” declares the Lord, “the bones of the kings and officials of Judah, the bones of the priests and prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.

They will be exposed to the sun and the moon and all the stars of the heavens, which they have loved and served and which they have followed and consulted and worshipped. They will not be gathered up or buried, but will be like refuse lying on the ground. Wherever I banish them, all the survivors of this evil nation will prefer death to life”, declares the Lord Almighty. (Jeremiah 8:1-3)

This is the most devastating piece of prose among all the prophecies of Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s prophecies are usually in poetic form; but this is different, and so too is its content. There are no conditions here, nothing suggesting that the prophesied disaster is conditional - that it may happen, unless there is repentance and turning. All the red lines have now been crossed. Judgement is inevitable.

The placing of this devastating statement at the conclusion of chapter 7 is highly significant. It needs to be read as the final word of that chapter, outlining the inevitable consequences of ignoring the warnings: “I will bring to an end the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for the land will become desolate” (Jer 7:34).

“‘At that time’, declares the Lord…” describes in vivid language what is going to happen in the city of Jerusalem and the land of Judah because, “they will not listen to you!”

A Figment of Imagination?

The shocking rhetoric of this text has been dismissed by some biblical commentators such as Walter Brueggemann¹ as ‘unrealistic imagination’ designed to shock the people of Judah, as a kind of last hope of change and redemption. Many commentators regard this outburst from Jeremiah as something that could not possibly have happened.

Sadly, recent archaeological evidence confirms that what Jeremiah foresaw was not a figment of his imagination, but an accurate revelation of what happened in Judah, and Jerusalem, in the year 586 BC. Research in the land of Israel shows that there was a sudden and devastating demographic fall in the population of Judah, in the city of Jerusalem and its surrounding area at that time.

Archaeology shows that what Jeremiah foresaw was not a figment of his imagination, but an accurate revelation of what happened in Judah, and Jerusalem, in 586 BC.

Some archaeologists say that the population of Judah suddenly fell from 108,000 to 40,000 inhabitants at that period through a combination of exile and destruction. 2 Kings 24:15-17 estimates that about 10,000 were taken to Babylon in the year 586 BC. Jeremiah says that 832 people from Jerusalem were taken that year, but he also records that a further 3,023 had been taken ten years earlier and another 745 were taken to Babylon in the year 581 BC (Jer 52:29-30). In addition to these exiles, we know that an unknown number went to Egypt after the assassination of Gedaliah, and that none of them, including Jeremiah, returned (see Jer 44:25-27).

Anthropologists studying the archaeological evidence for that period reckon that the fall in population across the land of Judah was around 80%, but in the city of Jerusalem and its environs, it appears to have been as much as 90% or even more.²

The devastation of the city and the towns and villages of Judah was similar to our modern ‘scorched earth’ policy, with unburied bodies left scattered across the countryside and open to the prey of wild animals and birds.

Terms of the Covenant

All this is to say that the scene described by Jeremiah in this passage was not a wild flight of his imagination, but an accurate forecast of what has now been discovered to have taken place in history. His description of people from all ranks of society being left exposed to the sun and the moon and the stars of heaven is a poignant reflection of the idolatry that had encompassed the nation, sweeping whole communities into pagan practices that had been roundly condemned by the prophets of Israel for centuries.

Jeremiah spent the whole of his adult life pleading and reasoning with the people of Judah and warning of the inevitable consequences of turning to other gods. He saw with horror what was happening in the nation in much the same way as Moses saw with horror the ‘golden calf’. Moses had been called by God to establish his covenant relationship with the people of Israel and warned them of the consequences of breaking that covenant (Deut 4:24-26).

Jeremiah was present when Josiah renewed the covenant (2 Kings 23). The king pledged loyalty to Yahweh after he had sent the scroll to the Prophet Huldah, asking whether or not it was a genuine word from God (2 Chron 34:22-28). Jeremiah expressed full agreement with the words of Huldah, “Tell them that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘cursed is the man who does not obey the terms of this covenant’” (Jer 11:3).

Jeremiah’s description of people being left exposed to the sun and moon and stars of heaven is a poignant reflection of the idolatry that had encompassed the nation.

From that time the ministry of Jeremiah was exclusively directed to warning the nation – the political and religious leaders as well as the ordinary people – about the consequences of breaking the covenant and putting the nation outside the covering protection of God. The brutal warning in this prophecy that concluded his message in chapter 7 accurately foresaw not only the desolation of the land and the slaughter of the population, but also the devastating effect upon the survivors who were taken into exile in Babylon, who preferred death to life. This is so poignantly depicted in Psalm 137: “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’...” (Ps 137:1-3).

God’s Protection Removed

Can any Bible-believing Christian in Britain or the Western nations fail to tremble when we read the words of Jeremiah and those of the psalmist in Babylon? Historical facts confirm the prophetic words of Jeremiah 8:1-3: God removed his cover of protection from Jerusalem and the land of Judah, allowing the wrath of cruel humanity to do its worst.

In recent times we have seen history repeated in the central European Holocaust that murdered 6 million Jews. But in Israel today, as in all the nations of the West, the land is being polluted with the blood of the innocent, as babies are sacrificed on the altar of abortion clinics. Will God once again remove his cover of protection?

References

1 Jeremiah 1-25: To Pluck Up, To Tear Down. International Theological Commentary, Handsel Press, Edinburgh, 1988, p80.

2 Ahn, JJ and Middlemas, J, 2013. By the Irrigation Canals of Babylon: Approaches To The Study Of The Exile. T&T Clark, New York and London, p149.

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Read previous instalments here.

God’s abhorrence at the killing of children.

“The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes”, declares the Lord. “They have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears my name and have defiled it. They have built the high places of Topheth in the valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire – something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.” (Jeremiah 7:30-31)

Jeremiah does not identify the pagan gods or goddesses that had been set up in the Temple, but his description of what was happening in the Valley of Ben Hinnom fits the description of Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites, who had been introduced to the land of Judah by King Solomon when he set up shrines to each of the gods of his foreign wives (1 Kings 11:7).

Molech was a particularly evil god to whom children were sacrificed in the fire. This form of religious sacrifice was so abhorrent to God that Moses was told to make it a capital offence: “The Lord said to Moses, say to the Israelites: any Israelite or any alien living in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death. The people of the community are to stone him” (Lev 20:1-2).

The Fires of Gehenna

Hezekiah had cleansed the land of many foreign shrines on the high places but Manasseh, his son, re-introduced a wide range of idolatry including the worship of Molech: “In both courts of the temple of the Lord, he built altars to all the starry hosts. He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practising sorcery and divination” (2 Kings 21:5- 6).

All this was reversed when the young Josiah came of age and instituted reforms, removing “from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts” (2 Kings 23:4). Josiah also “desecrated Topheth which was in the valley of Ben Hinnom, so no-one could use it to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire of Molech” (2 Kings 23:10).

Sacrificing children in pagan fire was so abhorrent to God that Moses was told to make it a capital offence.

But all this was reversed once again by Josiah’s son Jehoiakim, which is what caused Jeremiah to explode in righteous anger. The reason why Jehoiakim re-established the burning of babies in the valley of Ben Hinnom is probably to be found in a passing reference in 2 Kings 24:2, which says: “The Lord sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him.” It was a common practice to buy off raiders by installing a shrine to their god, acknowledging defeat and reducing the amount of treasure that had to be given to them. The fact that Ammonite raiders are mentioned here would be a reason for re-installing a shrine to Molech.

Jeremiah was outraged: he refers to the shrine as ‘Topheth’ which in Hebrew is a pun, rhyming with the word bosheth (‘shame’) and pronounced like the verb ‘to spit’ used in Job 17:6. The Valley of Ben Hinnom certainly became a ‘valley of shame’ as Jerusalem’s refuse tip which was burning constantly. The name was later shortened to ‘Ge Hinnom’, which when translated into Aramaic and Greek becomes the Gehenna that we meet in the New Testament, as the word for hell whose fires are never extinguished.

Speechlessness

Jeremiah’s level of outrage at the burning of little children in this valley of shame had no measure. He was virtually rendered speechless; as can be seen from the words he puts into the mouth of God: “[this is] something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.” This strange anthropomorphism is unlike any other pronouncement from Jeremiah.

It gives us another little glimpse into the life and ministry of Jeremiah and his amazing relationship with God. The words must have just tumbled out of Jeremiah’s mouth without him stopping to remember that he was speaking on behalf of the Lord God Almighty, the Creator of the Universe, who was not only omnipotent but also omniscient. It is hard to think that God would actually have said that he had been taken by surprise – that the sins of the people of Judah had actually not ever entered his mind!!

The Valley of Ben Hinnom is the Gehenna we meet in the New Testament as the word for hell whose fires are never extinguished.

Jeremiah’s use of this phrase reveals the nature of genuine, God-inspired prophecy that is expressed through our own human mind and in our human language. It is a reflection of Jeremiah’s own shock and horror, and the abhorrence of the Holy Spirit, that Jehoiakim could have sunk to such a depth of spiritual degradation and offence against the word of God. He was actually committing a crime of which God had said a perpetrator should be stoned to death. Here was the King himself bringing into the land of Judah this terrible practice of burning babies alive.

Glory Departed

It was probably at this moment that Jeremiah realised why God had told him to cease praying for the welfare of the nation - because its fate was already sealed. The holiness of the God of Israel, who had created human beings in his own image for fellowship with him, could not keep company with such detestable behaviour.

God could do no other than remove his presence from the Temple, from Jerusalem and from among the people of Judah. They would now be left to their fate which Jeremiah knew meant that the Babylonians would come and conquer the land, tearing down the walls of Jerusalem, setting fire to the King’s palace and first desecrating and then destroying the Temple. Jeremiah could already foresee what Ezekiel was later to speak about – the word ICHABOD, ‘Glory Departed’, over the Temple.

So, what is God saying to us today? He sees hundreds of live babies torn from their mother’s wombs every day, thrown into a black plastic bag and taken out of the back door of our hospitals and thrown into the incinerator – the modern equivalent of the shrine of Molech. Can we really expect God to bless a nation whose land is filled with the blood of the innocent?

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Click here to read previous instalments. You may also be interested in our News Page this week, which features several pro-life events coming up in September.

Worship is not a substitute for obedience.

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says: “Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other offerings and eat the meat yourselves! For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you.

But they did not listen or pay attention, instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. From the time your forefathers left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets. But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiffnecked and did more evil than their forefathers.” (Jeremiah 7:21-26)

This is another of Jeremiah’s sweeping statements condemning the official religion in Jerusalem during the reign of Jehoiakim and shortly before the Babylonian invasion of 598 BC. The positioning of this word in Jeremiah 7 is highly significant. It follows Jeremiah’s Temple Sermon and his declaration that God was actually going to destroy his own sanctuary, as he had done at Shiloh.

Jeremiah was told to tell the people that the message from God was: “I will thrust you from my presence, just as I did all your brothers, the people of Ephraim” (Jer 7:15). He then received a personal command to stop praying for the welfare of the nation because God was no longer prepared to turn a blind eye to what they were doing. God could see whole families indulging in the worship of Astarte, the goddess of fertility – and actually doing these things openly in the streets of Jerusalem!

These things were provoking the anger of the Lord, but his wrath was primarily turned upon the religious leaders of the nation – the Temple priests and prophets who were allowing such things to happen openly, in sight of the Temple, without rebuke!

The people were provoking God’s anger, but his wrath was primarily turned upon the religious leaders of the nation.

Call to Obedience

This word from Jeremiah is directed to the priests who were responsible for the daily morning and evening sacrifices in the Temple. They were told not to bother with these ritual sacrifices any more – they were wasting their time, because God would no longer heed their prayers and petitions on behalf of the nation. They might as well eat the meat for themselves rather than burn it on the altar as “a pleasing aroma, an offering made to the Lord by fire” (Ex 29:41).

The presenting of a regular daily offering at the Tent of Meeting was a command given to Moses (Ex 29:38-45; Num 28:11-13). This practice was still being observed when David became king over all Israel, even before he established Jerusalem as his capital. When the Ark was recaptured from the Philistines we read, “David left Zadok the priest and his fellow priests before the tabernacle of the Lord at the high place in Gibeon to present burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar of burnt offering regularly, morning and evening” (1 Chron 16:39). When Jerusalem became the capital of the nation, this daily offering was transferred to Solomon’s Temple.

In the reading we are studying today, God reminded Jeremiah that the central command he had given to Moses was a call for obedience. The First Commandment was that the people of Israel should have no other God than Yahweh their Lord. This was of supreme importance. Obedience to the teaching given to Moses was far more important than offering sacrifices. The sacrifices were acts of worship during which prayers and petitions were offered, but worship was not a substitute for obedience.

God reminded Jeremiah that the central command he had given to Moses was a call for obedience.

Meaningless Offerings

Jeremiah, in accordance with prophetic tradition in Israel, gave little importance to the ritual of sacrificial practices. Back in the 8^th Century, some 200 years earlier, Isaiah had begun his ministry with a devastating attack upon the whole sacrificial system:

The multitude of your sacrifices – what are they to me?” says the Lord. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals…Stop bringing meaningless offerings!…Even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen…Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed… (Isa 1:11-17)

In a similar vein, Amos lambasted the people in the northern Kingdom of Israel: “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them…Away with the noise of your songs!…But let justice roll like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:21-24).

Jeremiah said that there was a long history of the people failing to obey the commands of the Lord. He had sent them prophets to declare his word in every generation, ever since they left Egypt: “Day after day, again and again…But they did not listen to me or pay attention.” The people were doing just as their forefathers had done, relying upon the traditional ritual of religion carried out by the priests on behalf of the nation and thinking that they were thereby fulfilling the requirements of God.

The priests were at fault for not teaching the people that obedience to the commandments of the Lord was essential. They could not expect God to fulfil the promises of his covenant relationship with the nation unless this requirement of obedience to the Torah was fulfilled.

But the level of disobedience and refusal to listen to correction was so ingrained in the nation, due to it being institutionalised in their religion, that Jeremiah was told by God that neither the priests nor the people would listen to him. He was to say, “This is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God or responded to correction. Truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips” (Jer 7:28).

The priests were at fault for not teaching the people that obedience to the commandments of the Lord was essential.

True Worship

It is a basic biblical teaching in the prophetic tradition of Israel that worship, however loud and exuberant, does not absolve the worshippers from obedience to the teaching that God has given. This is an instruction that ought to be heeded today!

Faithful attendance at church and participation in worship on Sundays does not absolve us from ungodly behaviour on weekdays – especially in the denial of justice and compassion in our human relationships.

This prophetic tradition also applies to preachers and teachers and worship leaders today. It is no use turning up the volume on our sound system if the teaching we are giving is contrary to biblical truth! If truth has ‘vanished from our lips’, we may be sure that the Lord will be saying, “Away with your songs! Walk in all the ways I command you that it may go well with you.”

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Click here for previous instalments.

Idolatry is not hidden from the Lord.

“Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my name, and say, ‘We are safe’ - safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching!” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 7:9-11)

This would rank highly among the most devastating pronouncements of any of the prophetic writings in the Bible. The phrase “I have been watching!” was designed to strike terror into the hearts of the people. It is part of Jeremiah’s famous ‘Temple Sermon’, spoken to the crowds at the gate of the Temple, in which he highlighted six outstanding sins: false religion, injustice, oppression, violence, idolatry and immorality.

Spreading Idolatry

This incident in front of the Temple is generally thought to have been delivered near the end of the reign of Jehoiakim in the late 7^th Century BC. Ever since the death of Josiah in 608 BC Jeremiah had been bringing warnings to the people of Judah and especially to those in Jerusalem about the idolatrous practices that were increasingly gaining a hold on the nation, especially in the countryside. These practices had now spread into the streets of Jerusalem and onto the rooftops of the houses.

The people were ignoring their covenant relationship with the Lord, which had been renewed by Josiah following the discovery of a scroll of the Torah while carrying out repairs of the Temple. Jeremiah had added his voice to the strong warnings about the consequences of breaking the covenant and worshipping foreign gods. It was not just at the hilltop shrines, but actually in the streets of Jerusalem that people were offering worship to the ‘Queen of Heaven’, the pagan goddess Astarte.

Ever since the death of King Josiah, Jeremiah had been bringing warnings to the people of Judah about the idolatrous practices that were increasingly gaining a hold on the nation.

Whole families were involved in idolatrous practices: “The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger” (7:18).

The theme of the so-called Temple Sermon was designed to shock the people into facing up to the reality of the situation. They were not only indulging in idolatry of a particularly repulsive kind with Astarte, the goddess of fertility, but their social life was full of self-indulgence that included violence and immorality. They were breaking all the commandments at the heart of the Torah.

Safe?!

Jeremiah then reminded them of what had happened to Shiloh, the most ancient sacred place in Israel that had not been spared from destruction. Jeremiah recalled how the people in the northern Kingdom had not listened to any of the prophetic warnings God had sent to them, so he had allowed Shiloh to be destroyed. God was now warning that this would actually happen to the Temple in Jerusalem, in which the nation of Judah was putting its trust.

The word of the Lord was “I will thrust you from my presence, just as I did all your brothers, the people of Ephraim.” Jeremiah was then told to stop praying for the welfare of the people of Judah: “Do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you” (7:16).

Three times Jeremiah was given the same command to stop praying for the welfare of the nation. This is the first, and it occurs in the midst of a most shattering passage where God spelled out to the people the reason why he was giving notice of his intention to withdraw his covering of protection over the nation, over the city of Jerusalem and over the Temple that bore his name.

Three times Jeremiah was given the same command to stop praying for the welfare of the nation.

Jeremiah must have almost choked when he spoke the words in today’s reading – “Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal…And then say ‘we are safe’…? Safe?!” He thundered. “Safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my name, become a den of robbers to you?"

This was followed by the most devastating words in the whole of the prophecy: “‘But I have been watching’, declares the Lord!” God was watching and taking notice. He could see all that was going on that was in direct contravention of the teaching he had given to Moses. He was watching; and he knew that the people of Israel were breaking the covenant, thereby sealing the death warrant of the nation.

Timeless Message

500 years later, Jesus, who probably knew Jeremiah’s Temple Sermon by heart, said almost the same words as he swept through the outer courtyard of the Temple with a whip in his hand, driving out the sheep and the cattle, overturning the moneychangers’ tables, sending their money clattering to the ground, creating chaos and forcing the merchants to flee from his wrath. “My house will be a house of prayer for all nations”, Jesus declared, “But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17).

2,000 years later this same message is coming to the nations of the West whose civilisation is crumbling before their eyes, but every warning has been ignored. They have eyes and ears, but they neither see nor hear. They have had the Bible for centuries; they know the truth, and yet they have deliberately turned away to worship the gods of this world. “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (Rom 1:25). “‘But I have been watching!’ declares the Lord”.

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Click here for previous instalments.

Surely the Lord would protect his own Temple…

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Stand at the gate of the Lord’s house and there proclaim this message: ‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!”’” (Jeremiah 7:1-3)

This is Jeremiah’s famous ‘Temple Sermon’. It is one of the most important declarations in his recorded ministry. It summarises the moral and spiritual state of the nation during the reign of King Jehoiakim, about the year 604 BC, before the Babylonian invasion of the land in 598 BC.

Challenging the National Belief System

Jeremiah was told to stand at the gate of the Temple, probably at the time of a major festival when crowds would be flocking to the Temple to witness traditional religious practices, which Jeremiah had already said were useless. The word of the Lord was “Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please me” (Jer 6:20).

This was a major challenge, not merely to the religious establishment based at the Temple, but to the whole belief system of the nation. The belief in the inviolability of the Temple was a tradition that went back to the time of King Solomon and the Temple’s dedication. When he had completed building the Temple, Solomon called the whole nation to an assembly in Jerusalem where he declared that God had promised his father David that a temple would be built for the name of the Lord.

Solomon then offered a prayer of dedication, asking that when prayer is directed towards the Temple it would be heard by God and petitions would be granted. God’s response was “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices” (2 Chron 7:12).

The belief in the inviolability of the Temple was a tradition that went back to the time of King Solomon.

This was accompanied by the pledge: “If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my name may be there for ever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.”

If…

The belief became established that the presence of God in the Temple guaranteed its defence against all enemies. This was reinforced in the time of the 8^th Century BC Prophet Isaiah, who declared: “This is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria: he will not enter this city or shoot an arrow here. He will not come before it with shield or build a siege ramp against it. By the way that he came he will return; he will not enter this city, declares the Lord. I will defend this city and save it for my sake and for the sake of David my servant!” (Isa 37:33-35).

This tradition was celebrated in the Psalms sung in the Temple, such as, “For the Lord has chosen Zion, he has desired it for his dwelling: this is my resting place for ever and ever; here I will sit enthroned” (Psa 132:13-14). But the Temple priests and prophets in Jeremiah’s time failed to notice the previous verse in this Psalm, which imposed a condition, “If your sons keep my covenant and the statutes I teach them…”.

The Temple authorities also failed to recognise that the whole moral and spiritual situation in the nation was very different in Isaiah’s lifetime. When King Hezekiah received a threatening letter from Sennacherib, the Assyrian Emperor, insulting the God of Israel, both the King and the Prophet Isaiah spread the letter before the Lord in the Temple and cried out in prayer. Their prayer of faith was answered: “Then the angel of the Lord went out and put to death 185,000 men in the Assyrian camp” (Isa 37:36).

No doubt the Royal Temple authorities advising King Jehoiakim remembered what God had done to the Assyrian army and they were convinced that the same would happen to the Babylonian army. They were utterly convinced that God would never allow his presence in the Temple to be violated by a heathen army.

The Temple authorities were utterly convinced that God would never allow his presence in the Temple to be violated by a heathen army.

The Terms of the Covenant

Jeremiah’s great burden was that he appeared to be the only one who recognised that the promises given at the time of David and Solomon, and upheld during the time of Hezekiah, were made within the context of the covenantal relationship between the children of Israel and God.

The terms of the covenant went right back to the assembly at Mount Sinai when Moses received both the Ten Commandments and the Torah (Deut 4:10). From that time God’s protection was dependent upon the faithfulness of the nation to keep the commandments and to hold fast to his teaching. Jeremiah knew that the first commandment was absolute loyalty to God: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Deut 5:7).

Idolatry was to be seen everywhere in Judah - not only in the countryside where people worshiped the local Baals, but there were idols to foreign gods at every street corner in Jerusalem. Even worse than that; there was idolatry to be found in the Temple itself.

Jeremiah’s Temple Sermon dismissed the popular chant, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” With devastating precision, he outlined the six sins of Jerusalem that were offensive to God which abrogated the protection that God had promised if the nation remained faithful to his commandments and his teaching. God’s blessing, his protection and prosperity, were all dependent upon the faithfulness of the nation and its leaders in keeping the covenantal relationship established in the time of Moses.

God has not changed! What was true in the time of Jeremiah is still true today. But will the nations learn the lessons of history that are clearly recorded for our benefit?

This article is part of a series on the life and ministry of the Prophet Jeremiah. Click here for previous instalments.