Jeremiah

Chapter 23:9-15 (ESV) -  Concerning the prophets:

My heart is broken within me;
    all my bones shake;
I am like a drunken man,
    like a man overcome by wine,
because of the LORD
    and because of his holy words.
For the land is full of adulterers;
    because of the curse the land mourns,
    and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up.
Their course is evil,
    and their might is not right.
“Both prophet and priest are ungodly;
    even in my house I have found their evil,
declares the LORD.
Therefore their way shall be to them
    like slippery paths in the darkness,
    into which they shall be driven and fall,
for I will bring disaster upon them
    in the year of their punishment,
declares the LORD.
In the prophets of Samaria
    I saw an unsavory thing:
they prophesied by Baal
    and led my people Israel astray.
But in the prophets of Jerusalem
    I have seen a horrible thing:
they commit adultery and walk in lies;
    they strengthen the hands of evildoers,
    so that no one turns from his evil;
all of them have become like Sodom to me,
    and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.”
Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets:
“Behold, I will feed them with bitter food
    and give them poisoned water to drink,
for from the prophets of Jerusalem
    ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”

Question to consider: Why do the words of the LORD make Jeremiah tremble with fear and make people think he’s the town drunk?

It is important to remember that Jeremiah was a reluctant prophet. He lived in a town of priests to the north of Jerusalem and was of the line of Aaron so he grew up looking forward to the day when he would be able to serve the LORD in His holy temple. However, it was the LORD’s plan for him to be a prophet— even while He knit Jeremiah together in his mother’s womb. If he was to be like the prophets of his day, the idea would have been more appealing. The kings listened to those prophets. The people adored those prophets and looked up to those prophets. Those prophets had wealth and fame throughout the land, but they didn’t speak the truth.

The true message that the LORD had for Jeremiah was to point out the lies of the famous prophets and tell the people that judgment was coming soon unless they repented of their sins and turned back to the LORD and His commandments. Instead of being loved and popular, the wicked kings and crowds of people sought to ignore him, then to humiliate him, and finally to end his life.

So Jeremiah was filled with dread— not so much by what the people wanted to do to him but by the judgment that was coming. His heart was broken that the nation of Judah had fallen so far that they were unwilling to listen to the LORD. His body trembled with fear at the judgment that was upon them by the Babylonians. The people ignored the holy words of the LORD because they had been fed years worth of lies and experienced the prosperity that was built upon those lies. The holy words of the LORD through the lips of Jeremiah were treated as if he were the town drunk spouting a foolish rant about nothing.

The land was full of adulterers (idolaters), and their might was built upon wickedness, for the prophets and priests misled the people and brought the worship of Baal even into the sacred temple. Not even the false prophets in the northern kingdom of Israel had acted so wickedly. Samaria and Jerusalem were comparable to Sodom and Gomorrah. Paul described this kind of wickedness in his letter to the Romans, “Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (Romans 1:32)

There is a popular phrase used today, “Politics is downwind of culture,” meaning that as a culture becomes increasingly godless, so its politicians become increasingly corrupt. I would add to this that “Culture is downwind of the church.” Judah’s priests and prophets gave license to the wickedness of the kings and the idolatry of the people. So it is in our world today. Religious leaders today have produced weak churches filled with faithless congregations that give license to an increasingly wicked culture. Jeremiah’s song applies to the entire world today, and there will be a time in the not too distant future in which the LORD returns to judge the living and the dead. A song like this won’t even make it on Christian radio stations, and I know that repeating it here will not be a way for me to win friends and become popular on social media.

Prayer

Dear heavenly Father, please give us ears to hear and eyes to see the truth of Your word and the reality of the times in which we live. Most of all, may this song of Jeremiah help us see the wickedness in our own hearts and need for the righteousness of Christ. Amen.