The Message in Word and Symbol

Transcript

GR 466
6/17/84
A Message in Word and Symbol
Jeremiah 16:1-21
Gil Rugh

Chapters 11 through 20 give us more insight into the personal life, struggles and inner anguish of this prophet than any other section of Scripture. This section is important not only for what it reflects of Jeremiah’s life and ministry but also as for the insight it gives us into the prophetic ministry in general, revealing some of the pressures the servants of God were under.

We sometimes imagine how glorious the ministry of a prophet would have been. We picture in our minds the prophetic ministry with its power being mightily used of God. It was a powerful ministry, and it was greatly used of God. But it was a ministry that involved intense pressure and much suffering. This is a good reminder for us as we consider our own ministry and service for Jesus Christ. As we consider the difficulties experienced by the prophets, we can be encouraged. For when we undergo difficulties, stress and trials we realize that we are in the line of good men who were mightily used by God.

The prophets proclaimed the truth of God not only by their preaching but also by many symbolic actions. In an earlier study we saw Jeremiah take the linen girdle and bury it by the Euphrates, then later dig it up and find it ruined. This pictured what would happen to the nation. In addition to their preaching and their symbolic actions, the prophets also communicated to the people by their own lives and the lives of their families. God is going to use some of the events of Jeremiah’s life in chapter 16 as a testimony to the people. The circumstances surrounding Jeremiah’s life in this chapter will communicate God’s truths to the nation Israel.

The same thing happens to Ezekiel in chapter 24 of Ezekiel, “Son of man, behold, I am about to take from you the desire of your eyes with a blow; but you shall not mourn, and you shall not weep, and your tears shall not come” Ezekiel 24:16. God is telling Ezekiel that He is going to take his wife, the desire of his eyes, from him. Ezekiel will not be allowed to publicly mourn over her or express his sorrow. “Groan silently; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet, and do not cover your mustache, and do not eat the bread of men. So, I spoke to the people in the morning, and in the evening my wife died. And in the morning, I did as I was commanded. And the people said to me, ‘Will you not tell us what these things that you are doing mean for us?’” Ezekiel 24:17-19. As the people saw unique things happening to the prophet, they recognized that these events had significance not just for the prophet but for them as well. They saw this as God’s way of communicating to them.

Then Ezekiel explained to the people what God was communicating through this experience: “Then I said to them, ‘The word of the Lord came to me saying, “Speak to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am about to profane My sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes and the delight of your soul; and your sons and your daughters whom you have left behind will fall by the sword. And you will do as I have done; you will not cover your mustache, and you will not eat the bread of men. And your turbans will be on your heads and your shoes on your feet. You will not mourn, and you will not weep; but you will rot away in your iniquities, and you will groan to one another. Thus Ezekiel will be a sign to you; according to all that he has done you will do; when it comes, then you will know that I am the Lord God”’”’” Ezekiel 24:21-24.

Ezekiel himself now is a sign to the people. His wife, the one so precious to him, died, and he did not mourn or weep. In like manner, the city of Jerusalem will be taken from the people, and they will be taken into captivity without the opportunity to weep or to mourn.

God will use the events of Jeremiah’s life to communicate in a similar way to the people of Israel. In our previous study we saw Jeremiah complaining about his loneliness and the isolation he was experiencing in his ministry. In our present study we are going to see how God is going to further intensify Jeremiah’s loneliness and isolation from the people. Jeremiah will receive three commands from the Lord. In the first command he is forbidden to marry. In the second command he is forbidden to mourn with his people. In the third command he is forbidden to rejoice with the people. In effect, Jeremiah is almost being placed in isolation from the people to whom he is ministering.

God’s first command to Jeremiah is recorded in Jeremiah 16:2: “You shall not take a wife for yourself nor have sons or daughters in this place.” Being forbidden to marry would only increase Jeremiah’s loneliness and isolation. This would be especially true in biblical times where marriage and the family were the hub of everything. Not to marry or have children was a great curse to a Jew. Jeremiah is forbidden to take a wife.

The reason is given in verses 3 and 4: “For thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters born in this place, and concerning their mothers who bear them, and their fathers who beget them in this land: ‘They will die of deadly diseases, they will not be lamented or buried; they will be as dung on the surface of the ground and come to an end by sword and famine, and their carcasses will become food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth.’”

The fact that Jeremiah was not allowed to marry was to be a picture to the nation that there was coming a time when Israel would be deprived of its families. The spouses and children in the nation would die and would not even have the decency of burial. For a corpse not to be buried was considered a great disaster among the people of that day as the body would be left for the scavengers to feed on. That is what is going to happen to the families of Israel. The fact that Jeremiah was not allowed to marry and have children testifies to the fact that the nation Israel is going to be deprived of its children. It would be better to have no children than to suffer the tragedy of this coming event.

In chapter 15 Jeremiah has been burdened about the loneliness of ministry. But as I study this section it amazes me that in chapter 16 God comes right back with a command which further isolates him from the people when he is not allowed to get married and to be involved with his people in the basic social unit of that day.

God’s second command to Jeremiah is given in verse 5: “For thus says the Lord, ‘Do not enter a house of mourning, or go to lament or to console them; for I have withdrawn My peace from this people,’ declares the Lord, ‘My lovingkindness and compassion.’” Jeremiah is forbidden to join with his people in mourning over the loss of loved ones. The reason for this prohibition is because God has withdrawn His peace and lovingkindness (Hebrew, chesed), His covenant love and compassion. This is a startling statement in that God is saying that He will no longer deal with His people in the context of peace, lovingkindness and compassion.

The description of this situation is expanded in verses 6 and 7: “Both great men and small will die in this land; they will not be buried, they will not be lamented, nor will anyone gash himself or shave his head for them. Neither will men break bread in mourning for them, to comfort anyone for the dead, nor give them a cup of consolation to drink for anyone’s father or mother.” Jeremiah’s refusal to join the people in mourning pictures the time when the people of the land will not be mourning over their losses. So many people are going to be dying all around them that they are going to become numb to their losses, unable to mourn.

We sometimes see situations like this in the news today. We see reports of extreme famine with people sitting around numbly while others die around them on the ground. Yet the people sitting there are not crying or mourning; there is no funeral activity going on. They have been desensitized by the whole process. The death all around them has simply overwhelmed them as they sit waiting for the fate which is inevitable. That is what will occur in Israel. Death and destruction will be so widespread and complete that there will be no mourning. The survivors will be numbed to it all. Jeremiah is not to join in mourning with his people because he is to testify to them that there is going to come a time when the nation will no longer mourn. They will be so overwhelmed by the destruction, death and loss that they will no longer mourn.

Verse 6 refers to a practice which God had forbidden to Israel but one that had become commonplace in the nation. God had forbidden the people to shave themselves or gash themselves as indications of mourning because of the association of these activities with pagan worship. Yet Israel had become involved in this practice. Verse 6 indicates that these forbidden practices will no longer be carried out as the nation will discontinue its mourning for the dead.

The Lord had forbidden Israel’s participation in these practices in Leviticus 19:27 and 28: “You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads, nor harm the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead, nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.” That Israel was practicing these forbidden practices is further evidence of the deteriorated spiritual condition of the nation. The people of pagan nations often gashed their bodies in an effort to draw the attention of their gods to their situation. The prophets of Baal in their confrontation with Elijah in 1 Kings 18 gashed their bodies until the blood ran down. This was an effort to get the attention of their god. These activities thus became a sign of mourning and grief. In spite of the fact that God had forbidden these practices, the nation Israel had picked them up. Yet God indicated that the people would discontinue even these practices of mourning as the entire nation would become numbed by the great loss of life they would experience in the future.

God’s third command to Jeremiah in chapter 16 is found in verse 8: “Moreover you shall not go into a house of feasting to sit with them to eat and drink.” Jeremiah was first instructed that he could not get married, then that he could not join with the people in mourning, and now he is commanded not to become a part of any rejoicing or celebrating as well. He cannot get married himself and neither can he rejoice with others at the happiness of their weddings.

The reason for this prohibition is found in verse 9: “For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Behold, I am going to eliminate from this place, before your eyes and in your time, the voice of rejoicing and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride.’” Things will get so bad in the land that there will be no such thing as happiness in Israel. There will be nothing to rejoice about. There will be no parties and no weddings. Verse 9 is a climactic point as God indicates that He is going to remove rejoicing from the people. Weddings are joyous times that picture happiness. They are times of joyous celebration. God says there will be no weddings in that day. There will be nothing to celebrate. This is an awful picture of the judgment that will come on the nation.

In verses 11 and 12 of Jeremiah 16, God gives the reasons why He is bringing judgment on these people. But before we consider those reasons, we need to see the response of the people to the judgment Jeremiah has been predicting. “Now it will come about when you tell this people all these words that they will say to you, ‘For what reason has the Lord declared all this great calamity against us? And what is our iniquity, or what is our sin which we have committed against the Lord our God?’” v. 10.

This response of the people is almost dumbfounding. The condition of the nation has deteriorated so far that it is hard to find anything good in the nation. Yet when the prophet announces judgment upon them, they respond, “What have we done?” This clearly points out how sin deadens our sensitivity to it. These people profess to belong to God, yet they are totally deadened to the issue of their sin. Their sin is so overwhelming that God says it is necessary for Him to destroy them, yet they wonder what their sin has been that causes them to be worthy of judgment.

These people of Jeremiah’s day are not so different from people today. If you talk to them about hell or coming judgment, they often respond, “I am not a great sinner. What have I done to deserve that?” Sin deadens the awareness of people to its consequences and makes them insensitive to the true issue of God’s holiness and righteousness.

This kind of reaction is seen as a consistent pattern when judgment is announced. In Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, the issue is the same. When people are confronted with the message of the prophets, they question why they should be receiving judgment. “‘A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is My respect?’ says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests who despise My name. But you say, ‘How have we despised Thy name?’” Malachi 1:6. God answers them in verse 7: “You are presenting defiled food upon My altar. But you say, ‘How have we defiled Thee?’” They are totally insensitive to their sin and the real issue involved. The people’s argument continues in Malachi 2:17: “You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, ‘How have we wearied Him?” In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them,’ or ‘Where is the God of justice?’” When someone calls evil good and good evil, how much further from reality can he get? Yet these people wonder what God’s problem is with them. They are totally insensitive to their sin.

God continues his indictment against the people in Malachi 3:7 and 8: “‘From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘But you say, “How shall we return?” Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, “How have we robbed Thee?”’”

The issue is the same today. We ought not to be surprised when we charge people with sin and have them respond with such naïve questions. The reason for such a response is that they are totally insensitive to the issue of sin. Right away they want to know how a loving God could bring judgment on someone in that way. They have never come to grips with their own personal sinfulness. They are insensitive to their problem. If people are totally insensitive to the issue of sin, they will be totally surprised when it comes to judgment. That is the situation Jeremiah is confronting.

God continues with His reasons for judgment in Jeremiah 16:11 and 12: “Then you are to say to them, ‘It is because your forefathers have forsaken Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and have followed other gods and served them and bowed down to them; but Me they have forsaken and have not kept My law. You too have done evil, even more than your forefathers; for behold, you are each one walking according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart, without listening to Me.’”

It is amazing that these people have forsaken God in their pursuit of other gods. Their evil has exceeded the evil of their fathers and their forefathers, yet they have the audacity to say, “What have we done to deserve judgment?”

The character of sinners does not change. Just as the character of believers is consistent, so also the character of unbelievers remains the same. They continue with the same tragic insensitivity to sin and, thus, insensitivity to coming judgment. Whether you are talking about sinners five hundred years before Christ or two thousand years after Christ, they are the same in their character. They are basically insensitive to the seriousness of their offenses against God. Therefore, they are also insensitive to the judgment their sins will bring them.

As you examine this passage, you will notice that sin is a personal issue. The rebellion of the people described in verse 12 was a result of the stubbornness of their own wicked hearts. “You are each one walking according to the stubbornness of his own evil heart, without listening to Me.”

The unbeliever today is in the same situation. If you tell him about the seriousness of his sinfulness before God and the fact that his sinfulness is going to lead him to hell, he does not want to hear it. “That is just your interpretation!” is a common response. That simply shows the stubbornness of the individual’s evil heart. In the next chapter Jeremiah writes, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9.

God describes the consequences of their personal sinfulness: “So I will hurl you out of this land into the land which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers; and there you will serve others gods day and night, for I shall grant you no favor.” Jeremiah 16:13. It is as though God is saying, “This is my land. If you want to worship other gods, fine. I will kick you out of my land so you can go into theirs. I will send you to Babylon where you can worship their gods. Then see how you like it!” Their judgment is fit punishment for their sins. God says they are not free to bring other gods into His land. He will send them to another nation where they can serve other gods, but He will not allow them to look to Him for favor.

In the midst of the severe warnings of judgment, verses 14 and 15 give a tremendous glimpse of the grace of God. In the margin beside these verses in your Bible, you can describe them simply with the word “grace”. In the midst of all the gloom there is a ray of sunshine and hope. God makes a promise of restoration after the judgment. His grace will again be operative on behalf of Israel.

After reading verse 13, you get the feeling that God is done with the nation Israel. But God’s promise of dealing with the nation in mercy stands out clearly in verses 14 and 15: “‘Therefore behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when it will no longer be said, “As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,” but “As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north and from all the countries where He had banished them.” For I will restore them to their own land which I gave to their fathers.’” God will bring judgment, but He will also be merciful.

Earlier Jeremiah talked about the same thing: “In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers as an inheritance. Then I said, ‘How I would set you among My sons, and give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful inheritance of the nations!’ And I said, ‘You shall call Me, My Father, and not turn away from following Me.’” Jeremiah 3:18-19.

The prophet Ezekiel also describes this restoration of the nation in Ezekiel 11:14-20: “Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Son of man, your brothers, your relatives, your fellow exiles, and the whole house of Israel, all of them, are those to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, “Go far from the Lord; this land has been given us as a possession.” Therefore say, “Thus says the Lord God, ‘Though I had removed them far away among the nations, and though I had scattered them among the countries, yet I was a sanctuary for them a little while in the countries where they had gone.’” Therefore say, “Thus says the Lord God, ‘I shall gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries among which you have been scattered, and I shall give you the land of Israel.’” When they come there, they will remove all its detestable things and all its abominations from it. And I shall give them one heart and shall put a new spirit within them. And I shall take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God.’”

In this passage God promises to bring the nation back to Israel after the Babylonian Captivity. However, this looks beyond the Babylonian Captivity to its ultimate fulfillment when the nation will be restored in the messianic kingdom that Christ will rule from Jerusalem.

An amillennial commentator, one who does not believe in a literal future for Israel in an earthly kingdom, wrote, “Well, of course, through the Old Testament God had not yet rejected His people finally for good. That does not happen until the New Testament.” However, the Apostle Paul makes it clear that God has not rejected His people forever. The background for God’s promise is the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 12. Paul addresses Israel’s future in Romans 11: “I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew” vv. 1-2. God has chosen the nation Israel for Himself. He cannot reject them.

Paul continues his discourse on this subject: “For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in; and thus all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, ‘THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB. AND THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.’ From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” Romans 11:25-29.

God called the nation Israel as His own special people and chose them in an irrevocable decision. He cannot go back on that choice. He cannot replace them with a spiritual group because His call went to the seed of Abraham. The promises were made to the nation Israel, so there is yet a future restoration as God will bring the nation back to their homeland. But there is a terrible judgment yet on the horizon. The worst judgment is still to come, known as the Great Tribulation, where God will bring devastating judgment on them one more time to prepare them for the coming of His Messiah.

So in the midst of gloom, there is hope. God is not saying that He is writing off the nation forever, but there will come a time when God will bring them back again.

Jeremiah 16:16-18 brings us back again to the subject of judgment. There is a ray of hope for Israel, but the real issue is not Israel’s future, but the judgment that Israel deserves, the judgment of which they are standing on the very brink. “‘Behold, I am going to send for many fishermen,’ declares the Lord, ‘and they will fish for them; and afterwards I shall send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and from the clefts of the rocks. For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity concealed from My eyes’” Jeremiah16:16-17.

The hunters in this description are not going to draw the people back to the land to restore them. Rather, they are seeking them to take them captive. The reason, according to verse 17, is that God has seen their iniquity. Proverbs 15:3 says, “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, watching the evil and the good.” God sees every act and every move. He has beheld all their sinful deeds. We sometimes say that God is too holy to behold sin. It is true that He cannot look upon sin with favor or acceptance, but He does see every sin. Jeremiah 16:17 tells us that God sees every sin of the nation Israel.

Verse 18 continues with the description of judgment that will fall upon them: “And I will first doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted My land; they have filled My inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable idols and with their abominations.” Jeremiah 16:18. In a rather picturesque way, God refers to their idols as carcasses. They are just like dead bodies which pollute the land. Leviticus 26:30 indicates that dead bodies pollute the land, so God gives instructions in that passage for cleansing from the pollution of those bodies. That makes clear for us why God refers to their idols as carcasses which pollute His land in Jeremiah 16:18.

Verses 19-21 bring us again to restoration, but restoration of a different kind. The nation Israel will be re-gathered into the land during the Millennium as all nations of the earth will be drawn to worship Jesus Christ as the King of the world. Verses 19 and 20 speak of this promise of restoration for the nations: “O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of distress, to Thee the nations [goy, Gentiles] will come from the ends of the earth and say, ‘Our fathers have inherited nothing but falsehood, futility and things of no profit.’ Can man make gods for himself? Yet they are not gods!” Jeremiah 16:19-20. The Gentiles, in contrast to the nation Israel, will recognize the futility of their idols and will turn to Jesus Christ, Israel’s Messiah, and seek and experience salvation in Him.

This salvation of the Gentiles is a recurring theme throughout the Old Testament prophets. Isaiah 2:2-4 is one passage which speaks of this: “Now it will come about that in the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that He may teach us concerning His ways, and that we may walk in His paths.’ For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war.”

The context of this passage is in the Millennium when Jesus Christ is ruling on the earth. The nations will be streaming into Jerusalem to hear the word of God from Him. This passage has nothing to do with disarmament today. Anyone who tries to beat his weapons of warfare into instruments of farming today is destined for ruin. To apply these verses to today is to remove them from their context.

According to this passage, the Gentile nations of the earth will experience God’s salvation as they will be a part of the millennial kingdom. The kingdom which the Messiah will establish will be Jewish in character in that the Jews will be the central people of the earth. The capital of the world will be Jerusalem, but the nations of the earth in existence at that time will be subject to Jesus Christ, the Messiah. They will come to Jerusalem, the capital of the world, to offer their worship and adoration of Him as the King.

Another Old Testament prophet who wrote of this restoration of the Gentile nations is Zechariah. He wrote in chapter 8: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘It will yet be that peoples will come, even the inhabitants of many cities. And the inhabitants of one will go to another saying, “Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts; I will also go.” So many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord.’ Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘In those days ten men from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew saying, “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you”’” Zechariah 8:20-23. Verse 20 emphasizes how the Gentiles have realized the futility of the idols they have been worshiping. They have finally come to see that there is no God other than the true God.

The nations of the earth will recognize that the Jews are God’s chosen people and will want to identify with them. This is the opposite of present-day anti-Semitism. Ten Gentiles will be holding onto a Jew because they recognize the Jews are God’s favorite people, and they will want to be identified with them. So the Millennium will include Jews and Gentiles in a kingdom that is ruled by Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

The conclusion of it all is found in Jeremiah 16:21. This verse gives us the reason why God is judging the people and why He is going to restore them. “Therefore behold, I am going to make them know—this time I will make them know My power and My might; and they shall know My name is the Lord” v. 21. As a result, Jews and Gentiles alike will recognize God to be God. Through all of these events, God is working all things for His glory. To know His name as “Yahweh,” Jehovah, the Lord, is to understand His character because the name is a revelation of His character. These people will know Him as the all-powerful God, the only God who brings salvation. In all of this God has a purpose—to bring people to the point of bowing down and acknowledging Him as sovereign God and King.

In spite of Jeremiah’s crying out for God to give him an easier ministry, God did not change the character of that prophet’s ministry. He still experienced great hardship as he served the Lord. In order to be effective in his ministry, Jeremiah had to undergo great discomfort and inconveniences. I do not have a prophet’s ministry today and neither do you. Praise God for that! I cannot say that I wish I were a prophet in Jeremiah’s time. The prophets suffered great opposition. But we ought to be reminded that in our service for the Lord, we must be willing to be used of God in whatever way He can use us most effectively. We look for easy ways of ministry and service, but we must be willing to apply ourselves with diligence even though the Lord may give us a hard or difficult ministry. What we do may bring no glory to us, but it will be accomplishing God’s purpose.

Through our lives God may bring people to the point of recognizing who He is. In this way we will be bringing glory to Him. We are merely instruments in His hands through whom men, women and young people may come to recognize that He alone is God and only in Him is salvation found. If we are faithful to Him in that way, the privilege of bringing people to faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior is worth any inconvenience.

It is interesting that God does not tell Jeremiah that He will take away the inconveniences as Jeremiah serves Him. But He tells Jeremiah that he must be willing to trust God and let Him provide the strength and protection he needs. Then God will use him to accomplish His purposes.

In the midst of it all, we still see the gracious hand of God. Through these circumstances God is going to do some strong and severe things, but even in those things God’s mercy will be evident. He has promised future salvation to the nation of Israel. He has also promised salvation in the future for Gentiles, but that salvation is available only when they recognize who God is and trust Him rather than the gods they have been worshiping.