1988 issue 4-5 - jeremiah: judgment and restoration, part v - counsel of chalcedon

8/12/2019 1988 Issue 4-5 - Jeremiah: Judgment and Restoration, Part V - Counsel of Chalcedon

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The Mission

o

eremiah

(Jeremiah

1:1-19

I. (1:1-3) The Identity and Time of Jere

miah

II. (1:4-19) The Divine Call

of

Jere

miah

A.

(1:4-5) The PredestinationofJere

miah

1.

(1:4) The Origin in the Call

God does not look for his

material, he himself creates it

to

suit

his own purpose. He was determined to

have a prophet to the nations, as long

as nations existed on the earth, so, with

that in mind, he formed and shaped Jere

miah, spiritually and physically.

2. (1:5) The Goal of the Call: a

prophet to the nations

The prophetic word

of

God

is

not restricted to the O.T. Jews. It

is

ad

dressed to the nations

of

the world. see

Jer. 46-51.

B. (1:6) The Humility of Jeremiah

Jeremiah

is

an intensely human

personality, a man whom we can un

derstand and love, and yet a person en

dowed with such mysterious power

from on high that we

at times are over

awed by his grandeur. Jeremiah, so hu

manly weak, and yet so divinely ftrm;

his love so humanly tender, and at the

same time so divinely holy; his eyes

streaming with tears at beholding the -

fliction about to come upon his people,

yet sparkling with fiery indignation

against their sins and abominations; his

lips overflowing with sympathy for the

daughter

of

Zion, only to pronounce

upon her almost in the same breath the

judgment and condemnation she so ful

ly deserved. Truly so remarkable and

powerful a personality, at the same

time so lovable, that we cannot fail to

recognize in him an instrument especial

ly chosen and prepared by the God

of

grace and strength and wisdom. -

Laetsch.

C. (1:7-9) The Promise of Jehovah

1. (1:7) The Authority

of

God

When Judah resisted Jere

miah's word, they were resisting Jeho

vah's Word

2. (1:8) The Presence of God

3. (1:9) The Words

of

God (put

by God in Jeremiah's mouth)

a. God creates in the mind

of

the prophet the words which will be

spoken. These words are God's word,

which is God's power that effects God's

purpose.

b. (36: 1f) God commits his

word to writing for our sake.

D. (1:10) The Nature of the Mission

1. (1:10a) Destruction (of all

anti-Christian thought)

2. (1:10b) Reconstruction: Com

plete destruction must precede Recon

struction of all thought by the word of

God)

E. (1:11-19) The Encouragement by

Jehovah

1. (1:11-12) The Guarantee of

Success

No preacher or witness of the

gospel should ever forget that he is the

messenger of him who watches over his

word, so that no promise

or

threat will

go unfulfilled.

2. (1:13-16) The Message of

Judgment

a. Jeremiah is given a pan

oramic view of world events for the

next four decades and the seething

waters

of

God's wrath upon the apostate

nation

of

Judah. -Laetsch.

b. In all these events Jere

miah sees the Lord GodAlmighty direct

ing the history

of

the world and the

church according to the good pleasure of

his holy will.

c. I will utter my judg

ments, vs. 16, is a phrase peculiar to

Jeremiah, 4:12; 12:1; 39:5; 52:9. It

includes the entire judicial proceedings,

from the indictment to the execution of

the final judgment The Lord

is

the su

preme Judge, who is at the same time

the testifying Witness, the prosecuting

Attorney, and the Executor

of

his judg

ment -Laetsch.

3. (1:17-19) The Promise of Se-

curity

a.

The Lord promises to sup

ply his servant with all that is neces

sary to his mission and all the duties

involved in

i t

God demands much of

Jeremiah, but he gives more.

b. Jeremiah will be an im

pregnable, inaccessible, well-protected

city, whose prophetic word will not be

overthrown

by

his enemies.

III. (2-52) The Message

of

Jeremiah

A. (2-20) The Exposure and Denun

ciation of Sin (in Judah)

B. (21-29) The Announcement

of

the Certainty of Judgment

C. (30-33) The Prophecy of Forgive

ness and Restoration

The Counsel of Chalcedon, April-May,

1988--------------------------

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D. (34-45) The History of the Inflic

tion

of

Punishment

E. (46-52) The Prophecies Against

the N a t i o n ~

CONCLUSION:

1 UNDERSTANDING OUR TIMES.

Jeremiah sought to analyze the ways in

which his culture was turning away

from God. He focussed on the inade

quacy

of

mere external religion, the

apostasy of the church, the absurd idola

try of the nation, and the tendency of

people to seek meaning and security

apart from Jehovah and the revelation of

his will. We are to do the same. (Read

IDOLS FOR DESTRUCTION

by

Herb

Schlossberg. Francis Schaeffer points

out in his good book on Jeremiah, en

titled, DEATH IN THE CITY: Turn

ing away

to

false theology is equal to

turning away to false gods. )

2. RESPONDING TO OUR TIMES.

Having acquired a thoroughly biblical

understanding

of

the era in which we

live, we, like Jeremiah, are called by

his God, and ours, to a similar prophe

tic ministry:

a. We

must say that our time, like

Jeremiah's, is a time when a negative

message of judgment is needed before

anything positive can be said. This is

true on two levels: First, we must tear

down self-pride and self-righteousness

in the unbeliever before we can point

him

to

the forgiveness and restoration

found in Christ through faith; and

Second, we must tear down the anti

christian world-view and establishment,

before we can reconstruct a Christian

world-view and establishment in our na

tion.

b.

We

must face the fact that our

American culture is under the judgment

of Almighty God. Our sickness will

not be healed easily or lightly. And we

must proclaim this message with Jere

maic tears. We must cry for our poor,

lost nation and world.

c. If we say . we believe biblical

truth, we must live biblical truth, re

gardless of the persecution. Jeremiah

condemned mere external correctness

without the captivity of the heart

to

God, his covenant and his word. With

our orthodoxy must come our ortho

praxy.

d. We must realize that knowing and

practicing biblical truth will

be

costly,

as

it

was to

Jeremiah.

e. We must keep on preaching, be

lieving and practicing biblical truth,

even if the price

is

high. There is noth

ing in the Bible that says we are

to

stop.

f.

Our day

is

not totally unique.

Time after time Christian cultures have

thrown themselves away. Take, for ex

ample, the church

of the apostle

Thomas in India.

It

began

to

whittle

away at the truth. So the church largely

died. There are two ways to bring about

such a death: one is to compromise the

truth and the other to have a (compla

cent) dead orthodoxy. Both can equally

grind down and destroy the message

of

a

church in a generation, especially

if

the

generation is hard. Do we realize that in

China at about the year A.D. 800 there

were Christian churches in almost every

single great city? Do we realize that

there were hundreds

of

Christians in the

Arabian peninsula just before Moham

med in AD 550? Why was it that Mo

hammedanism was able to rush over

that country? Because

of military force?

No. When Mohammed came forward

and looked at the Christians he said,

'There is nothing here.' And he

was

largely right Mohammedanism started

and it swept that portion

of

the world.

The same thing was true with the

church in North Africa, and the primi

tive church in Armenia, in Georgia, in

Gaul. In each

of

these places there

was

a Christian church and a growing Chris

tian culture but the church collapsed.

The pattern is clear: defection and then

destruction.'' -Francis Schaeffer,

DEATH IN THE CITY, pg. 75.

THE APOSTASY

OF JUDAH

Jeremiah 2

INTRODUCTION

Chapter

two is

dominated by

two

emphases:

First, the prophet's charge of flag

rant, inexcusable and incomprehensible

apostasy by Judah.

Second, the arraignment ofJudah

by

the Lord in a covenant lawsuit because

they,

as

God's people, had turned away

from

him

and had offended against

his

covenant, and therefore stood under his

judgment.

EXPOSffiON

A (2:1-3) The Malignant Depravity of

Ingratitude

1 (2:1-2) God recalls Israel's

un

failing youthful devotion (Hebrew

hesed) in their early days at Mt. Sinai,

when they accepted

the Mosaic Cove-

. nant. Then they loved God alone and

sought no political alliances with pagan

lover nations. In those early

days

they

were the loyal, but not perfect, bride of

Jehovah. And God's covenant-devotion

hesed) to them far surpassed theirs for

him.

2. (2:3) Separated to God

as

the

frrstfruits

of

the harvest, Israel be

longed entirely and exclusively to Jeho

vah. All they had and all they produced

came from him. As his frrstfruits they

were God's special portion and under his

special protection. Therefore anyone

who harmed them would suffer dire con

sequences. Jeremiah is probably refer

ring to the corrupting influence- of Ca

naanite B aalism.

B.

(2:4-8) The Malignant Depravity of

Ignorance

1 In this chapter we see this se

quence: (v. 2-3) Israel's early devotion;

(v. 4-13) Israel's apostasy; (v. 14-19)

the

tragic results

of

apostasy.

2. The seeds

of

Israel's apostasy

were present all the way back in those

early days, and

was

never fully dealt

with. Their defection did not just begin

with Manasseh.

3. Israel kept trying

to

excuse their

failures by trying

to

find fault with

God, which

was

futile. Pursuing emp

ty phantoms they became empty,''

(NEB), and going after worthlessness,

they became worthless, (RSV), andfol-

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-----------The

Counsel

of

Chalcedon,

p r i l ~

May,

:1988


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a lawsuit against himself. Instead he

takes up his covenant lawsuit against

Judah for her rebellion against

him.

2. (2:30) Judah will not accept

correction.

It

only hardened them. They

tlimed on God's prophets and killed

them, trying to silence God, which is

impossible.

3. (2:31) God shows Judah she has

no reason to turn from him. He had

been their sustenance, hope and source

of

victory, yet they desired to be "free"

from him, desiring to follow their will,

not his. Judah is determined to maintain

her rebellion: "We will never come

back to you " How can it be in the

light of all Goo had done for them?

4. (2:32) The seemingly impossible

had happened. The young bride forgot

her bridal jewelry and bridal sash, which

was the equivalent to a wedding ring.

So Judah had forgotten and turned from

those things which marked her out as

God's covenant people. She had dis

carded the Covenant, which had com

mitted her to total unshared loyalty to

Jehovah. This reprehensible sin of for

getting God's past favors is a constant

prophetic theme: Dt. 8:11; 8:19; 32:18;

Psa. 78:11; 106:13,21; Isa. 17:10.

5 (2:33) Judah had "schooled" and

"indoctrinated" herself in pursuing "lov-

ers," i.e., false gods, instead

of

school

ing herself in remaining loyal

to

Jeho

vah, her husband. The use of sexually

loaded terms like "love," "lover," and

"harlot,"

is

frequent in the prophets:

3:1; 3:6,8; 4:30; 22:20; Hos. 2:2-13;

3:3; 4:15; Ezek. 16:15; 16:16,28,31-

34, 35-37, 39,41; 23:5; 23:19,44.

6. (2:34-35) Judah became guilty

also

of

shedding the blood of innocent

people, Jer. 26:20-23; I Kings 21:16;

Neb. 9:26. In spite of their claims of

innocency, these murders were without

excuse and deserved whatever came

upon them. God will punish them for

claiming

to

be innocent, and for saying

that they did not stray from the path of

covenant duties. They deliberately mis

sed the path.

7. (2:36-37) Jeremiah confronts Ju

dah with her capricious and thoughtless

change of direction. He

asks

them

whether it is wise to do so with no re

gard for the consequences of such an atti

tude. Turning away from Jehovah's

sovereignty they were doomed

to

dis

aster. Both Egypt and Assyria would

fail them. There would be no help in

either of them for Judah, for Jehovah,

who ruled the course

of

history had

rejected those in whom Judah trusted.D

. ._

., _... -:

~

((J;JOW HOW

vJ 1

CAN StiUTlHeM

OVJN

. t.I:TS lEL,L- U i ~

SUf REM6

COURT 1H6

O N C ~ R S

f .LWAYS oPeN

H I : : I I : ~ PICT

Wllii

PM'IR "

Page 26 . . ; .. . Th e Counsel of Chalcedon, April-May, 1988

1988 issue 4-5 - jeremiah: judgment and restoration, part v - counsel of chalcedon

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