Jeremiah 2:1
A Case Against The People
We are still at the beginning of Jeremiah’s first message to the
nations. Now we turn to see the some of the sins that Judah had been
committing.
Outline:
I. \\#Jer 1:1-19\\ Jeremiah’s Calling
A. \\#1:1-3\\ Jeremiah’s Background
B. \\#1:4:10\\ Jeremiah’s Commission
1. \\#1:4-5\\ What God FORMED Jeremiah to do.
2. \\#1:6-9\\ What God ENABLED Jeremiah to do.
3. \\#1:10\\ What God COMMISSIONED Jeremiah to do.
C. \\#1:11-19\\ Jeremiah’s Conditioning
1. \\#1:11-12\\ Something Is About to Happen
2. \\#1:13-16\\ Something Is About to Boil Over
3. \\#1:16-19\\ Someone Needs to be Ready
II. \\#2:1-37\\ God’s Case Against Judah
A. \\#2:1-8\\ Judah Blessed but Not Satisfied
B. \\#2:11-13\\Judah Abandoned God.
C. \\#2:30\\ Judah Refused Correction
D. \\#2:9\\ Judah Called to Repentance.
E. \\#2:36-37\\ Judah Facing Judgment
As it common in prophetical books, God will make His case against the
people. This is done by describing their sins. This is one of the
reasons people do not read the prophets. They don’t like to read what
God thinks about sin. It becomes more difficult when some sins are
condemned repeatedly; however, we need to remember that it takes
repeated warning to get people’s attention.
This chapter reads something like the opening arguments in a trial.
At this point, Jeremiah will not give a lot of details about Judah’s
sin. He will just make the case that they are.
Let’s note the thoughts.
I. \\#1-8\\ Judah had been blessed but was not satisfied. God
describes both what He had done for Israel and His view of
Israel.
A. Notice their blessings:
1. These are the things God had done for Israel.
a. God protected them.
3. …all that devour him shall offend (God);
evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD.
b. God guided them.
6 Neither said they, Where is the LORD that
brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led
us through the wilderness, through a land of
deserts and of pits, through a land of drought,
and of the shadow of death, through a land that
no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?
c. God provided for them.
7 And I brought you into a plentiful country, to
eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof;
2. These things do not surprise us.
a. This is what God does.
b. He takes care of His people.
3. What does surprise me—and it always does—is God’s
view of Israel.
B. Notice God’s view of Israel.
1. Israel was holy before God and the first of all that
was His.
3 Israel was holiness unto the LORD, and the
firstfruits of his increase:
a. I get the second part.
(1) God in His sovereignty placed Israel
above all the other nations.
(2) Israel was the firstfruits, the very top of
the top, of all that was the Lord’s.
b. But when was Israel ever holy before God?
(1) When they moaned and doubted in Egypt?
(2) When they murmured and sinned time after time
in the wilderness?
(3) How about when they refused to enter the
Promised Land and so wandered for 40 years?
(4) How about during the tenure of the judge when
Israel could not go more than a generation
without turning from God and being conquered
by an enemy?
2 When, where, how did God ever see this nation as a
holy nation for more than a few years at a time?
a. They were holy because when Israel did turn back
and ask for forgiveness, God gave it to them!
b. So from God’s point of view, there were no past
wrongs. (God has very selective sight!)
c. All God sees when He looks past is a clean slate
and what you are doing right now!
C. Notice their discontent.
5 Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your
fathers found in me, that they are gone far from
me, and have walked after vanity, and are become
vain?
1. There is man’s heart of discontent again.
a. Maybe it is the law of diminishing returns.
b. Maybe it is being ungrateful, taking things for
granted.
2. But like so many of the human race, they walked away
from God.
II. \\#11-13\\Judah Abandoned God.
A. They changed Gods.
11 Hath a nation changed their gods, which are
yet no gods? but my people have changed their
glory for that which doth not profit.
12 Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be
horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the
LORD.
13 For my people have committed two evils; they
have forsaken me the fountain of living waters,
and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns,
that can hold no water.
1. Judah forsook God, the fountain of living waters.
(That is a theme definitely repeated in the NT.)
2. They relied in broken cisterns (caverns to hold
water.)
B. We are seeing how a nation does that in our day.
1. Typically. it is not a sudden, overnight change, but
it doesn’t takes but one pivot generation.
a. First generation - Believe and devoted
b. Second generation - Believe but not devoted
c. Third generation - Don’t believe
2. The first stage is not losing faith. It is losing
devotion.
a. If you do not believe and are at least as devoted
as your parents to Christ, you are the pivotal
generation.
b. The progress can take longer, but it can also be
quicker.
(1) Some generations have periods of revival.
(2) But some generations suddenly turn away all
together.
c. The demonic influences are stronger than they have
been in centuries.
(1) We are having few souls saved, and no long
lasting, generation reaching revivals.
(2) Evil is certainly increasing.
III. \\#30\\ Judah Refused Correction
30 In vain have I smitten your children; they
received no correction: your own sword hath
devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.
A. God always chastises His own! If you have not right with
God and have not felt chastisement, you are not God’s.
Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,
and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all
are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not
sons.
B. But feeling it and responding to it are two different
things.
1. Judah, like Israel, had felt it.
2. The "believing but not devoted: generation simply
refused to respond to God’s chastisement.
a. It is always the believing but not devoted
generation that refuses chastisement.
b. Why? Because they are the last of the believers!
c. They probably offered up excuses like, "That
prophet is just trying to scare us" or "That is
not going to happen."
d. One thing we know, this last generation always
minimizes their sin while maximizing God’s grace
and their liberties. That is, they never see
themselves as sinning.
35 Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent…
23 How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have
not gone after Baalim? see thy way in the valley,
know what thou hast done: thou art a swift
dromedary traversing her ways;
24 A wild ass used to the wilderness, that
snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure; in her
occasion who can turn her away? all they that
seek her will not weary themselves; in her month
they shall find her.
25 Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy
throat from thirst: but thou saidst, There is no
hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after
them will I go.
(1) \\#23\\ They do not see their wickedness.
(a) They do not see their cold-heartedness.
(b) They do not see how they have moved God
off the throne of their lives and put
some other god.
(2) \\#24\\ But they are as stubborn as a mule
about following after sin.
IV. \\#9\\ Judah Called to Repentance
9 Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith
the LORD, and with your children’s children will
I plead.
35 …Behold, I will plead with thee, because
thou sayest, I have not sinned.
A. Repentance is one of the major themes of the next chapter.
It is just alluded to in this chapter.
B. One of the stark differences of Jeremiah as compared to
Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah is that God is offering to
forgive Judah whereas He did not Israel.
1. Jeremiah is around 150 years later than Amos.
2. By Jeremiah’s time. Israel had been destroyed and
deported.
3. Judah is going down that same path.
4. But there is still hope for a delay.
a. A revival is not a stop to the downward trend.
b. It is just a delay in it.
c. God has ALWAYS known that every nation would
go against Him at some point.
d. Even the church will fall asleep. (It can only
fall so far because at the point of not being
saved, there would no longer be a church.)
V. \\#36-37\\ Judah Facing Judgment
36 Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy
way? thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as
thou wast ashamed of Assyria.
37 Yea, thou shalt go forth from him, and thine
hands upon thine head: for the LORD hath rejected
thy confidences, and thou shalt not prosper in
them.
A. The details are not given.
B. Judah had turned back and forth to Assyria and Egypt for
help, playing one side against the other.
C. Now God simply says that it will not prosper.
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