Personal Study And Teaching In Jeremiah – Part 9 – Judah The Harlot Blinded By Sin Polluted The Land Series

PERSONAL STUDY AND TEACHING IN JEREMIAH – PART 9 – JUDAH THE HARLOT BLINDED BY SIN POLLUTED THE LAND

PART 9 - Jeremiah 2:36 – 3:1-5

CHAPTERS 2 AND 3

[A]. THEIR END WILL COME IN REJECTION – GOD REJECTS THE NATIONS ON WHOM JUDAH RELIES

{{Jeremiah 2:36-37 “Why do you go around so much changing your way? Also, you shall be put to shame by Egypt as you were put to shame by Assyria. From this place also you shall go out with your hands on your head, for the LORD has rejected those in whom you trust, and you shall not prosper with them.”}}

The prophet challenges them regarding their indecisiveness and their fickleness and their instability. They are always changing their ways. An unstable man or nation is always changing procedures and patterns and laws. The nation in its last days was forever switching from one allegiance to another, to one god from another. They had done away with the absolutes of God, so they were on sandy ground and grasped one thing after another as they came along, in their endeavour not to sink further into uncertainty and meaninglessness. Any person without God lives a meaningless and uncertain life.

The Christian has the hope of God abiding in his soul and that is certainty. We live in times when uncertainty has overtaken us, as nations pursue all the latest fads because they have no stability and latch onto what appears trendy and popular. This is a recipe for failure for God wants certainty and stability.

Jeremiah asked the question but Judah had no answer. It could not answer because it was blind to the root of its problem, and indifferent to its solution. It was bound up in idolatry and all reason and godliness had gone. The prophets thundered but the words were empty to souls seared by false Baalism. The prophets were killed and persecuted for the nation had no sense of right or wrong.

It was Isaiah who said, {{Isaiah 5:20 “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.”}} They knew not evil from good. There were none righteous, no, not one of them. Judah had changed allegiance from God to Assyria, then to Egypt thinking that would help them against Assyria and the growing power of Babylon. Assyria had failed them in the past and Egypt would do so in the future. Earlier in verse 18 Jeremiah spoke of the roads to Assyria and Egypt. All this had come about because they had cast aside Jehovah and adopted the strange gods of the nations.

Verse 37 tells us God has rejected Egypt so Judah will not prosper in its new connection with Egypt. Egypt is a broken reed and Judah can not lean on it for security. It will pierce the nation’s hand and wound them to become prey for Babylon. The nation is finished and in that last verse of the chapter the message is one of defeat. The defeated captives will be paraded out with hands on heads to show submission and they’d be led away to Babylon. Among them would be Daniel and a remnant of others who did trust the true God and had not bowed down to idols. Their hands on their heads was a sign of national defeat but the faithful ones were victors with the Lord in their hearts.

[B]. JUDAH IS THE ACCEPTING HARLOT WHO POLLUTED THE LAND

{{Jeremiah 3:1 God says, “If a husband divorces his wife and she goes from him and belongs to another man, will he still return to her? Will not that land be completely polluted? Nonetheless you are a harlot with many lovers yet you turn to Me,” declares the LORD.

Verse 1. The chapter opens with another question where marriage is used as the example. The nation is asked if a husband who divorces his wife and she then remains with another husband, would she return to her first husband? Now we know that is most unlikely, for a husband who divorces is not likely to accept the first woman back. That is the way of the world. However it is God and the nation in view here, and with God, things work differently.

God had divorced the nation, for the wife of Jehovah had been with many idolatrous lovers, and has committed gross spiritual adultery. God divorced the nation and it has spent ages in the arms of other men. In fact for 2500 years almost, Israel has continued in the state of divorcement, and will continue as such until the Jews supernaturally turn to the Lord in repentance, and come back into His presence, all after the Rapture). The answer to Jeremiah’s question then is, “Yes.” The Lord accepts the wife back again and she will remain with Him forever as the wife of Jehovah. In Israel’s absence the Lord has sought a Gentile Bride, then in eternity, Jew and Gentile will be surrounded by the love of the Husband/Bridegroom.