[As we look at his section of Jeremiah, again I would ask that you get your Bible out and follow along!]
Perhaps you have read, or watched a show, or even more powerfully seen in person or experienced, someone, let’s say a son or daughter, who realizes that they have done wrong, and they go to their father and throw themselves before him, begging for forgiveness, begging to be received back into his good graces…But the father…
…The father did not “run down the road” to embrace his prodigal…the father did not do as did the father in our Savior’s parable…naturally and quickly forgive, embrace and weep with his child. Rather, he stood there…cold as a stone…watching his child beg and plead. You are right to conclude that something is wrong, seriously wrong.
This was the experience of Hattie Wesley, Charles and John Wesley’s sister. She ran off when a man in defiance of her father, and came home broken, filled with sorrow, and expecting a child. She begged her father for forgiveness, begged for mercy and kindness…but he gave her none. And she lived a very sad and difficult life, never getting back into her father’s favor.
But what about a father, who pursues and begs the child to repent? What do you think of the father who is rejected over and over again, and yet he continues to come, he continues to plead and continues to wait?
The history of God’s people tells us that this is not merely a picture of God, or that this is like God, no…this IS God. This is who God is. He is the pursuing, chasing down, Father of mercy. I confess that over the last many months I have heard, watched and experienced God’s mercy in such profound ways that I don’t even know how to try and express it. What kind of God is this, who shows such mercy to stubborn, willful, rebellious children?
This morning we have more of Israel’s rebellion and yet, underlying all her cheating, idolatry, stubborn refusal to be drawn back to love, we find the Father, we find mercy, we see love, begging, pleading with them to come home. We will read of the Lord’s stern judgments being pronounced, warnings issued, but do not miss that underneath it all, is a Father’s love.
In our text at least 15 times we find the Lord using the word ‘turn’. Turn to, turn away, turn toward, as in return, return to the Lord! Scholar Mark Boda wrote an entire book called, “Return to Me”,that chronicles the cry of the OT prophets who, speaking for Yahweh, over and over again begging God’s people, pleading with them to return to the Lord. God pleads with His people…I love you…come home.
Listen to the words of Jeremiah, first preached all those years ago in Jerusalem, and then again to exiles in Babylon and listen to them as they still speak in our day. “These words give us a glimpse into the pathos of God’s broken-hearted longing for intimacy with His people.” (Wright)
Don’t get me wrong, these words also shout a warning to us of the cost and shame of going our own way, of our affections being given to anything or anyone else, but always with a call to come home.
READ 3:6-11
To really understand the Lord’s warning in these verses we have to remember our history. The northern kingdom, which went by the name Israel, had fallen to the Samaritans in 722. Judah, the Southern kingdom, had watched as her sister, Israel, rebelled against the Lord. And what did they learn from watching their brothers and sisters turn away from the Lord? Nothing, they learned nothing at all.
What the Lord says in verses 10-11 insulted the people of Judah greatly, which is what always happens when there is no humility in the face of one’s sin. When confronted, when sin stares you in the face you will either buckle, see yourself clearly and seek the Lord’s mercy…Or, you will become defensive. How dare they say that to me, how dare they try and tell me that what I did was wicked or displeasing to God, who do they think they are?
Well, the Lord tells Judah, not that they are as bad as their sister Israel…no…the Lord says, they are worse! In fact, in verse 11, he says that they are so bad that they actually make Israel look righteous by comparison. The prophet Ezekiel will say something similar to Judah but even ratchet it up even more, telling Judah that they are worse than Sodom and Gomorrah! (Ez. 16) And you will recall that Jesus himself offended his hometown with the same unflattering comparison.
Why? What did they do that was worse? It wasn’t that what they were doing was so profoundly different than the northern kingdom…it was that they watched what Israel did…they watched what the Lord’s response when Israel wouldn’t repent…And then, in arrogance did the same thing thinking that they would be fine…that the Lord would just wink at their rebellion. The Lord says to them, “Did you learn nothing?” Yea…nothing.
Well, maybe even worse than nothing. Look at verse 10. Two things that they did, two things that are very much a temptation for every one of us.
First, in verse 9, she took her sin, her whoredom, lightly. She treated her sin, maybe as sin, maybe acknowledging that it wasn’t exactlywhat she should have been doing, but did not see it, her sin for what it truly was and therefore, did not see herself clearly. The people made light of sin. Do you not think that is a problem in our day? And by that, I don’t simply mean, ‘out there’ in the larger Christian community, but I mean, in here and by in here, I mean ‘in here’, in your heart and mine?
Why do you think we do that? I guess it could be because we are that proud. It could be that we compare ourselves to others and think that since we are not as bad, not as faithless as others, we are, relatively speaking, ok. Or perhaps, we cannot bear to look honestly at ourselves because it demoralizes us. Maybe it is too difficult, maybe the reality, not that we don’t know it, but that in admitting it we simply want to throw up our hands and give up.
In both cases the problem is that we are too filled with ourselves and don’t understand, don’t really understand the work of God in Jesus Christ. As the hymn writer said: Ye who think of sin but lightly, nor suppose the evil great, here, (at the cross) may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate.
More to this in a moment, but for now, simply consider that the cross of Jesus, the Lamb who was slain, if we really understand what God was doing and why, demolishes all pride and all self-pity. We see mercy…we see grace…we see the heart of God who says, come home.
The second thing we see in Judah is pretense. Look in verse 10, they returned but only in pretense. So, they nodded their head at repentance, but did not, as Jeremiah says, repent, or return to the Lord with their whole heart.
Some years ago, when the children were little and Dana had to keep track of all 6 of them while I was busy on Sunday being the pastor, she had told one of my sons that he was NOT to get any hot tea to drink before Sunday school. This particular child was putting 10 packets of sugar into a small paper cup and adding a little tea to his sugar and then bouncing off the walls for the next hour and a half. So, Dana was clear, no tea. About 10 minutes after she emphatically told the boy no more tea, she sees him walking away from the coffee and tea table, with a cup of something in his hand, stirring the contents. This was in direct disobedience. She said to the child, who shall remain nameless, she said; Joey, didn’t I tell you no tea?”
And Joey responded, “Oh, this isn’t tea, this just looks like tea.” To which the response was something like, “Well, this isn’t a spanking it just feels like a spanking.”
That story always makes us laugh, it even makes Joey laugh. But in Jeremiah, there is little to cause us to don a smile. There is a coming home that is not really a coming home. There is a returning to the Lord that is not really returning to Him, it only looks like it is. So, how do you know? How do you know, if your repentance is real and whole-hearted? Brother…sister…if you really want to know…you will know.
Despite all of this, it is still the Lord who seeks out the rebellious one. The Lord initiates and calls us, even when He would be perfectly right to just be done with us, still, He calls us to return, such is the depth and persistence of God’s love for His people.
Prayer: Father, I pray that you would keep me from repentance that is not genuine; keep me from flattering myself with words that do not bear themselves out in my living. Give me a true and humble heart to see clearly and to bow with my face to the ground when encountering Your love and grace which seem to be an ocean that has not bottom. May my words be true and my life a living illustration of Your kindness, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Chant: Open to Me the Doors of Repentance
