Sermon from Pastor Russ Falk | Worship leader: Tawnya Hons (songs below)
Passage: Jeremiah 8 and 9 | From the Sermon Series "The Person God Uses".
Video will be available Sunday, November 13 at 10:15 am
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Songs and supplementary scripture this week:
There is a Balm in Gilead, Hymn, Jeremiah 8:22
Lord From Sorrows Deep I Call, Matt Papa and Matt Boswell, Psalm 42
How Deep the Father's Love For Us, Stuart Townend, Jeremiah 9:23-24
Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy, Hymn (Norton Hall Band), Luke 15:18
PASSAGE: Jeremiah 8:1 - 9:26 (CSB)
CHAPTER 8
Death over Life
1 “At that time”—this is the LORD’s declaration—“the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of her officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the residents of Jerusalem will be brought out of their graves. 2 They will be exposed to the sun, the moon, and all the stars in the sky, which they have loved, served, followed, consulted, and worshiped. Their bones will not be collected and buried but will become like manure on the soil’s surface. 3 Death will be chosen over life by all the survivors of this evil family, those who remain wherever I have banished them.” This is the declaration of the LORD of Armies.
4 “You are to say to them: This is what the LORD says:
Do people fall and not get up again?
If they turn away, do they not return?
5 Why have these people turned away?
Why is Jerusalem always turning away?
They take hold of deceit;
they refuse to return.
6 I have paid careful attention.
They do not speak what is right.
No one regrets his evil,
asking, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone has stayed his course
like a horse rushing into battle.
7 Even storks in the sky
know their seasons.
Turtledoves, swallows, and cranes
are aware of their migration,
but my people do not know
the requirements of the LORD.
Punishment for Judah’s Leaders
8 “How can you claim, ‘We are wise;
the law of the LORD is with us’?
In fact, the lying pen of scribes
has produced falsehood.
9 The wise will be put to shame;
they will be dismayed and snared.
They have rejected the word of the LORD,
so what wisdom do they really have?
10 Therefore, I will give their wives to other men,
their fields to new occupants,
for from the least to the greatest,
everyone is making profit dishonestly.
From prophet to priest,
everyone deals falsely.
11 They have treated the brokenness
of my dear people superficially,
claiming, ‘Peace, peace,’
when there is no peace.
12 Were they ashamed when they acted so detestably?
They weren’t at all ashamed.
They can no longer feel humiliation.
Therefore, they will fall among the fallen.
When I punish them, they will collapse,”
says the LORD.
13 “I will gather them and bring them to an end.”
This is the LORD’s declaration.
“There will be no grapes on the vine,
no figs on the fig tree,
and even the leaf will wither.
Whatever I have given them will be lost to them.”
God’s People Unrepentant
14 Why are we just sitting here?
Gather together; let’s enter the fortified cities
and perish there,
for the LORD our God has destroyed us.
He has given us poisoned water to drink,
because we have sinned against the LORD.
15 We hoped for peace, but there was nothing good;
for a time of healing, but there was only terror.
16 From Dan, the snorting of horses is heard.
At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds,
the whole land quakes.
They come to devour the land and everything in it,
the city and all its residents.
17 Indeed, I am about to send snakes among you,
poisonous vipers that cannot be charmed.
They will bite you.
This is the LORD’s declaration.
Lament over Judah
18 My joy has flown away;
grief has settled on me.
My heart is sick.
19 Listen—the cry of my dear people
from a faraway land,
“Is the LORD no longer in Zion,
her King not within her?”
Why have they angered me
with their carved images,
with their worthless foreign idols?
20 Harvest has passed, summer has ended,
but we have not been saved.
21 I am broken by the brokenness
of my dear people.
I mourn; horror has taken hold of me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
So why has the healing of my dear people
not come about?
CHAPTER 9
1 If my head were a flowing spring,
my eyes a fountain of tears,
I would weep day and night
over the slain of my dear people.
2 If only I had a traveler’s lodging place
in the wilderness,
I would abandon my people
and depart from them,
for they are all adulterers,
a solemn assembly of treacherous people.
3 They bent their tongues like their bows;
lies and not faithfulness prevail in the land,
for they proceed from one evil to another,
and they do not take me into account.
This is the LORD’s declaration.
Imminent Ruin and Exile
4 Everyone has to be on guard against his friend.
Don’t trust any brother,
for every brother will certainly deceive,
and every friend spread slander.
5 Each one betrays his friend;
no one tells the truth.
They have taught their tongues to speak lies;
they wear themselves out doing wrong.
6 You live in a world of deception.
In their deception they refuse to know me.
This is the LORD’s declaration.
7 Therefore, this is what the LORD of Armies says:
I am about to refine them and test them,
for what else can I do
because of my dear people?
8 Their tongues are deadly arrows—
they speak deception.
With his mouth
one speaks peaceably with his friend,
but inwardly he sets up an ambush.
9 Should I not punish them for these things?
This is the LORD’s declaration.
Should I not avenge myself
on such a nation as this?
10 I will raise weeping and a lament
over the mountains,
a dirge over the wilderness grazing land,
for they have been so scorched
that no one passes through.
The sound of cattle is no longer heard.
From the birds of the sky to the animals,
everything has fled—they have gone away.
11 I will make Jerusalem a heap of rubble,
a jackals’ den.
I will make the cities of Judah a desolation,
an uninhabited place.
12 Who is the person wise enough to understand this? Who has the LORD spoken to, that he may explain it? Why is the land destroyed and scorched like a wilderness, so no one can pass through?
13 The LORD said, “It is because they abandoned my instruction, which I set before them, and did not obey my voice or walk according to it. 14 Instead, they followed the stubbornness of their hearts and followed the Baals as their ancestors taught them.” 15 Therefore, this is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “I am about to feed this people wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink. 16 I will scatter them among the nations that they and their ancestors have not known. I will send a sword after them until I have finished them off.”
Mourning over Judah
17 This is what the LORD of Armies says:
Consider, and summon the women who mourn;
send for the skillful women.
18 Let them come quickly to raise a lament over us
so that our eyes may overflow with tears,
our eyelids be soaked with weeping.
19 For a sound of lamentation is heard from Zion:
How devastated we are.
We are greatly ashamed,
for we have abandoned the land;
our dwellings have been torn down.
20 Now hear the word of the LORD, you women.
Pay attention to the words from his mouth.
Teach your daughters a lament
and one another a dirge,
21 for Death has climbed through our windows;
it has entered our fortresses,
cutting off children from the streets,
young men from the squares.
22 “Speak as follows: ‘This is what the LORD declares: Human corpses will fall like manure on the surface of the field, like newly cut grain after the reaper with no one to gather it.
Boast in the LORD
23 “‘This is what the LORD says:
The wise person should not boast in his wisdom;
the strong should not boast in his strength;
the wealthy should not boast in his wealth.
24 But the one who boasts should boast in this:
that he understands and knows me—
that I am the LORD, showing faithful love,
justice, and righteousness on the earth,
for I delight in these things.
This is the LORD’s declaration.
25 “‘Look, the days are coming—this is the LORD’s declaration—when I will punish all the circumcised yet uncircumcised: 26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair on their temples. All these nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.’”