Last Bastion of a Nations Hope

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RETURN TO SYLLABUS

JEREMIAH 9
Lesson #10
GOD’S HEARTBREAK: THE LAST BASTION OF A NATION’S HOPE

• Memory verse: Jer 9:24
• In Jeremiah 9, you can see how these messages that God gave to Jeremiah affected him personally. He is feeling God’s pain.
  • As a parent that loves a child, you know the heartbreak that you feel when your child makes wrong decisions and falls into deep trouble.
    • You plead and reason concerning the consequences that will follow the child’s decisions, but the child does not listen and will not consider the consequences.
    • The child is determined to choose his own way and walk in it.
  • The parent wants to spare the child the pain he will suffer for his rebellious decisions, but the parent is helpless to change the course of events.
  • This is the situation with the nation of Judah, the Southern Kingdom. They are the rebellious child and God is the hurting parent.
    • Notice that God is helpless to change the mind of His rebellious child. Why? He is the all powerful God.
    • God gave man free will and therefore limits what He will do to intervene in man’s decisions. God bears the pain to limit His power. That is the depth of God’s unconditional love.
• Read Jer 9:1-11 Weeping over Jerusalem
  • Jeremiah laments the bloodshed to come.
    • This passage in Jeremiah reminds us of Jesus when He wept over Jerusalem.
    • Read Mat 23:37-39
    • Jeremiah desired to get away from the city so he would not have to see the sin of his people, even if it meant to live in the challenging environment of a desert.
      • But God would not have us leave the society in which He has placed us. Why? What is wrong when the believer abandons the culture and society in which he lives?
        • Some move to isolated areas of the country.
        • Some avoid jobs in certain areas of society that have been taken over by evil.
        • When believers abandon society, culture, politics, and government because of the evil run rampant, the vacuum that is created leaves that entity to more evil.
      • What should the believer do?
        • Remember that the believer should be the light and the salt in the areas of society in which the Lord places us.
        • The believer must be the means of change. He, with the direction of the Holy Spirit in him, must be the restrainer of evil.

He must call attention to the evil that exists as unacceptable.

He must bring solutions of light to change the system.

He must reclaim territory lost to the devil.

• • • Because the hearts of the people were fountains of sin, it is fit that the eyes should be fountains of tears.
  • Jeremiah laments the spiritual environment in the character of the people:
    • Jeremiah uses such words as lies, dishonesty, slander, treachery, and deceit to describe the spiritual atmosphere of his culture. (4-6)
    • Why is it important to know what the spiritual atmosphere was in Judah before the kingdom fell to Babylon?
      • The spiritual environment will tell you how well the nation will be able to survive a calamity such as an attack or the fall of the economy.
        • When times of trouble come upon the Southern Kingdom of Judah, God’s people will not be able to trust each other for help. (4)
        • In Judah there was no spirit of unity and no spirit of companionship.
      • In a culture where the character quality of integrity is built into society, people can trust each other for help when times get difficult.
        • Without the character quality of godly integrity, the base human nature rules in man’s decisions:

The trait of selfishness rules.

You can see it in times of rioting where violence and looting of homes and businesses is the rule of the day.

• • • • • Without the love of others, every person looks out for himself no matter what.
      • We can examine our own national spiritual environment in this New Testament age in comparison to Judah.
        • When society in general lacks godly integrity, the last bastion of strength for a nation is the church.
        • If the people of God in the church do not train other believers in essential godly character, a nation is lost. Such was the situation in Judah.
  • Jeremiah laments the destruction of the country.
    • The abundance of blessings God gave them when He gave them the Promised Land is destroyed by Israel’s enemy Babylon.
    • The land will be barren, the cities destroyed, and the people taken into captivity.
• Read Jer 9:12-22
  • Judah’s defensive resources: The wise, the mighty, and the rich.
    • When Jeremiah told the people about the coming destruction, they said they were trusting in their wealth and political power. They thought the city was well defended.
    • If their wealth and political power failed, they would prevail by force and courage.
    • In other words, the people say that Judah has wise men to plan battle strategy, wealth to buy the weapons, and strong, courageous men to fight the battles.
    • But Judah did not have the all powerful God, Jehovah on her side. (15)
      • They spiritually trusted in Baalim.
        • This word, Baalim, is plural of the word Baal.
        • There were many forms of the pagan god, Baal, in Israel. Each geographic location had its own form of the god, Baal. Baal-peor, Baal-berith, Baal-zebub, etc.
      • The worship of Baal was the strongest, most pervasive pagan religions in Israel. It is spoken of through all of the Old Testament.
  • God will give them wormwood and gall to drink. (15)
    • Wormwood is a bitter, nauseous substance called wolfsbane that makes a person sick.
    • Gall is a bitter substance that is the juice of hemlock. It is poisonous.
    • Of course God is speaking symbolically. In other words the experience of the destruction by Babylon would be a bitter experience that would in fact kill many of the people.
  • God will send the mourners that will mourn for the death and destruction. (18)
    • It was common in Israel to hire mourners to wail and cry at the funeral of a family member.
      • Judah will mourn the calamity but not the sin that brought the calamity.
      • Jeremiah indicates that the people mocked his messages by bringing false mourners to mock the coming destruction.
    • The destruction will come so rapidly that there will not be time to bury the dead. (22)
• Read Jer 9:23-26
  • The emptiness of Judah’s resources: The wise, the mighty, and the rich.
    • Judah will discover that her trust in worldly wisdom, military power, and physical wealth will not save the nation.
    • All of these resources will be destroyed when Babylon comes.
  • The true resources in which to trust:
    • “But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.” (24)
    • What does it mean to understand and know God?
      • To know God begins with a personal relationship with God.
        • That is to invite Jesus Christ into the heart so that the Holy Spirit lives inside of the born-again believer.
        • But that is not sufficient to fulfill this verse.
      • To know and understand God means you are familiar with God’s Word that instructs in the character and nature of God so that you…
        • …know how God deals with people and how God deals with sin.

Notice God mentions some of His character qualities: lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness. (24)

The character of God is equally balanced to express love or mercy and judgment for sin.

• • • • • …know personally and by experience God is working in your life.
      • To know God is to know Him by experiencing Him in your life on a daily basis.
    • Trusting in a very personal God on a daily basis delights the heart of God. (Heb 11:6)
      • Only trusting in the true resource of a very personal relationship with God will see you through severe problems in your life.
      • When problems come over the world, the believers and the unbelievers suffer alike because we are all subject to this fallen world. (25)
      • Neither the Jew nor the Gentile will avoid problems in this world. (26)
• Application:
  • “Who is the wise man that may understand this…?” (12)
  • Here is the point of the book of Jeremiah and this chapter: The true people of God must be wise.
    • Remember we are to have “circumcised ears” (Lesson #7) to be able to hear and understand what the Holy Spirit is telling His people. We cannot be wise without the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.
    • Remember we are to discover, “What wilt thou do?” (Jer 4:30)
      • We have already learned that we must pray for our nation and the leaders that God has put over us so that we live in peace. (Rom 13)
      • We have already learned that revival begins with God’s people when believers pray and change their lives to conform to the Word of God. (2Chr 7:14)
      • In this chapter we learn that we are not supposed to evacuate areas of business and government like a sinking ship. We are to be involved in changing these areas for God.
      • In this chapter we learn that we are to uphold, teach, and encourage godly character qualities in society and in the church for the church is a nation’s last bastion of hope.

HOMEWORK
Jeremiah 10

• Application of Jeremiah 9
  • In what way can you learn more about God’s character and how He works with people?
  • In what way can you experience Him more in your daily life?
• Preparation for Jeremiah 10
  • Read Jer 10:1-25
    • How does God compare the power of idols with His power?
• Memory Verse: Jer 10:12