Parables Marred Girdle and the Wine Bottle

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RETURN TO SYLLABUS

JEREMIAH 13
Lesson #14
THE PARABLES OF THE MARRED GIRDLE AND THE WINE BOTTLE

• Memory Verse: Col 3:24
• There are a few parables in the book of Jeremiah and this chapter has two parables.
  • In fact, we have already seen in Jeremiah a few parables and/or messages in a very picturesque figurative language.
    • The parable of the almond rod (1:11) = the confirmation of Jeremiah’s anointing by God.
    • The parable of the seething pot (1:13-19) = the danger of the rising Babylonian Empire.
    • The cage of birds (5:27) = the accumulation of the sins of the people.
    • The uncircumcised ear (6:10) = listening to worldly counsel instead of to God’s counsel through His prophets.
    • The balm of Gilead (8:22) = spiritual cleansing through prayer to Jesus Christ, the Great Physician.
  • These picturesque messages help us to remember them more effectively. The same was true of Jeremiah’s day.
    • Remember that Jesus gave messages in parable form containing elements of every-day life that the average person could understand the basic story.
    • However, parables always have a deeper meaning than the surface story. For that Jesus said, “Who hath ears to hear let him hear.” (Mat 13:9) Of course we have already learned that the Israelites did not have ears to hear. They had an “uncircumcised ear”.
• Read Jer 13:1-11 The Parable of the Marred Girdle
  • First, we need to discover just what was a “girdle” in those days, because it is different from the use of the word today?
    • Today in our culture a girdle is an undergarment used by women to hold in the unwanted bulges of the expanding human figure.
    • In Bible times the girdle was a band or sash that went around the waist to hold together the excess fabric of a long tunic.
  • What does the linen girdle represent?
    • Linen
      • Linen was a fabric widely used in Bible times having been developed in Egypt from the flax plant. It ranged from a rough fabric to a very fine fabric depending on the amount of refinement done in the processing of the fabric.
        • Linen did not take colored dye easily so it was often left in its natural color.
        • Remember that Jeremiah was a priest. His girdle would have been white like all the other priests.
      • Linen in the Bible has a special meaning as it is often spoken of as fine linen or white linen. In other words it represents the excellence of moral purity, for when the fabric is refined to its highest degree, the rough impurities are removed and the final fabric is white.
    • The Girdle
      • The girdle was a very practical article of clothing worn by men and women.
        • The rich people would decorate it with precious stones, bits of metal or beautiful embroidery. It became for many people a status symbol.
        • But for the average person, the girdle enabled a person to do his work.

A woman would lift the hem of her tunic and tuck it into the girdle and she would have a sling as a means of carrying objects in the folds of her garment.

A man would lift the hem of his tunic and tuck it into the girdle and his legs were free to run without getting tangled in fabric.

• • • • • The girdle was either made of leather, wool, or linen.
        • Sometimes the girdle had a small slit as a pocket to hold money.
      • Biblical phrases regarding the girdle give us the spiritual significance of this piece of clothing.
        • “to loose the girdle” (Isa 5:27) = to be lazy or in a state of resting from service.
        • “gird up the loins” (1Pet 1:13) = to put on the girdle and to lift the hem of the tunic and insert it into the girdle so as to be ready to run; or figuratively speaking to be ready for service to the Lord.
        • Read Luk 12:35, 37
  • The actions of the parable:
    • Jeremiah is told to wear a fine linen girdle that has not been put in water. (1)
      • In other words, Jeremiah was to wear this girdle until it got dirty. However, he was not to wash it.
      • The priests had extensive rituals to make sure their bodies and their clothes were perfectly clean.
        • Therefore, for Jeremiah not to wash his girdle was something totally foreign to him.
        • The other priests would surely notice that Jeremiah never washed his girdle. This would signify the absence of the clean water of repentance among the priests. (Eze 36:25 Zec 3:3)
    • Jeremiah is told to travel to the Euphrates River and to hide the girdle in a hole in a rock by the river. (4)
      • The Euphrates River is about 300 miles from Jerusalem across a desert. This was no easy trip.
      • Remember that the prophet of God had to act out the message in exact obedience to God’s instructions even if the actions were difficult.
      • The girdle hidden in the rock is a prophetic reference to the Israelites that God would hide in the Babylonian captivity next to the Euphrates River.
    • Later, after many days, Jeremiah is told to return to the Euphrates River and dig up the girdle that he hid there. It is possible that the tides in the river made it wet and soggy.(6)
      • Jeremiah had to make two trips to the Euphrates River.
      • The interval of time between the hiding of the girdle and the finding of it is not stated in the Bible, but it may have been 70 days to correspond to the 70 years of captivity in Babylon.
      • While the girdle was dirty before Jeremiah hid it, it is even dirtier now and rotten.
        • But notice that the girdle is brought back to Jerusalem just as God will bring the Israelites back to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity.
  • You can imagine the response of his neighbors as they watched Jeremiah on a daily basis.
    • “Don’t you think it is time to wash that girdle?” “No, God told me not to wash it.” “Why?”
    • “Where did you go, on a business trip? “No, I went to Babylon because God told me to go.”
    • “You went to Babylon again? Isn’t that the same dirty girdle you were wearing before? Don’t you think that thing is worthless?”
  • The significance of the message:
    • God told Jeremiah that the girdle was now marred and worthless. (7)
    • The marred girdle represents the marred pride of Judah and Jerusalem. (9)
      • God is not proud of His people, the Israelites, even though God clung to them tightly as the girdle clings to the body. (11)
      • God is not proud of His beautiful temple that housed idols.
      • God’s people, the Israelites, are “good for nothing”. Why? (10)
        • They have not girded the loins to serve God even though they were bought with a price in the same way that Jeremiah had to buy the girdle.

The people of faith in the Old Testament and the New Testament were bought with the blood of Christ that redeems them from sin.

Because the believer is bought with a price, he is supposed to serve Christ in holiness.

• • • • • What does it mean to serve God?

To understand this message from God we need to understand the answer to this question.

Read Rom 12:1-2

=1= Service to God begins by first having a personal relationship with God through a new birth experience with Jesus Christ. You cannot serve someone you do not know.

=2= Service to God is your daily lifestyle. As you go through your daily routine, you make decisions either for or against God. Either you are making your life conform to the world system, or you are making your life conform to Christ.

=3= Service to God means you have a continual fellowship with Christ on a daily basis through prayer and Bible Study.

=4= Service to God is obedience to Christ in every area of your life.

• • • • • The Israelites have not kept clean their spiritual lives. (2Cor 4:7)

The dirty girdle represents a lifestyle of sin for which they have not repented.

God cannot use people with a dirty lifestyle marred by sin.

This does not bring glory to God.

Service to God for the New Testament believer is supposed to bring glory to God in the same way that Israel was supposed to bring glory to God. (11)

• • • The marred girdle also represents the failure of the priesthood that not only failed to preach holiness to the people but also lived lives of corruption and immorality.
    • In the same way that the girdle was useless, the priesthood became useless, the people of God had become useless, and the nation itself was useless as a model to exhibit the blessings of God.
      • Read Mat 5:13
      • For the New Testament believer, we must be salt that maintains its effectiveness for the glory of God. Otherwise we will be worthless like the salt without its savor and the marred girdle.
• Read Jer 13:12-14 The Parable of the Wine Bottle
  • The people say that it is obvious a wine bottle will have wine in it. You would not expect anything different.
    • The wine bottle in this parable is an earthen vessel not a wine skin bottle as in Jesus’ parable.
    • Jeremiah is going to use this same illustration later in the book.
    • The wine makes everyone drunk so they are irresponsible and do not know what they are doing. The people would be reduced to helplessness and impotence. They would break like broken vessels.
      • However, it would not be wine to put the people in that condition (Isa 29:9) even though drunkenness was common in Israel at that time. (Hos 3:1)
      • It would be God’s wrathful judgment that would reduce the people to mass confusion and beyond help.
    • Without God’s judgment to force the people from the Promised Land, they would never be able to change themselves from their idolatrous ways. We have seen how the reformation and revival under King Hezekiah did not last long enough to turn the country around. It took God’s judgment to stop the idolatry.
      • Jeremiah illustrates the people’s steadfast idolatry as like a leopard that can’t change his spots.
      • Idolatry was such a strong way of life in Israel for so many years that they could not break free of it.
  • Jesus gave a similar parable in Mat 9:17 about the fact that you do not put new wine in old wine skin bottles because the old skins would be unable to expand to adapt to the fermentation process.
    • The message in Jesus’ parable has a similarity but the message is different.
    • The old wine skins referred to the religious form of Judaism that could not contain the moving of the Holy Spirit (the new wine) that Jesus brought with the coming of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
    • The old religion of Judaism tied to the Mosaic Law is not compatible with the new moving of the Holy Spirit. Why?
      • Legalism and freedom in the Holy Spirit are mutually exclusive.
      • You either follow the Law of Moses or you follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
  • In both the parable in Jeremiah and in Jesus’ parable, the religious leadership is inadequate and under the judgment of God.
• Read Jer 13:15-27
  • Jeremiah gives them good counsel to avoid God’s wrathful punishment:
    • =1= They should humble themselves. (15)
    • =2= Repent of idolatry, turning in the opposite direction to give glory to God. (16)
    • =3= Everyone in the nation must repent, even the king and queen. (18)
    • =4= Do this quickly before the darkness comes. (16)
  • The rest of the chapter restates the judgment that will come if they do not repent.
    • The destruction of the nation by the Babylonian army.
    • The people taken captive as slaves to Babylon walking barefoot and nude across the desert in chains.
• Application:
  • For the New Testament believer, the application of this message is this:
    • The believer is to serve God by living his life to glorify Jesus Christ.
    • The believer is to walk in holiness, repenting of sin, and changing in obedience to Christ.
  • What will this do for a nation sliding into increasing sinfulness?
    • We are to be a testimony of light in this dark world. Remember that revival begins with the people of God.
    • We are to stand for truth in every opportunity that God gives us.

HOMEWORK
Jeremiah 14

• Application of Jer 13
  • What sins does the Holy Spirit convict you for which you have not repented?
    • In prayer repent and ask Him to forgive you.
    • Thank Him for His forgiveness based on 1Joh 1:9
  • Make a commitment to God that you will take seriously your testimony to stand for truth when God gives you the opportunity.
• Preparation for Jer 14
  • Read Jer 14:1-22
    • How should we pray for our nation? (20-21)
    • What specific things should we include in our prayers for our nation?
• Memory verse: Ezekiel 22:30