God often would require strange activities from his prophets in order to teach the people to whom the prophets served. When we studied Ezekiel, we saw that he had to lay on his side for a year to get the people’s attention and to teach them what God’s word was. We already have seen Jeremiah have a spoiled undergarment to show the people how their relationship with God has been spoiled because of their sins. But now Jeremiah is going to be commanded to make social sacrifices to show the people the severity of the coming judgment and the future grace that God has in store for his people.
Social Sacrifices (Jeremiah 16:1-9)
There are three prohibitions given to Jeremiah that were quite strange and would have grabbed the attention of the people of Judah. The first prohibition is found in Jeremiah 16:1-4. Jeremiah is told that he is not allowed to marry or have children. This would have been very unusual in that day and time unlike today. It was expected that the men would marry and not remain single their whole lives. But Jeremiah is being told by God that he will need to live differently. Now you can imagine how we would want to resist such a social sacrifice. But I want us to notice that God is commanding this for the good of his prophet. God tells Jeremiah that the parents and children are going to die from the coming judgment. The coming distress makes where Jeremiah needs to remain single for this ministry that God has given to him.
The second prohibition is found in verses 5-7. Jeremiah is told that he is not allowed to go to the house of mourning. The reason he cannot go to any funerals is because God is communicating to the people that there is no comfort or peace coming. God has removed his peace and faithful love toward the people. If you think about when we go to a funeral we often try to say words to the grieving that will give them comfort and peace. It is one of the reasons we go to funerals. We are supported those who are suffering loss. But God wanted the message to be there is no comfort coming. There is nothing to offer for consolation. So do not go to the house of mourning.
The third prohibition is that Jeremiah also cannot go to the house of feasting (Jeremiah 16:8-9). Do not go to any weddings or parties because God is going to end the people’s joy and gladness. There is no joy to be had if you understood the severity of the distress that is coming. What I want us to think about is that the life of Jeremiah is going to represent distress and pain for all who see him. He is a person who actions constantly remind the people that there is no joy or consolation coming for them. It is important to see that God does call for his people to make social sacrifices. We should not be surprised if God tells us that there are circumstances that we cannot be married or circumstances in which we should not join in the parties or situations in which we should not join in giving consolation. Sometimes being God’s ambassadors means living in a way that shows that there is a coming judgment.
The Preaching Message (Jeremiah 16:10-13)
The people are going to ask why Jeremiah lives the way he is living. They are going to ask him why he is not married. They are going to ask him why he does not go to funerals, weddings, or parties (cf. Jeremiah 16:10). They are going to understand that his life is a message of disaster. But notice then what the people will ask in verse 10. “Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?” These questions truly represent the human condition. Why would God ever judge? What sins are being committed? What have we done against the Lord? You want to answer, “Are you serious?” Just look around. You don’t think that there needs to be judgment for all the evil and sins that are committed in the land?
God’s answer to the people through Jeremiah contained two parts. First, Jeremiah was to tell the people that judgment was coming because their ancestors left God and went after their own gods. They did not keep God’s law but did what they wanted to do. The second part of the message is in verse 12. Jeremiah was to then tell the people that you have done even worse than your ancestors. The history of your nation is bad enough but you are living even more sinfully than your parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. Listen carefully to what the people are doing in verse 12. “Every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me.” The problem is really simple. You stubbornly follow your own evil desires rather than listening to what God has told you to do in your life.
Therefore God will not show the people any favor or grace (Jeremiah 16:13). This is a really important message for us to understand. God will not show his people compassion or grace if we stubbornly follow our own desires, refusing to listen to what God has told us to do. God’s patience has only led to the people sinning more. They did not learn from their parents and grandparents and turn from their evil ways. Instead they did more evil than those before them. The apostle Paul made the same point in this way:
Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? Far from it! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? (Romans 6:1-2 NASB)
God’s grace cannot continue if we use that grace as an opportunity to keep living to sin and self rather than to God. In fact, look carefully at what God tells the people in Jeremiah 16:13. If you want to serve and worship your gods, then you are going to do that out of the promised land and in captivity. You want to live how you want to live, then you are going to do so without God. I think this is an important point to communicate about God’s judgment. We are the ones who are telling God that we do not want to be in eternity with God when we keep on with our sins. God is telling us that if you don’t like his ways and don’t want to have a relationship with him, then you can enjoy that decision separated from him in eternal punishment. If you don’t want his paradise eternally, then you can live without him eternally.
But He Gives More Grace (Jeremiah 16:14-21)
Now this should be the end of the story. The people have been given so many chances that God has every right to revoke his promises and blessings. But listen to the rest of God’s message as it begins in Jeremiah 16:14. The Lord proclaims that the days are coming that he is going to work something so shocking that the people will no longer talk about how the Lord brought them out of the land of Egypt. The days are coming when God is going to do a work that is going to so overshadow the exodus from Egypt that the people will not mention it any longer. A new exodus is coming in which the people will be restored from their captivity and banishment (Jeremiah 16:15).
This is the amazing nature of God’s faithfulness. The people have done nothing worthy of God to continue his covenant promises and faithful love. It is a quick glimmer of hope that is offered. God is not done being gracious. But his grace will not be with these people. His grace will not be right now for them. The people have made their choice and they are going to experience God’s judgment (Jeremiah 16:16-18). They will be captured because God has seen all of their sins. Their evil deeds are not hidden from God’s eyes. God will repay for all their wickedness and sins. But here is the amazing thing. God declares that he will offer his promises and grace to those who want it.
Listen to the confession of those who desire a relationship with God in verses 19-20. They will say that the Lord is their strength and their stronghold. They will claim the Lord to be their refuge in the time of distress and trouble. The people will come from nations from the ends of the earth making this important confession. Our ancestors inherited nothing but false gods and lies. They had worthless idols that gave them no benefit. They gave their lives to nothingness. They gave their lives to futility. Can you really make gods for yourself? If you can make it, then it is not a god at all (Jeremiah 16:20). Notice that the people who come to the Lord will be people who understand that everything that this world offers is useless and futility. Life and lasting joy are not found in these pursuits. Money is no god. Possessions are not a god. Your career is not a god. Your family is not a god. Those who belong to God will not throw away their relationship with him for the things of this world, all of which are empty and cannot satisfy.
Now here is the amazing picture. The nation of Judah was supposed to be God’s people who understood who God is and saw what he had done. But the religious are going to throw away that glorious relationship. The outsiders, the nations who were not in relationship with God, are going to desire that relationship and they will cast away their idols and lies to be with the true and living God. God says in verse 21 that he will teach them to know his power and might. This points to the magnificence of the cross in which God would draw the whole world to himself (cf. John 7:37-39; Acts 2). This picture of God’s hope for his people is confirmed in the scriptures of the New Testament. Listen to what James says:
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. (James 4:4-6 ESV)
Notice that when we are friends with the world (have a close relationship with worldliness), then we have made ourselves enemies of God. Now consider the picture given to us next. What does God want us to know? God wants us to know that he jealously yearns for us! God does not say, “Oh well!” God cares. God wants to be friends with us. God wants to be in relationship with us to such a degree that he jealously wants this relationship. So what does God do? God gives more grace. But that grace is not to continue in sin. This grace is our opportunity to stop stubbornly following our sinful ways and choose to have a relationship with your Creator that he wants to have with you.
God has been gracious to you. Would you think about how much grace God has shown you this week? Would you think about how much grace God has shown you this year? How much grace has God shown you in your life? What have you done with God’s grace? One option is to stubbornly persist in our evil ways. Have we taken a new day graciously given to us by God to choose to stubbornly persist in the same direction away from God? God makes clear that God’s compassion and grace will stop toward those who continue in sin thinking that God’s grace will continue toward them. We are making ourselves enemies of God rather than becoming friends with God. Every day we wake up we should look at it as another day where God has given each of us more grace. What will you do with that grace? Our other choice is what Jeremiah proclaims will be the true confession of God’s people. The Lord is our strength and our refuge. The ways of the world are nothing by lies and emptiness (cf. Jeremiah 16:19-20). He gives more grace so that we would submit to him. We are to be like the lost son in the parable Jesus told in Luke 15. The lost son squanders away the blessings of the father but then comes to his senses and returns to his father. God’s grace is so that we would turn, not so that we would lean into our sinning all the more. God gives more grace today. What will you do with it?