SS02-26-06
STUDY THEME: SERVING ON PURPOSE. 2-26-06.
“DOING MY PART.” JEREMIAH 32: 6-41.
JEREMIAH 32: 6-9, 27-30, 37-41.
PLEASE OPEN YOU BIBLE TO JEREMIAH 32.
When God called Jeremiah, He told him that he would uproot, tear down, destroy, and demolish: but he would also build and plant, (Jer. 1:10.) Most of Jeremiah’s work was in the negative areas. However, chapters 30-33, called the “Book of Consolation” or the “Book of Comfort” because these chapters contain messages of comfort and hope. And what Jeremiah did at this time showed his faith in God’s promise to restore the land after the Babylonian captivity. It was just the right time for a heroic example of faith and action based on hope in spite of the turbulent times. In 1 Cor. 13:13 Paul wrote, “Now abideth Faith, Hope and Love---“ Notice that HOPE follows and is grounded in FAITH. Without FAITH there is no hope.
Ch. 32 begins the second half of Jeremiah’s Book of Consolation. While most of Ch. 30 and 31 were written as poetry Ch. 32 is entirely in prose.
In order to understand Ch. 32 it must be set in its context. It describes a time in the year 588.B.C in which Jerusalem was under siege by the Babylonian army, and Jeremiah was a prisoner in the king’s court.
The fall of Jerusalem and Judah was certain. Masses of the people would be exiled in far away Babylon. The city and its massive walls would be leveled to the ground. Solomon’s glorious Temple would soon be a pile of rubble. King Zedekiah’s sons would be slain before his very eyes, after which his eyes would be put out. He would be carried away to Babylon in chains. His last vision---the slaughter of his sons---was the last vision indelibly printed on his mind. What basis would anyone have, for a future hope of the land? The only basis was Jeremiah’s faith in God’s Word. You ask, why do I think Jesus Christ is coming again? My reply, I to have faith in God’s Word.
The Babylonian King’s coming was no accident of history. God’s hand was guiding Nebuchadnezzar. He was serving as God’s instrument of judgment against Judah and Jerusalem. Perhaps some of Jerusalem’s citizens still trusted in Zedekiah’s leadership. Many others believed Jerusalem’s army could repel the Babylonians. Still others may have hoped God would intervene at the last moment as He had done in rescuing Judah from the Assyrians during Hezekiah’s reign. Yet God’s Words, “he will capture it,” assured that no hope remained. War, famine, and disease would result from the siege of Jerusalem.
Babylon rose to power by defeating Assyria in 612 B.C. They defeated the Egyptians at the Battle of Carchemish (Kahr-kem-ish) in 605 B.C. During the next two years Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, began his campaign along the Palestinian coast.
Jehoiakim, King of Judah, became his unwilling vassal.
In 598 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem. Jehoiachin, now the king, surrendered the city to Nebuchadnezzar the next year (597 B.C.). Nebuchadnezzar deported many Judeans, including Jehoiachin, to Babylon. He appointed Zedekiah to rule over Judah. When King Zedekiah revolted against Nebuchadnezzar in 589 B.C., Babylonian forces came against Jerusalem, besieged the city, and eventually captured and destroyed in it 587 B.C. This lesson is set in 588-87 B.C., in the final days of the life of the city of Jerusalem.
All visible means of Jerusalem’s security would fail. Within a year the city would be destroyed, and Nebuchadnezzar would take another group of captives into exile in Babylon. Some had been taken in 604 B.C. when Nebuchadnezzar marched through Palestine on his way to defeat Egypt at Carchemish. Others were taken in 599 B.C. in the first siege of Jerusalem. Others were taken in 587 B.C. after the fall of Jerusalem and Judah.
The people did what they could to defend Jerusalem, but Jeremiah advised them they could not win. He warned Zedekiah that he could not escape but would speak face to face with Nebuchadnezzar, against whom he had revolted. To rebel was futile because God was using the Chaldean army as an instrument of judgment against His people.
Jeremiah received the Word of the Lord again. He proclaimed God’s message, not his own. God had vowed never to abandon His prophet, and He would not abandon him now.
Our study of Jeremiah reminds us that though we cannot always understand God’s plan, we can be sure He has one for each of us. Through obedience to God’s commands, believers can participate in His purposes—a cause much larger than themselves.
Adults sometimes have difficulty believing God has a plan and even more difficulty believing we have individual parts in fulfilling His plan. It’s even harder to find what our part is, and hardest of all is to do our part. Each of these difficulties should be challenges to us.
When we do find God’s will for our part in His plan, faith and obedience are the proper responses. Sometimes God’s will for us is beyond our understanding, but we should trust and obey even when we can’t understand.
A Christian who is obedient pays attention to and listens to God in order to do what God says. That includes examining something critically to distinguish what is God’s voice and what is not God’s voice, so that one comes to understand what is from God and what is not.
The Hebrew word for obey, shama, appears about 1160 times in the O.T., and has the basic meaning of “to hear.” When the word hear is used of hearing God, obedience is the proper response. From the Bible’s point of view, to hear God’s Word should involve heeding His Word. It’s natural for humans to ask questions when God tells us something to do. We want to know how we will be able to fulfill this task. We want to know how a specific command of the Lord is going to achieve His larger purpose. Obedience, however, is not dependent on our understanding of the command; it’s dependent on our doing what God says.
This chapter 32 records a prophecy of faith and hope that God commanded Jeremiah to proclaim by a dramatic symbolic act as well as his words. Though the storm Babylonian fury soon would break upon Jerusalem, Jehovah enabled Jeremiah to take the long look to see the time when the sun of God’s people would shine again upon Judah and Jerusalem. This led Jeremiah to perform an act demonstrating his faith in the future. Vs. 6 resumes the introduction from Vs. 1.
PLEASE READ JEREMIAH 32: 6-9.
Jeremiah was in prison in the guard’s courtyard in the king’s place at the beginning of Ch. 32. He was there because he kept saying that the Babylonians would win and Zedekiah would be captured. When Zedekiah came to him privately, in Jer. 38: 17-18, Jeremiah advised the king to surrender. This sounded like cowardice or treason to the king and to most of the Jews. Other prophets had reassuring messages about God coming to their rescue.
This was the situation when the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah. It came in an unusual way. A cousin of Jeremiah’s named Hanameel (huh-NAM-ih-el), the son of Jeremiah’s uncle Shallum, came to Jeremiah with a business proposition.
Anathoth. Jewish real estate law tried in Lev. 25:25 to keep land in a family’s name. The land would be offered to the next closest relative. Hanameel told his cousin in vs. 8, “Pleas buy my field…for you own the right of inheritance and redemption.”
Jeremiah heard he voice of his cousin, making this offer to sell the field, but he also knew that this was the word of the Lord. Throughout his life Jeremiah had heard God calling to do some strange things. This was only another command that didn’t make sense at the time.
The Babylonians were besieging the city; it soon would fall. Land in Judah would be worthless. Jeremiah’s own future was uncertain. He definitely was not buying the property as a place to retire. Since Anathoth was a few miles from Jerusalem, the land for sale probably was already in Babylonian control.
Commentators ask how Hanameel was able to get through the tight siege lines. They speculate that the answer is found in the writing of Josephus, who said that the Babylonian army temporarily lifted the siege because of a threat that the Egyptian army was coming to fight them.
According to Josephus, when the Babylonians temporarily lifted the siege, the false prophets in Judah claimed this showed that they had been right and that Jeremiah had been wrong. But the Babylonian army returned and the siege continued.
We aren’t told Hanameel’s motives for selling the land. Perhaps he believed Jeremiah’s prediction about a Babylonian victory and he hoped to be one of the survivors taken to Babylon. Since he would never be able to use this land, he decided to get what he could for it. Or he may have tried to sell it to others, but his best chance to sell it was to his cousin.
We can imagine a conversation between two Jerusalem Jews: “Have you heard what that false prophet Jeremiah has done? He has bought a field near his hometown Anathoth.”
Why would he do this? He has been predicting the Babylonians will defeat us. Do you think he has changed his mind and expects the property to go up in value?
Since Anathoth was only a few miles northeast of Jerusalem, the town probably was over run by Babylonian soldiers. Possibly Hanameel thought he would soon lose the farm anyway, so he decided to sell it to his cousin Jeremiah The situation would be like the woman who said, “I believe I’ll give this old hen to the preacher. It looks like she’s going to die anyway.”
The other Jew replied, “No, I don’t think he has changed his mind. Buying a field makes no sense if we all will be killed or carried to another land. I doubt that even Jeremiah knows why he bought the field. His usual explanation for his bizarre behavior is that the Lord told him to do so.”
At the time Jeremiah went through the process of buying the land, no record of God’s reason for telling him to do this had yet been given. Jeremiah was later given a reason, but at the time, buying the field was an act of faith. Jeremiah believed God had his reasons and he acted in obedience without having all his questions answered. He believed that God had a plan, that he had a part to play in God’s plan, and that his part called for obedience. By the time the deal was completed, Jeremiah had more understanding, but when he first heard the offer to sell, he must have wondered why God wanted him to buy a piece of seemingly worthless property.
Given the prevailing circumstances, had Jeremiah consulted any shrewd business man in Jerusalem about the advisability of buying the land, he would have been told in no uncertain terms---“No!” But this was not a matter of economics; it was one of faith in God’s Word. Faith in God is to follow when we cannot see. Jeremiah did not even ask why he should make such a purchase. God had commanded it, and Jeremiah obeyed.
Jeremiah walked by faith, not by sight. His God was unseen to human eyes, and His promise of restoration was unfilled; yet Jeremiah dared to believe that God was real and His promises were sure. We, like Jeremiah, must learn that faith sees beyond what is apparent, and we must learn to trust God to fulfill His promises.
Vs. 10-12 give information about the legal process in that day. Vs. 13-15 show that through this action of Jeremiah God was revealing a reason for the land deal. Jeremiah publicly told his scribe Baruch to put the property deed in a place where it would be safe and secure for many years. He explained that the Lord had told him, “Houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”
Vs. 16-25 records a long prayer of Jeremiah’s. No sooner had he performed his duty than his doubts began to come. What a stupid thing to do! The city would soon fall, and the nation be destroyed. How could the land at Anathoth be worth anything again?
In time of stress the Christian knows what he ought to do and say and many dutifully carry out his responsibilities. Yet this does not keep honest doubts from arising. It is significant that the prophet did not publish his doubts but rather he prayed about them. This is a long prayer, beginning in vs. 17 and ending in vs. 25.
Our friend Norman Habel helps us feel the significance of this event as God’s revelation to Jeremiah: He lets Jeremiah speak:
“I sat alone in prison, breath and bone in prison for months and months on end until one day I had a hunch. I had the faintest feeling that my cousin, a rather crafty fellow, who thinks I’m dense, would offer me his father’s land and try to make me buy, even though the land would soon be in the hands of the Babylonian army and quiet worthless.
I had this hunch you see, but when my cousin actually came I was very much surprised, for my hunch, it seems, turned out to be the very word of God for me.”
And by this we learn again the ways of God with men like Jeremiah. The revelation is not in the earthquake, the wind, and fire, but in the still small voice. Even so, Jeremiah waited quietly for the evidence. He was convinced that this was the word of the Lord only when Hanameel showed up to make the exact offer God had indicated.
Norman Habel paraphrased Jeremiah’s conclusion as follows:
“Well, no, my cousin didn’t fool me, although he thought he had, For God was coming through to me loud and clear again, even though I was alone, drying skin and bones in prison.”
Buying this field was another example of the kind of prophetic symbolism often found in prophets such as Jeremiah. The word of God was communicated not only with words but also with symbolic acts that gave clarity and power to the spoken words.
The purchase of the field was a note of hope in a dark time. Judah was about to go into exile for 70 years. By that time Jeremiah and the adult generation would be dead, but the next generation would return to the Promised Land.
Throughout the Bible there is an emphasis on faith and obedience. Believers are to trust and obey the Lord’s word even when we don’t understand all the reasons for the action. Did Abraham understand in Gen. 22 why God told him to take Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice? What about Peter? In Acts 10 he resisted God’s command to go to the house of the Gentile Cornelius, but he obeyed and God used him to initiate the divine plan to take the gospel to all people. Jeremiah did not understand at the time why God told him to buy the field, but he obeyed.
God has a plan in which each believer plays a part. Unfavorable circumstances are no deterrent to God’s continuing to work in and through our lives. But God wants us to obey Him whether doing what He asks makes sense to us or not. What God tells us to do makes sense to Him and His sovereign plan. PLEASE MOVE DOWN TO VS. 27.
PLEASE READ JEREMIAH 32: 27-30.
In response to Jeremiah’s prayer in vs. 17-25, God answered in vs. 26-44. Jeremiah had said in his prayer, “Nothing is too hard for You!” Now God asked the rhetorical question, “Is there any thing to hard for Me?” “Do you really believe that? If I could bring Israel out of Egypt, surely I can bring them back from Babylon. The purpose of the captivity is not to destroy my people, but to redeem them. The restored people will inhabit their land once more, and he land will once again be valuable.” Because of God’s faithfulness in keeping past promises, we can trust that God will fulfill all of His promises---even when we can’t see God at work. God’s promises are not limited to the present. In 1 Cor. 1: 20 the Bible assures us that God will keep all His promises.
The obvious answer to people of faith is that nothing is too hard for God. The Lord called Himself the God of all flesh. This truth stands over against the view that God is only the God of Israel. The Biblical view of God is that ultimately He would reveal Himself in love to all people. God moves in the lives of people and in the affairs of nations to bring in His kingdom.
Vs 28 gives a clear example of the latter teaching.
At the gates of Jerusalem were the soldiers of a powerful enemy nation. When the Babylonians laid siege to Jerusalem, many prophets in Judah and among the exiles in Babylon were predicting some kind of last-minute rescue as had happened over a century earlier when the Assyrians laid siege to Samaria and the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the days of King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah. But Jeremiah in Judah and Ezekiel among the exiles in Babylon both insisted that the city was doomed. Why did they believe such a terrible thing? They believed it because the Lord told them. “Behold, I will give this city into the hands of the Chaldeans, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he shall take it.”
Why would the covenant God of the Jews allow a pagan, idolatrous nation to defeat His people? Vs. 29 tells one part of the terrible destruction that God sent by these pagan people. They would fight against this city and come and set fire on this city. The last part of vs. 29 and all of vs. 30 explain why God would allow the Babylonians to destroy the holy city and the holy temple.
They were holy in name only. The Lord charged that the children of Israel and the children of Judah had done evil before God from their youth.
The entire history of the Hebrews was a history of rebellion against the Lord. They rebelled during their years in Canaan. Their sins had only gotten worse with the years. Each generation had worshiped Baal, the Canaanite fertility god, and participated in the debauchery of that region. Thus they had provoked the Lord to anger. Vs. 31-35 elaborate on their sins.
All levels of society were guilty-including priests and prophets. They even brought their abominable practices into the house of the Lord. They went so far as to sacrifice their own children to their evil gods. Vs. 36 sums up their fate. They would “be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence.”
PLEASE READ JEREMIAH 32: 31-34.
Ch. 32 combines Jeremiah’s twofold emphasis of judgment and hope. For years Jeremiah had been predicting judgment by an enemy from the north. Later he identified the enemy as the Babylonians and their leader Nebuchadnezzar. In Ch. 32 the enemy had besieged Jerusalem, which would soon fall. But looking beyond this destruction Jeremiah promised that God would gather them out of all the countries “where I have driven them in mine anger.” God also promised to bring them again unto Jerusalem where He would cause them to dwell safely. This promise was fulfilled when the Persians defeated the Babylonians, and Cyrus issued a decree in Ezra 1: 1-4 allowing the Jews to return.
These are without doubt the most significant of all the sayings of Jeremiah. It is this passage Jesus had in mind when he instituted the Lord’s Supper. Matt. 16: 28 records that on Thursday prior to His death on Friday, Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, which symbolized his atoning death.
Giving the apostles the cup, he said, “Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood (symbolically) of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Jesus was the living enactment of the New Covenant. Jeremiah prophesied of its coming. Jesus inaugurated it. You and I profit from it.
The expression “new testament” literally means new covenant. In other words, Jesus was saying that the new covenant predicted by Jeremiah was now being instituted. He could think of no better term to describe His work of salvation.
Out of the total destruction of the sacred city and Temple and the failure of God’s people under the old covenant, Jehovah enabled Jeremiah to see that out of the ashes and the debris of the old covenant He would form a new covenant with a new people. This new people would be a faithful residue of the Jews and of Gentiles who became one people through faith in Jesus Christ.
The Bible (hold up the Bible) is divided into the O.T. and the N.T. This division well states the facts as in God’s dealings with humankind.
Two matters are basic in understanding the New Covenant. Jeremiah mentioned them in the preface to the covenant itself in Jer. 31:27-40. First in importance is the intention of God in Jer. 31: 27-28. He determined to restore Israel and has set his mind to this purpose. The second fact is that in any dealings with Israel, God will work with individuals. Each person will be held responsible only for his own sins. He will not be able to blame his eventual fate upon anyone except himself. This is always the manner in which the Lord has dealt with men, but Jeremiah was one of the first to see it. We suffer because of the sins of our father, but we are not held responsible for them, as in the case of Achan’s family when he sinned at Jericho in Joshua 7: 22-25.
What the new covenant promises is not sinlessness, but forgiveness. God will provide a way for sinful man to be reconciled to him---a way that will enable him to walk with God while he is conquering his sinfulness.
The law will not be written on tables of stone, as was the Decalogue but on people’s hearts. Jeremiah’s conviction was much like Ezekiel’s. Ezekiel expressed somewhat the same understanding in Ezekiel 36: 26-27. “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my statues and to observe my ordinances.”
The new covenant is contrasted with the old in several ways. (1) The success of this covenant is guaranteed by God. It is significant to contrast the verbs in the Ten Commandments of the old covenant in Ex. 20 with those in this passage. There we read ‘thou shalt,’ and “thou shalt not.” Here we see “I will put …and I will write,” and “I will forgive, not remember,” denotes the ever-repeated forgiveness ‘richly and daily’, and the daily blotting out from God’s memory of the sins we daily commit. It is clear that the success of the old agreement was dependent upon Israel’s ability to keep it. This they could not do. The old covenant revealed Israel’s inability to meet God’s requirements.
The author of Hebrews said that the promise of the new covenant was fulfilled in Christ. Whereas the old covenant was sealed in animal’s blood, the new covenant was sealed with the blood of Jesus Christ.
(2) The new covenant is the ultimate in grace---The fist covenant forgave the sin of Israel, but the second even pardoned the breaking of the first covenant itself.
(3) A new basis for morality was given in the new covenant. It is written on the heart rather than on tables of stone. The old covenant emphasized “a forced submission to an external authority.” Obedience under the new would issue from personal desire rather than a sense of duty. Man would serve God because it was what he wanted to do, rather than just because he ought. By the painful process of his own frustrations Jeremiah had come to realize the necessity of this kind of experience. It was a revolutionary concept then, and it still is today.
(4) The new covenant is an individual matter. Each person must have his own encounter with God. Personal faith cannot be taught as one can teach a law that is written on a stone. It must be experienced to be real. All those within the covenant will of necessity have had a personal experience with God. The only thing that men cannot hand on in this world is their experience with God.
(5) The final contrast between the old and the new is the permanence of this covenant. The old one was broken over and over again, but the new one will last. The old conditions are no more. God him self guarantees the outcome of this relationship to Him. The N.T. doctrine of salvation is based solidly upon this truth: The man who knows Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior has a relationship with God that will endure forever. For such a man to be lost would mean that God had not kept His covenant.
The new covenant became the watershed of history when the early church experienced its fulfillment through Jesus outside Jerusalem’s city walls. It continues as the bond for present relationships with God and as the church’s hope for the future.
PLEASE READ JEREMIAH 32: 37-41.
God’s messages through Jeremiah to the people of Judah changed from messages of destruction to messages of restoration. God was not finished with His people. By referring to his wrath, rage, and great fury, God emphasized how much He hates sin and evil. Rage means “fury,” “hot displeasure,” “indignation,” and “anger.” Rage implies that once God is provoked, there must be the execution of judgment upon the cause of that provocation. For Judah, that judgment was destruction. The intensity of God’s fury is produced by His love, His holiness, and His justice.
He is holy and just and must punish sin. However, His fury is always tempered by His grace and mercy. After sending His judgment, God planned to return His people, to Jerusalem and make them live in safety. How welcomed must this prophetic revelation have been to Jeremiah who had announced judgment through all those previous years. Further, God said, “they will be My people, and I will be their God.” The wording of this verse implies that Israel and God would live in covenant relationship. Close, personal, obedient, and loving has always characterized the relationship God wants His people to have with him.
Jeremiah 32: 38-41 describes some future blessings other than a return to the land. Notice the promises: (1) There would be a new relationship with God. (2) They would be one with God and with one another. (3) God would always do them good, and they would be true to Him always. (4) God would make with them an everlasting covenant.
Historically, some of the Jews did return after Cyrus made his decree. They had learned some lessons from the past, but they fell short of the ideals stated here. Some of these ideals await a still future time. Some of these ideals are matters of Christian hope.
This raises a crucial question, “How could the people of Jeremiah’s day find personal hope in a restoration they would not live to see? Only a few people lived through the 70 years of captivity and returned to Judah. When the foundation of a new temple was finished, those few who remembered the grandeur of Solomon’s temple wept.
They must have been children when Jerusalem fell. Jeremiah and other adults were dead before the restoration, yet people of true faith claimed these promises as their own.
How could this promise bring hope to the doomed generation about to lose the land? The answer to that question gets to the heart of what it means to do your part in God’s plan. We have to take the long look when we speak of doing our part in God’s plan. For one thing, His plan is bigger than one generation. It spans the generations. Believers do what they can while they can—while they are alive.
Jeremiah did not have to live to see the Jews return to Judah, but he did need to do his part in God’s long-range plan. When Paul was about to be executed, he was confident not only that he was going to be with the Lord but also that God would bring in His kingdom.
Hebrews 11 exemplifies this kind of hope based on the promises of God. The O.T. people of faith seldom saw the fulfillment of God’s promises. Yet they lived and died with confident hope in the fulfillment in which they expected ultimately to share. They were indeed pilgrims of faith living in light of God’s future.
Even we who live after the first coming of Christ must take the long look. We are citizens of God’s eternal kingdom, and we are expected to live by the standards of the invisible God. Therefore, we must live by faith in the fulfillment of God’s purposes as stated in His promises.
We take the long look because it is God’s long-range plan that has been believed in and obeyed by generations who are now with the Lord. Now it’s our time to do our parts in advancing God’s kingdom. The questions we face are: What is God’s plan for my life as a whole? What is my part during each phase of my life? What is my part today? The opportunities and challenges of serving God often change from one stage of life to another, and we have new opportunities every day.
The conditions promised by God to Jeremiah about Israel’s restoration will not be fulfilled fully until Christ comes again and believers experience that final redemption in Him. For believers today, this ancient promise still produces encouragement and hope. Please remember Peter Marshall’s quote from last Sunday’s lesson: “It is indeed better to be what the world considers a failure in a cause that will ultimately succeed than a success in a cause that will ultimately fail.
Jeremiah wanted to stay in Judah after the fall of Jerusalem, but was taken forcibly to Egypt by a gang of super-patriots. No one knows how he died but the hint is that he was killed by some of his own countrymen.
I have prayed that if you have learned only one thing in this 5 weeks study, you will remember that real, lasting—dependable security can be found only in God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. All else will crumble like the walls and temple of Jerusalem. God’s promises are dependable because of God’s faithfulness. You can bet your life on Him and His promises.
NEXT SUNDAY WE BEGIN THE STUDY OF FOUR LESSONS TITLED “CHRIST’S FOLLOWERS.” ALL FOUR LESSONS WILL BE TAKEN FROM THE BOOK OF LUKE.
A.V. DAUGHERTY altav@swbell.net http://www.theweeks.org/av
Please take time this week to read Jeremiah 30-33. This is called “The Book of Consolation,” or “The Book of comfort,” because these chapters contain messages of comfort and hope.