The Mercy of God

(Jeremiah 3 - 4:4)
INTRODUCTION
Jeremiah continues to expose and de-
nounce Judah's unfaithfulness and adul-
tery as the bride of Jehovah. But,
against this dark backdrop, he magnifies
Jehovah's undeserving mercy, by mak-
ing a passionate plea for true repent-
ance, and bypromising to those whore-
pent God's forgiveness and full restora-
tion.
EXPOSmON
A. (3:1-5) Jehovah's Unfaithful Wife
1. (3:1) Judah had been unfaithful to
her husband, Jehovah, by worshipping
Canaanite idols. The question is: should
he divorce her. According toDeut. 24:1-
4 he may; . but if he does, and she mar-
ries herself to Baal, he may not reclaim
her and she will be cut off from Jeho-
vah forever.
2. (3:2-3) Originally Jehovah took
the initiative in "marrying" Judah. Later
Judah took the initiative in turning
away from Jehovah in spiritual adul-
tery. Now, Israel has forfeited all rights
to initiate reconciliation with Jehovah.
So, in sheer mercy Jehovah takes the
initiative and calls his unfaithful wife
back to himself in true repentance, as-
suring her of full restoration if she re-
turns.
3. (3:3) Judah's adultery resulted in
droughts, because it polluted the land.
This was the beginning of the adminis-
tration of the covenant curses of Deut.
28.
4. (3:4-5) The bad times caused by
the droughts moved Judah to speak to
God in endearing, but superficial,
terms. They expected this to move God
to rescue them, closing his eyes to their
sins. God was willing to forgive, but
not without true repentance on Judah's
part. Judah's endearing language to God
was blasphemous, because it was not
backed with a real change of behavior
before him.
B. (3:6-11) Apostate Israel and Treach-
erous Judah
1. Israel and Judah were adulterous
and apostate sisters. Israel was Apos-
tasy personified; and Judah was not on-
ly apostate, she was faithless, false and
treacherous. In 721, B.C., Samaria, the
capital of Israel, fell to the Assyrians,
as a result of God's judgment on them
for their sins. God divorced Israel, IT
Kings 17:1-18, which was the high
price they had to pay for their persistent
apostasy. Judah should have learned
from this, but they did not. They pre-
tended to be sorry, but there was no real
repentance.
2. (3:9-10) Judah's "apostasy was so
great that her sensitiveness to the de-
mands of her covenant with Yahweh
had become dulled so that she regarded
adultery as something insignificant .
..... adultery mattered so little to her that
she participated in the same evil prac-
tices. as her sister Israel and polluted the
land." -Thompson
3. (3:11) Both Israel and Judah were
apostate, but Judah proved herself
worse. "To whom much is given, much
is required."
C; (3:12-14) The Merciful Call to
Repentance
1 .. (3:12) God refuses to divorce his
wayward people. So through the preach-
ing of his servarits he graciously calls
them back to himself.
2. (3:12) This call is rooted in di-
vine mercy. God desires to reveal him-
self to his people as a gracious God.
The Hebrew word translated "gracious"
here is "hesed," meaning "unfailing
love" or "steadfast covenant loyalty."
3. (3:12) This call also highlights
God's mercy in that it is addressed to
"faithless," adulterous, idolatrous, apos-
tate people, and not to those who are
righteous. The very call itself is unde-
served and unmerited.
4. (3:12) It is a call to "return" or to
"repent," (Hebrew="sub"). This word
means to tum to God and to tum away
from evil. It embodies the heart of Jere-
miah's message.
a. Judah is called to return to
God as their Glory, 2:11. .
b. Judah is called to return to
God as their Fountain of living water,
2:13.
c. They are to return to him as
their Father, 3:19.
d.. They are to return to him as
their Husband, 3:14.
e. They are to return to as
their Salvation, 3:23.
f. They are to returil to him as
their Covenant Lord, 3:13.
5. (3: 13) True repentance demands
the full recognition of sin and admis-
sion of guilt before God. Judah must
"know" her wrongdoing in the deepest
sense of the word
a. Judah must confess that she
has committed "iniquity," "transgres-
Page 14 ...... _The Counsel of June, 1988
sed," and "not obeyed" God's voice.
b. Obedience is a basic require-
ment for God's covenant people. Obedi-
ence leads to blessing and disobedience
leads to curses, Deut. 28.
6. (3:14) The following blessings
from God accompany true repentance:
a. (3:12) God will twn his righ-
teous anger away from those who re-
pent, not because they repent, but be-
cause of grace through repentance, Eph.
2:8,9.
b. (3:14a) God will reveal him-
self to his penitent bride as her true and
loving Husband, (her true Baal, in
Hebrew).
c. (3:14b) God will bring his
people out of Exile and will recon-
stitute them as One People with one
Lord.
D. (3:14-18) The Promise of the
Throne of God
(For an explanation of this mes-
sianic prophecy, see my study on The
Christ of Jeremiah (The Counsel of
Chalcedon, Vol IX, No. 12, Februazy,
1988, p. 15)
E. (3:19 - 4:4) The Necessity of True
Repentance
1. (3:19) The Desire of God.
a. God desires to reveal himself
as Father to faithful sons who live in
obedience to him within the bounds and
bond of the Covenant.
b. God desires to give his people
the best, but they must call him,
Father, in utter sincerity and devotion.
c. This desire of God is the basis
for his prophecies that he will have a
faithful people loving him as Father;
and it is the basis for our confidence
that these prophecies will come true,
because a sovereign God always satis-
fies his desires.
2. (3:20-21) The Failure of Judah
a. Judah continues to be adulter-
ous.
b. In times of need, the people
in great anguish, would cry to the Lord
for help, from the pagan hilltop sanc-
tuaries. Their cry may have been to
Jehovah, but their methods and prac-
tices of worship were still those of
Baal. Jehovah, in that case, did not an-
swer their cries. They had twisted their
ways and forgotten Jehovah. There
could be no true worship in the pagan
sanctuaries.
3. (3:22) The Blessings of True Re-
pentance
a. God promises to heal the faith-
lessness of the penitent. He will make
them faithful.
b. God offers them a prayer of re-
pentance to assist them in their re-
pentance. Remember that the Lord "re-
jects the empty mouthing of penitential
phrases without true heart repentance." -
Thompson
4. (3:23) The Source of Salvation
(Judah had to confess that the
Canaanite sanctuaries were false, empty
and deceptive; and that the source of
their salvation was in Jehovah alone.
This is the confession of Israel's creed
that Jehovah was her only God, Exod.
20:2f; Deut. 5:6-10; 6:4. Such a confes-
sion would be the recognition of Jeho-
vah as her sovereign, covenant Lord,
carrying with it a willingness to accept
his covenant demands.)
5. (3:24-25) The Confession of
Shame
a. True repentance includes the
"feeling of shame surging up at every
memory of their past sins. The more
thoroughly the repentant realizes the
true nature of sin and the loving-kind-
ness of that God against whom his sin
is directed, the more ashamed will he be
of his past sins and the more determined
to fight against this mistress of a
thousand wiles." -Laetsch
b. Baal worship, as all idolatry,
devoured the labor of former genera-
tions. Idolatry is expensive business.
c. Sin is always to be seen as
the rejection of Jehovah's sovereignty
and covenant demands revealed in the
Bible.
6. (4:1-4) The Nature and Blessings
of True Repentance
a. The Nature of True Repent-
ance
(1). (4:1a) It is a return to
Jehovah as Covenant Lord and Savior.
(2). (4:1b) It is a putting
away of whatever is detestable to Jeho-
vah, most specifically idolatry. We are
to worship and serve Jehovah alone,
Jehovah's way alone.
(3). (4:2) It is a swearing by
the life of Jehovah, the living God.
This means a renewal of the covenant
vows, previously broken. It is a
swearing of loyalty to J ehqvah "in
truth," i.e., in sincerity and stead-
fastness; "in justice," i.e., in conform-
ity to the revealed will of God; and "in
righteousness."
(4). (4:3) It is a "breaking up
of unplowed ground." Repentance must
be more than the mouthing of formulas
and emotional upheavals. It must be the
deep and radical plowing up of the hard
ground. "Judah's own field was so in-
fested with the thorn seeds of past evil
deeds that her only hope was to reclaim
new ground. The whole future was
threatened by the legacy of the past, and
only a complete and radical new begin-
ning would suffice to save the nation." -
TI1ompson
(5). (4:4) It is the "circum-
cision of your hearts to the Lord." Cir-
cumcision in the O.T. was the public
witness to the surrender of the whole
life to the sovereignty and covenant of
Jehovah, Dt. 10:16; 30:6. The physical
circumcision was not the central thing
called for, but the removal of every in-
hibition and hindrance to the total com-
mitment of the heart and life to the ser-
vice and worship of Jehovah.
b. The Motives for True Repent-
ance
(1). (4:2) The nations of the
world will someday understand from the
example of Israel's return to Jehovah in
Christ, that Jehovah is, in fact, the
source of salvation and blessing, and
that he graciously bestows that salva-
tion upon all who enter the covenant by
faith, repentance and obedience. Com-
pare Isa. 42:6; 49:6.
(a). The plea is this:
Israel! Judah! For the Lord's sake, for
your own sake, for the sake of the
whole world, repent! Your apostasy,
adultery and idolatry is shutting your-
selves and the whole world out from
God's kingdom.
(b). Through Israel's re-
turn in Christ, "the heathen, now of-
fended (in Jeremiah's time) by (Israel's)
life of sin and shame, (will) bless and
The Counsel of Chalcedon, June, 1988 __ ......_ _________________________ Page 15
glorify the Lord God, whom now they
blaspheme because of (Israel's) wicked-
ness, Ezek. 36:20f; Rom. 2:24. Then
shall the promise of Jer, 3:17 be fulfil-
led. Israel's whole-hearted repentance
shall be a blessing to themselves artd to
the world, Gen. 12:3; 18:18; 22:18." -
Laetsch
(2). (4:4) The burning, un-
quenchable and destructive wrath of Al-
mighty God will be poured out on all
covenant-breakers who do not repent
and return to God in Christ, Dt. 28.
Jeremiah 3:5-31 prophecies how God's
wrath will be poured out on Judah and
Jerusalem.
The Devastation
of Divine Judgment
(Jeremiah 4:5-31)
IN1RODUCTION
1. The judgment prophesied in chap- --
ters 1-3 is spelled out in detail in chap-
ter 4. Repentance has not taken place.
Therefore, Judah will be judged by God
by a swift and deadly invasion from the
north, i.e. Babylon.
2. This chapter sends a note of terri-
fying alarm like a thunder-clap. It be-
gins with the cry of a herald and ends
with the anguish of a woman in child-
birth.
EXPOSITION
A. (4:5-9) The Announcement of Im-
mediate Judgment
1. (4:5-6) God commands Jeremiah
to give the signal in his preaching that
God has begun to bring a shattering
disaster upon Judah for their sins by the
Babylonian invasion.
2. (4:7) God himself personally will
bring the hordes of his enemies upon
Judah like wild animals to devastate the
land and destroy and depopulate the
cities.
3. (4:8) The people are called upon
to grieve and howl in utter horror be-
cause the burning heat of God's anger
has not been turned away, as Jeremiah
hoped.
4. (4:9) "The national leadership
will collapse because it had no secure
basis for hope and security." -
Thompson
B. (4:10) The Complaint of Jeremiah
1. Jeremiah was deeply affected him-
self by this grim prophecy.
2. In solitude with God, he utters
the honest confusion of his troubled
heart to the God in whose grace (hesed)
he felt secure.
C. (4:11-13) The Fierceness of Judg-
ment
1. (4:11) God's judgment is like a
hot, scorching wind burning away every-
thing in its path.
2. (4:12) This scorching wind is ir-
resistible -- nothing can stop its fury
and destruction. This mighty wind
comes at the command of God, who
speaks judgments through his prophets,
and then who causes those judgments to
come to pass.
3. (4:13) The enemy is coming like
a hurricane. The panic-stricken people
respond: "Alas! We are ruined!" They
should have realized they were ruined by
sin before they were ruined by judg-
ment.
D. (4:14-18) The Call for Immediate
Repentance
1. (4:14) If Judah is to be saved she
must wash her heart, and not just her
body, from all evil. Although judgment
was at the door, Jeremiah did not think
it was too late to hold out the offer of
the diversion of judgment through
repentance.
2. (4:15-18) God continues to justi-
fy his actions, although he does not
have to do so. He once again stresses
that it is nothing but Judah's wicked-
ness that is causing this devastation.
Judah's misery was only the punish-
ment of their rebellion. The curses of
Deuteronomy 28 had become operative.
E. (4:19-22) The Deep Anguish of Jere-
miah
(See my study entitled, The JJCon-
fessions" of Jeremiah (The Coun-
sel of Chalcedon, Volume IX, No. 11,
January, 1988, p. 14)
F. (4:23-31) The Desolation of Judg-
ment
1. (4:23-28) Jeremiah uses the
imagery of a cosmic conflagration to
impress his readers with the terminal
and inescapable ferocity of divine judg-
ment.
a. (4:23) Jeremiah uses the
phrase of Gen. 1:2 here: "without form
and void" to describe the effects of
divine wrath on Judah. The picture is a
reversal of Genesis 1. Judah will be "un-
created."
b. (4:27) As terrible as this judg-
ment was, it was not total and fmal.
God, in mercy, would restore his people
in Christ.
c. (4:28) God will never change
his mind on this: impenitent apostasy
inevitably provokes the devastating
judgment of God.
2. (4:29-30) Judah is portrayed as a
prostitute dressed to receive her lovers,
(the invaders from the north), who
come, hate her, and kill her. This prosti-
tute beautifies herself to attract clients,
but the lovers are bent on her destruc-
tion. No last minute negotiations will
save Judah.
3. (4:31) Now the prostitute, Judah,
is pictured as a woman in labor trying
to give birth to her first child. She cries
and screams, gasping for breath, clinch-
ing her fists in the agonies of death.
Her sins have fmally found her out.
a. "It is not her sinful folly that
she bewails, but only the agony she
must endure. She still remains the self-
centered harlot." -Laetsch
b. "She did not want God as her
Husband, but sought paramours; she
refused to have God beautify her, she
insisted on beautifying herself and not
for God, but for her lovers. She left
God, the Fountainhead of life, and
chose murderers as her friends. -- She
refused to yield her soul, her life, to her
Maker, her Husband, her Redeemer; she
must yield it to murderei:s, who sought
her life while posing as lovers.;' -
Laetsch D
Page 16 _______ _.;.; ___________________ The Counsel of Cbalcedon, June, 1988