Day 220 (Jeremiah 4-6) - Year 8

**Tara-Leigh Cobble** (0:01)
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara-Leigh Cobble and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.
Today we open with Jeremiah continuing the plea for Judah to repent. Throughout this section, we see God repeating the theme that he doesn't just want them to change their actions or offer up empty sacrifices like vain apologies. They faked repentance before and he didn't buy it then either. He's after their hearts. We see it in verse 4, where he's comparing this change of heart to the way he marked them with circumcision. He says, remove the foreskin of your hearts. And in verse 14, he says, Oh Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil. How long shall your wicked thoughts lodge within you? And in verse 18, your ways and your deeds have brought this upon you. This is your doom and it is bitter. It has reached your very heart.
Their sin yielded this consequence. And God's problem with their sin goes far beyond their actions. It goes to their very heart. So his consequence is due too.
Then in verse 10, Jeremiah seems to be accusing God of lying. It's a confusing time to be alive, because up until this point, all the so-called prophets of the land have been telling all the people of Judah, Hey, don't sweat it. Things are going to be fine. They keep proclaiming peace and safety when things are actually speeding toward a cliff at 100 miles an hour. And this is the first time Jeremiah is actually hearing the truth, and it's coming directly from God himself. He seems to feel kind of disoriented by it all. But he eventually comes to realize that those prophets weren't speaking the words of God. They were just saying what they thought the people wanted to hear.
I've had many a well-meaning prophecy spoken to me, and almost all of them have been wrong. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that God hadn't lied to me. Those people had good desires for me, but they were speaking out of their own hopes and hearts, not his. That's just a fraction of what Jeremiah was probably going through here. As Jeremiah is giving these warnings to the people, he's also getting pretty intense visions of the destruction Jerusalem will encounter. Or at least, it seems to be Jeremiah in verses 19-21, and he's disturbed by it all. He can hardly sleep at night because it's so disheartening. And this hit home for me too. I love Jerusalem. It's one of my favorite cities. If I had to put myself in Jeremiah's shoes and imagine it being destroyed like that, I'd need some Nyquil too, and I don't even live there.
Next, God has some pretty harsh words for his people. He says they are fools and that they use the little wisdom they have to be crafty and sinning.
Then Jeremiah has a vision in verses 23 through 28 that describe an undoing of creation, reversing all God's work in the Genesis 1 account. That has to be pretty terrifying, but God promises not to annihilate the earth. It will still be there, just emptied. And Jerusalem, who is portrayed as a desperate woman, tries in vain to save herself. But God says it won't be possible.
In chapter 5, the struggle continues. The people of Jerusalem are pros at offering up religious phrases and actions, taking oath in God's name and whatnot, but they don't keep any of their promises. Religious language can come from a corrupt heart. Jeremiah thinks, hey, maybe this is because they're poor and they can't afford to keep their oaths, or maybe they just weren't educated enough to know better. But then he finds that the same problem exists with the rich people. They're all rebelling. God says nothing they have will be safe from his destruction. Not their income, food, drink, family, or sense of security. Nothing is untouchable. Everything can be shaken or taken.
But again, this is all the consequence of their sin.
In verse 25, he says, Your sins have kept good from you. The first time I read that, I thought it said, Your sins have kept you from good. And that's true too, but it's far more potent the way it's really written, which basically says, sin is a thief. It steals good things from you. Wow. Sin is a thief.
And not only does their sin keep good things from them, but it keeps good things from the poor too. That's because the rich have gotten rich off their selfishness. And it turns into a total lack of concern for the poor.
They lead and govern with injustice, but God will punish this too, because a righteous judge has to punish sin.