Jeremiah 5

Again today we see that Jeremiah becomes personally involved in the message.
•    v1-2: God challenges him to find one honest person in Jerusalem.
•    v3: Jeremiah cannot find one.  Instead the people are hard set against God.
•    v4-5a: Jeremiah determines these are poor, foolish people so he looks among the great men of the city.  He longs to give God a more positive answer.
•    v5a-6: Yet he finds that the great men also have broken God’s yoke.  They too are backslidden.
What sins did the people commit?  As we note these allow the Spirit of God to show you your own heart as well as the truth about the society in which you live.
•    v7-9: Though God had blessed Judah, yet they turned to other gods to give thanks.  Then they sought their own happiness through immorality.  People always desire to be blessed, but when they turn from God’s blessing the result is that they are left to create their own blessing.  But turning from God always brings a curse.
•    v26-29: They lives decadent lives.  They deceived those around them, taking advantage of their trust.  They live in apathetic luxury.  They ignore the plight of the oppressed.  His people actually surpass the deeds of the wicked.  God is right to ask rhetorically, “Shall I not punish them for these things? … Shall I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?”
•    v12-13; 30-31: Here is the bottom line: they listen to and loved the easy message of the false prophets that allowed them to maintain their lives as they were.  God announced through Jeremiah that the prophets were wind; “the word is not in them”.  This was “an astonishing and horrible thing … The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and My people love to have it so.”  “Religion”, if you will, should be the conscience of a nation.  Religious leaders should properly speak to the direction of a nation.  But if the preachers do not speak God’s word and the priests (spiritual leaders) do not have God’s authority, then that nation is doomed!  The conscience is seared; the people are deceived.

The question is, if you have no word from God, or have rejected God’s word, “what will you do in the end?” (v31)  Let us remind ourselves what Jeremiah is doing as the Lord’s prophet.  He is speaking to a doomed nation.  Judgment is unavoidable.

But God offers to the individuals in that nation His mercy.  Remember the word: “Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns.”  Jeremiah could only find hard-hearted sinners in Jerusalem.  Yet he still called them to come to the Lord with good hearts, ready to receive God’s word and to follow Him faithfully.  Do you have a hard heart to the things of God?  This is so dangerous.  I plead with you, open your mind and heart to God today.  “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:31)