Jeremiah 1—3

What comes to your mind when I mention the name Babylon? Perhaps occultism would come to your
mind. Certainly immorality, violence – all of those things would be true. But the bottom line is one
word, and that is idolatry. Babylon is known for idolatry.

That name Babylon occurs in the Scripture about 200 times, mostly about Ancient Babylon, but also
about the Babylon of the future.

Jeremiah, the prophet, was writing during the time when the Neo-Babylonian Empire was beginning.
You see Ancient Babylon had passed off the scene as a world power, but now Babylon was being
revived and was actually overtaking Assyria as the world empire. And Jeremiah, God bless him, would
actually live to see the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, the Kingdom of Judah destroyed,
Solomon’s temple in ruins, thoroughly and totally destroyed, and even have to be a witness to it all.

What I want today is

#2 that we want to do is to ask the question, “What does faithfulness look like in a nation that is under
judgment?” because we as a nation undoubtedly are under the judgment of God. And what is it like for
God’s people to live in the midst of that kind of an environment?

Now open your Bibles to Jeremiah 1. You’ll notice that it begins by talking about Josiah the king and
then lists other kings in the opening verses. What is most important for us to realize is that Jeremiah
had a very long ministry – over forty years. It began during the days of Josiah, the king – the young
Josiah who began to rule at the age of eight and was a righteous king, and then it ended with the
destruction of Jerusalem, and Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet.

We are going to see him with tears. He is so overcome by the tears for his nation. Do you know what
he’s going to see? He’s going to see the people of Judah not only carried off, but children starving. He’s
going to see destruction. He’s going to see King Zedekiah with his eyes gouged out. And do you know
what? Jeremiah never sees the revival for which he prayed and preached, but he was faithful whether
he saw the revival or not.

Now you’ll notice his call. And here I am jumping to Jeremiah 1:4. 4 The Lord gave me this message:
5“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart
and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.” Some people want to read this, this way. “While
you were being formed in the womb I knew you and called you.” Church realize this, God said,
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” And you know that word know doesn’t just mean
know ahead of time. It’s the word for intimate knowledge.

God said, “I already had a relationship with you, Jeremiah, before you were conceived,” and we know
that because God is God that’s in eternity past. But you know that that’s true of us as well. We are
chosen in Him from before the foundation of the world. If you are a believer today, God also knew you
before you were born. And so it’s a sovereign call. You know that means that all of the genes, the
genetic makeup and the DNA that Jeremiah would need already came together in such a way that he’d
have the gifting of the prophet. So it was sovereign.
God says, “I am the One who has chosen you, and you are choosing Me only because I chose you in
advance.”

It was also a very specific appointed calling. Notice it says that Jeremiah objects and says, 6 “O
Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I can’t speak for you! I’m too young!”7 The Lord replied, “Don’t say, ‘I’m
too young,’ for you must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you. 8 And don’t be afraid of
the people, for I will be with you and will protect you. I, the Lord, have spoken!” 9 Then the Lord
reached out and touched my mouth and said, “Look, I have put my words in your mouth! 10 Today I
appoint you to stand up against nations and kingdoms. Some you must uproot and tear down, destroy
and overthrow. Others you must build up and plant.”

Notice this. God says there are going to be four words of judgment for every two words of mercy and
grace. And when you read the book of Jeremiah you discover chapter after chapter on judgment.

What about the context in which Jeremiah is ministering? What was that like? It was dark and it was
getting darker. It was a time of hopelessness. Here’s why. Under Josiah the Book of the Law was found.
Can you imagine they are cleaning out the Temple and there is so much garbage. There are so many
other gods that they brought into the Temple that in the middle of cleaning it out they say, “Here’s part
of the Book of the Law,” and they begin to read it, and they have a revival. The problem was, it was too
little too late.

It’s just like in our country. We see pockets of a revival over here and there, but we are not seeing a
reversal of our course. We are not seeing a massive turning to God in our country. And so Jeremiah had
that hope but now it was all hopeless.

Let me also say that it was a day of deaf ears. Jeremiah is preaching different from all the other
prophets. Jeremiah spills out his heart and he’s weeping. I’ll share that with you. He is sobbing. He
argues with God. At one point he says, Jeremiah 20:7 “God, you’ve deceived me because I thought that
You were going to give a word of peace, and all that this is, is a word of judgment. He spills out his
heart. He is thrown into a pit. False prophets stand against him. They condemn him and he has to stand
there alone and nobody wants to hear what he has to say. Even at the end the king sends for him, but
Jeremiah says, “I’m not coming because no matter what I say, you’re going to go the opposite anyway.”
That’s what kind of a life he lived. People didn’t want to hear. They were deaf.

Someone once said that history has to repeat itself because we never learn the lessons of history the
first time? And history does repeat itself. These people did not learn, and they didn’t want to. They
were joined to idols. Who wants to hear that? You know, “That preacher of judgment! We want the
false prophets.” When I speak about the false prophets I’ll tell you what they were saying. Your okay
and I’m okay. Same thing 200 years later

Well, what are some of these characteristics of idolatry? First let me say this, Do you realize that there
are passages where God even says, “Don’t pray for the people?” He says, “Even if Noah were to pray,
I’m not going to relent because judgment is inevitable.” “It’s like a boat caught in a mighty Niagara
River , and you are going over the falls. It’s too late now to turn back.”

I think America is at that point. I pray for America, but do you realize, folks, that considering what has
happened in the last months and weeks and years, who knows whether we can turn it back? Y

Alright! Now, what are some of the characteristics of idolatry? It’s an exchange of gods. You know, it
says in Jeremiah 2:5, 5 This is what the LORD says:“What did your ancestors find wrong with me
that led them to stray so far from me? They worshiped worthless idols, only to become worthless
themselves. What fault was there in Me?” It says in Jeremiah 2:11-13, 11 Has any nation ever traded its
gods for new ones, even though they are not gods at all? Yet my people have exchanged their glorious
God for worthless idols! 12 The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back in horror and
dismay,” says the Lord.13 “For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me—
the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no
water at all!

Have you ever drunk from a fresh fountain that is bubbling up with some good water? Why would you
then build a cistern to catch rainwater? Your cistern leaks. It’s got cracks. The water is there for weeks
on end and becomes stagnet - green. (DOGWATER) You begin to drink it and you gag (coughs). Why
would people do that? I mean, you know, you are abandoning the fresh water of God. Why go for a
stream that has such a bad aftertaste?

2nd characteristic of idolatry that will answer that question. You must recognize that idolatry
basically is to have a vision of God based upon desire, specifically sexual desire. Have you ever
thought about why Israel always has this attraction to idols? You know, they are always running off
with some other god, whether it’s Hosea or all these other prophets talking about the fact that on the
mountains and the hills they had these shrines. What is attractive about that, may I ask? It’s because the
pagan gods were very tolerant when it came to sexuality.

You know you read this, for example, in chapter two. It says in verse 20, “For long ago I broke your
yoke and burst your bonds, but you said, ‘I will not serve.’ Yes, on every high hill and under every
green tree you bow down like a whore.” He says the very same thing in chapter three. You can read it
there yourself in verse 2 and following.

You see, it was not only spiritual adultery that the people were committing and turning from the living
water to the broken cisterns – the stagnet water, but they were sexually immoral. And these pagan gods
were very tolerant of whatever sexuality you wanted. And the problem with that tolerance, which offers
so much and which promises freedom, is that it brought so much baggage. And when you drink from
that fountain you gag because of the guilt, and because of the broken relationships, and because of the
emptiness, and because of the sense of destruction of who you are and the self-respect that you should
have as a person. All of those consequences are huge, but the problem is you are bonded to these idols.
So you keep drinking from the bitter fountains that can hold no water. But you keep going back again
and again and again.

That is the problem with different views of God. There is a book I know some christians has read
entitled Conversations with God. By the way, did you know that a demonic spirit wrote that book? the
author(Neale Donald Walsch) said that as he was writing a spirit came along and basically dictated it.
And basically what God said is, “I am whoever you want Me to be.” Well, isn’t that precious?

Do you know that it was Thomas Huxley (debated @ Oxford) who said that the reason we accepted
evolution without a lot of proof is because we didn’t want a god to interfere with our sexual mores?
That was Huxley. In other words, “Get God off our back so that we can be free,” but ah, the freedom
comes with a huge price of bondage and you end up choking on those fountains. Hmm, it’s a hard
lesson to learn, isn’t it?

Now do you remember the story about a man who was driving through a farmyard and he noticed that
on the barn there were a bunch of targets. And right smack in the middle of each target there was an
arrow. So he stopped to commend the farmer for being such an expert marksman. The farmer said,
“What you saw out there wasn’t done by me. A village boy who is somewhat mentally challenged did
it. He comes out here. He shoots arrows into my barn and then he paints the targets around them.”
(laughter) That’s what society does. “I want to do what I want to do. I want to live the way in which I
want to live and God will come along and make it all right and agree with me.”

A very famous pornographer, whose name I will not mention, was interviewed, and I remember reading
the interview in which he said, “My god doesn’t have a problem with what I do.” You see, it used to be
when I was younger, that the bumper sticker said, “If it feels good, do it.” Now the bumper sticker
should say, “If it feels good, believe it.” So what we have is a god who comes along and justifies
everything that we want to do.

3rd characteristic of idolatry is willful self-deception. Now here in the text in Jeremiah 2:22-23 it
says, for example, as they are trying to justify themselves, “Though you wash yourself with lye and use
much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before Me.” How do you think they are washing themselves?
They are washing themselves with self-justification. They are talking among their friends and they are
saying, “Well, everybody does it. How could this be wrong?” And so they are trying to cleanse their
consciences, but it’s not working very well. (Israel, an Unfaithful Wife)
23 “You say, ‘That’s not true! I haven’t worshiped the images of Baal!’ But how can you say that?
Go and look in any valley in the land! Face the awful sins you have done. You are like a restless
female camel desperately searching for a mate.
And do you know what the prophet is saying? “You go out looking for sin. It’s not just that sin comes
to you but you go cruising trying to find it, running toward the sin and not away from it. That’s where
your heart really is.” That’s what the prophet is saying. Wow!

And then he says in verse 26“Israel is like a thief who feels shame only when he gets caught.
They, their kings, officials, priests, and prophets— all are alike in this. I’ll tell you what he’s saying
there, and think about this. Anything that you and I are doing, which if it were exposed would be
shameful, is something that we already know intuitively it’s wrong.

Where does this leave us? Let’s make a couple of observations quickly. First of all, remember that all
idols demand worship and allegiance? All idols demand it. These pagan gods demanded worship. They
demanded allegiance. The people tried to get away from them. Do you remember that old story about
Tar Baby & burr rabbitt trying to get away, but it always kept sticking, and they always kept coming
back? They couldn’t overcome their addictions.

Do you know what they ended up doing? They ended up sacrificing their children to the god, Molech.
That’s how bad it became, because you see once you say, “We are free from God (the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob and all of His laws and traditions, and all those things) and now we’re free to be our
own gods,” you never know where it’s going to end up. But every god demands allegiance.

And actually idolatry is not, first of all, things that we normally think of. It’s certainly not idols made
out of wood or stone,we don’t have that today, but we do have sports, and we do have business idols,
and we do have people whose whole identity is wrapped up with relationships. We have women, for
example, who feel that they are totally worthless unless there is a man on their arm. That also can be an
idol. And as a result of that, you see, whether or not it’s money or fame or adulation or being well
thought of…. You know, Calvin, the great theologian, said that the human mind is an idol factory. It’s
always just generating one idol after another, and God has to come along and show those idols to us.
I have idols in my life that I aware of, things that I put first, but when we are serious with God, He
begins to show us because He also demands allegiance. And the first commandment is, “Thou shall
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as
thyself.” Anything that we love more than God, anything that satisfies us more than God, is an idol. It
could be our family. It could be something good, totally justified, but is God first? All gods demand
allegiance.

Our answer is to return to the Lord. Now I’m going to jump to Jeremiah 3, Jeremiah 3:12-14 - 12
Therefore, go and give this message to Israel. This is what the Lord says: “O Israel, my faithless
people, come home to me again,for I am merciful.I will not be angry with you forever.13 Only
acknowledge your guilt. Admit that you rebelled against the Lord your God and committed adultery
against him by worshiping idols under every green tree. Confess that you refused to listen to my voice.
I, the Lord, have spoken! 14 “Return home, you wayward children,” says the Lord,
“for I am your master.I will bring you back to the land of Israel — one from this town and two from
that family— from wherever you are scattered.

Reading about Dr. Ben Carson life , BTW He is one of the most famous surgeons in America. Can you
imagine that at the age of 33 he actually was the head of the neurosurgical unit at Johns Hopkins
University? He’s the first man to take two twins joined at the head and successfully separate them.
What a remarkable man! He actually has the gift of eye-hand coordination that is unusual. He also can
think in three dimensions. I have no idea what that is to think in three dimensions. I think for most of
us, one is about all we can handle.
But as a teenager growing up in poverty he was angry. You know he actually said that he took a
hammer to hit his mother and his brother grabbed the hammer as it was held up at the back of Ben. And
then he was going to take a knife and put it into one of his friends, but the knife hit the friend’s belt.
And as he began to think about it he said, “Anger is going to destroy me.” He said he went into the
bathroom and was there for three hours reading the Scripture, confessing to God, seeking God
regarding anger, and according to his testimony, when he left the bathroom that was the end of his
anger. God did it up right, which is very important if you are a surgeon working on somebody for 18
hours as he has done.

Anger can become an idol. Getting even with somebody can mean more to us than God. I know
somebody who said, “I’ll never get right with God until these Christians make things right with me.”
That is idolatry. Yes, Christians should make things right, but even if they don’t, are you telling me that
your justification is more important to you than your relationship with God, and you are blowing God
off until somebody comes and apologizes? Clearly God has second place.

Idolatry is deep. It is abiding. It has many, many different faces, and God says, “I want you to bow in
your heart to me and me alone. The Lord your God, your Redeemer.” That’s what God is after in our
lives.