Jeremiah

Chapter Eight & Nine

Introduction

When the word "harvest" is used as an illustration or metaphor, your thoughts turn to the harvest of souls into the kingdom of God that is occurring throughout the age in which we live. Jesus told His disciples, in Matthew 9:37-38,

Matthew 9:38 "Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."

The harvest of souls is a wonderful metaphor to encourage you in your work of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It can be somewhat discouraging to read the words of Jeremiah 8:20, where Jeremiah says,

For the nation of Judah, the harvest was past. God had even waited beyond the harvest, but there was no reaping of souls to salvation. Instead there was this grim word from the Lord, in Jeremiah 9:22,

The harvest of the nation of Judah unto salvation was past. Instead they would experience another kind of harvest - a harvest of judgment at the hands of enemies whom God would send to destroy them.

As we study Jeremiah, which describes God's particular dealings with the nation of Judah, we are also trying to understand God's sovereign dealings with nations in general. We are trying to understand God's dealings with our own nation, the United States of America.

There is indeed a harvest of souls going on in America as many thousands of individuals are trusting Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Greg Laurie, pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship, has for many years held Harvest Crusades all over the United States, with marvelous supernatural results. For this we rejoice!

At the same time, our nation as a whole seems to be moving away from God. In the midst of the harvest of individual souls, is it possible that the harvest of our nation as a whole is somehow past, and that the United States is headed for a harvest of judgment?

The Bible is silent about the United States of America; we are not one of the nations anywhere named. We can't say for sure what lies ahead for our nation; but we can look back at the nation of Judah and draw certain comparisons. When we do, we see two things in Chapters Eight and Nine: #1 There Are Signs That Tell You When The Harvest Of Your Nation Is Past, and #2 There Are Strategies You Follow WhenThe Harvest Of Your Nation Is Past.

#1 There Are Signs That Tell You When

The Harvest Of Your Nation Is Past

As you read Chapters Eight and Nine, you encounter a few verses scattered throughout that record and reflect the personal reactions of Jeremiah. Those verses will instruct us as to our strategies in a nation whose harvest is past. The remaining verses, where the Lord is speaking to and through Jeremiah, give you the signs that a nation's harvest is past.

One sign that a nation's harvest is past is that its people plan to make progress in their sin. God compares them to a person stumbling and lost along the road, then to a horse with blinders on rushing forward into danger.

Here is a person stumbling along the road because they took a wrong turn. If you were walking and fell down, you'd get back up. If you took a wrong turn, you would go back and get on the right road. Yet the people of

Judah refused to repent from their sin and return. They instead make progress along the wrong road, as you read in verse five:

"Perpetual backsliding" means they pressed forward in sin. They also "held fast to deceit" about what was the right and what was the wrong way, rather than returning to God's way, revealed in His Word. They determined, in their deceit, to make progress along the wrong way. There is a Christian shirt that sums up the tension between what God has decreed to be wrong and what men deceive themselves about and say is right; the shirt says, "How can a moral wrong be a civil right?" It can't - but men pursue what is wrong and seek to call it right.

Once you disagree with God about what is right and what is wrong, you begin to quickly move along a path of making progress in your sin:

"What have I done?" Modern versions of this would be things like, "It's legal"; "Everyone is doing it"; "It doesn't hurt anybody"; "I was born this way"; and, "After all, this isn't the dark ages." Many people see immorality as a progress in our ideas of morality.

Like a horse with blinders on, not realizing the danger, those who make wrong right plunge forward to make progress in their sin.

Animals have an instinctive sense of when to migrate and flee the dangers of nature. Men and women who forsake God's Word are below the animals in their intelligence! They give up their instinctive moral sense - what we call conscience. They become more and more evil, progressing in their sin, and even planning new ways to make progress in their sin.

Are people in our nation planning to make progress in their sin? Let me give you one example. God has plainly condemned homosexuality and lesbianism as sin. Yet our nation continues to make progress in the area of rights for homosexuals and lesbians. This progressive attitude toward sin was highlighted recently when the newspapers carried an article about the continued prevalence of homosexual themes in the media. The gist of the article was that Hollywood is giving us small but ever increasing doses of homosexuality and lesbianism, so that it will gradually become acceptable.

Our nation is making progress in sin, and many influential people are planning to make further progress in sin. It is a sign that a nation is past the harvest.

Another sign is a covetous clergy. Drop down to verses eight through thirteen:

Jeremiah 8:9 The wise men are ashamed, They are dismayed and taken. Behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD; So what wisdom do they have?

Jeremiah 8:10 Therefore I will give their wives to others, And their fields to those who will inherit them; Because from the least even to the greatest Everyone is given to covetousness; From the prophet even to the priest Everyone deals falsely.

Jeremiah 8:11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, Saying, 'Peace, peace!' When there is no peace.

Jeremiah 8:12 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed, Nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; In the time of their punishment They shall be cast down," says the LORD.

Jeremiah 8:13 "I will surely consume them," says the LORD. "No grapes shall be on the vine, Nor figs on the fig tree, And the leaf shall fade; And the things I have given them shall pass away from them."' "

The "prophets and the priests" are who we would call the clergy. God declares them "covetous." Two things characterized them:

ˆThey "falsified" God's Word by promising peace and prosperity to the people...

‰They would be publicly shamed by God, but would themselves be unashamed and refuse even to blush...

This perfectly describes the last decade of Christianity in America! The health and wealth gospel, which is a false gospel, has made millionaires of covetous men who prey on God's people. Many of those who promote this false teaching have been publicly shamed, but they go on unashamed - refusing even to blush.

Our nation is the birthplace of these falsified teachings. It is a sign that a nation is past the harvest.

Another sign is that lying becomes a lifestyle. Drop down to Chapter Nine, and verses three through nine:

Jeremiah 9:4 "Everyone take heed to his neighbor, And do not trust any brother; For every brother will utterly supplant, And every neighbor will walk with slanderers.

Jeremiah 9:5 Everyone will deceive his neighbor, And will not speak the truth; They have taught their tongue to speak lies; They weary themselves to commit iniquity.

Jeremiah 9:6 Your dwelling place is in the midst of deceit; Through deceit they refuse to know Me," says the LORD.

Jeremiah 9:7 Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts: "Behold, I will refine them and try them; For how shall I deal with the daughter of My people?

Jeremiah 9:8 Their tongue is an arrow shot out; It speaks deceit; One speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, But in his heart he lies in wait.

Jeremiah 9:9 Shall I not punish them for these things?" says the LORD. "Shall I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?"

Lies, deceit, and slander became a lifestyle in Judah. Lying is becoming more and more a lifestyle in America: Time Magazine devoted a cover to the practice and prevalence of lying in America. Deceit and slander dominate both print and broadcast media, telling you that America has acquired a taste for these things. It is a sign that a nation is past the harvest.

The final sign in this part of Scripture is in verse twelve through sixteen of Chapter Nine. It is the exalting of self over God:

Jeremiah 9:13 And the LORD said, "Because they have forsaken My law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, nor walked according to it,

Jeremiah 9:15 therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Behold, I will feed them, this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.

Jeremiah 9:16 "I will scatter them also among the Gentiles, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. And I will send a sword after them until I have consumed them."

Judah thought themselves wise and ignored the wisdom of God. Having done so they were left to guide themselves, having only the dictates of their fallen nature and the example of pagan idolaters. This is a lot like what you read in Romans 1:21-23, where the Scripture says,

Romans 1:22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,

Romans 1:23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man; and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

These verses perfectly describe our own nation. Secular humanism is the dominant philosophy; self and self-esteem are key ideas and ideals; man's wisdom is preferred over God's wisdom. These things are characteristic of a nation that is past the harvest.

Is our nation as a whole past God's harvest? I prefer to leave that up to God! I will say that individual souls in our nation are not past God's harvest. If enough individuals choose Christ then all of these signs will cease.

What should we do as modern day Jeremiah’s?

#2 There Are Strategies You Follow When

The Harvest Of Your Nation Is Past

Most of the verses we skipped over record Jeremiah's response to God's Words. In them we can piece together a strategy of confronting a nation past God's harvest.

Look first at Chapter Eight and verses fourteen through sixteen. There you are told to sound a warning:

Jeremiah 8:15 "We looked for peace, but no good came; And for a time of health, and there was trouble!

Jeremiah warned his people what was coming and why it was coming. What was coming was judgment; why it was coming was because of sin.

The Church and Christians must sound the warning to our nation. Billy Graham's comment years ago that, if God doesn't judge America, then He owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology, must be on your lips in a more contemporary form. Although men may scoff, we must warn them of the judgment to come.

A second strategy is for you to be waiting, in verses eighteen and nineteen:

Jeremiah 8:19 Listen! The voice, The cry of the daughter of my people From a far country: "Is not the LORD in Zion? Is not her King in her?" "Why have they provoked Me to anger With their carved images; With foreign idols?"

Jeremiah can comfort himself because he looks into God's prophetic future. There he hears Jews crying out to return to the Lord in Zion and to their submission to Him as King. Indeed, there was and is a future for the Jews.

Christians comfort themselves by looking into God's prophetic future! You are waiting for the Lord to Rapture His Church and take you to heaven. Should you die prior to the Rapture, you will immediately be with the Lord. Comfort one another with your waiting.

A third strategy is to witness, found in verses twenty-one and twenty-two:

Jeremiah 8:22 Is there no balm in Gilead, Is there no physician there? Why then is there no recovery For the health of the daughter of my people?

Jeremiah is astonished that the people don't repent and return to the Lord. He compares their spiritual condition to a physical illness. There was healing balm in Gilead, and physicians, to heal them physically. Just so, God was their heavenly physician and could heal them spiritually.

The "balm" that heals you spiritually is the blood of Jesus. He is the Great Physician, calling sinners to repentance by His Word and by His Spirit in the world.

We should witness with astonishment when people don't respond!

A fourth strategy is to go after and woo backsliders, seen in verse one of Chapter Nine:

Jeremiah looked ahead to God's judgment and had compassion for the backsliders who would be slain by it.

The New Testament encourages you to have compassion on backsliders. Jude 1:23 says,

Galatians 6:1 says,

James 5:19-20 says,

James 5:20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

You are to go with compassion and woo backsliders - speaking to them straightforwardly about their sin, but with the love of God for them in Jesus. If not, they might be slain: The New Testament records cases of believers being killed by God for their heinous sinning. God would rather destroy their flesh than have their soul perish in Hell.

A fifth strategy is to see yourself as a wayfarer, and to seek out the fellowship of other wayfarers. Look at verse two of Chapter Nine:

Jeremiah longed for a retreat in the wilderness where he could temporarily get away from unbelievers and fellowship with others who understood that they were wayfarers, just passing through this world on their way to eternity.

Do you see yourself as a wayfarer? As a stranger and a pilgrim who is looking forward to the heavenly home Jesus is preparing for you? If you do you will desire more and more to fellowship with others like you - to gather together with other believers when the Church assembles on earth. The Church ought to be a lodging place for wayfarers who find themselves in the world but not of the world.

Jeremiah's sixth and final strategy was to weep, seen in verse ten:

He wept for the future he saw for the land that God had given His people. Their sin was such that the judgment upon it would be seen in the land itself.

God always judges accordingly. Pharaoh tried to drown all the male babies born to the Jews; some years later God drowned his own army in the Red Sea. In the book of Esther, Haman erected a gallows to hang Mordecai and was himself hanged on it. The advisers of King Darius forced him to arrest Daniel and throw him into the lion's den, but later they themselves were thrown to those lions.

Last week, in Jeremiah Seven and Eight, you saw God's judgment against Judah for killing their children: He would slaughter them, pile up the dead bodies without proper burial, and even have graves opened to expose the dead. Short of revival, America will not survive. The judgment that must come upon an unrepentant America should cause you to weep...

Conclusion

Chapter Nine ends hopefully:

Jeremiah 9:24 But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight," says the LORD.

Jeremiah 9:25 "Behold, the days are coming," says the LORD, "that I will punish all who are circumcised with the uncircumcised;

Jeremiah 9:26 "Egypt, Judah, Edom, the people of Ammon, Moab, and all who are in the farthest corners, who dwell in the wilderness. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart."

The last two verses simply tell you that no nation can escape God's judgment for their sin - not Judah, not America.

But verses twenty-three and twenty-four tell you that the God Who must judge sin "exercises lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness on the earth." In His "lovingkindness," God has made a way of salvation - He has poured out His "judgment" against sin upon Jesus Christ and He offers all who believe on Jesus His perfect "righteousness."

All your nation must do is quit trusting in its wisdom, warfare, and wealth and instead trust the Living God. If it does, the harvest will come.