Jeremiah 21.b. A Word to the Government.

 No one can hide from God’s judgment. After giving a warning and a prophecy, Jeremiah under God’s direction speaks some specific words for the leaders of Judah, the remaining descendants of the house of David. Remember that somewhere in this line of descent there is a strand that will lead to Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus, who therefore is also of the house of David. 

 The future of the house of David balances on a knife blade, one step could end the line. The stakes are clear, as are the steps that must be taken to ensure the future of the kings. Once more, God offers a path to repentance, reformation, and restoration, if the leaders will take it. 

Jeremiah 21: 11-14.  To the house of the king of Judah say: Hear the word of the LORD, O house of David! Thus says the LORD:

Execute justice in the morning,   

and deliver from the hand of the oppressor   

anyone who has been robbed,

or else my wrath will go forth like fire   

and burn, with no one to quench it,   

because of their evil doings.

See, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley,   

O rock of the plain, says the LORD;

you who say, “Who can come down against us,   

or who can enter our places of refuge?”

I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings,            s

ays the LORD;   

I will kindle a fire in its forest,   

and it shall devour all that is around it.

 There is enough in this prophecy of God for us to consider for the rest of today’s study. 

 Late is the hour in which these leaders choose to appear before the prophet.  Representatives of the government are sent to as Jeremiah to appeal to YHWH whom they have heretofore ignored. Previously, they have treated Jeremiah with contempt, personal violence, and imprisonment. Now they come to Jeremiah asking him to relay their request to God, to ask for a favor or a miracle.

Early on, through Jeremiah God said, “For they turn their backs to me, and not their faces. But in the time of their trouble they say, ‘Come and save us!’” (Jeremiah 2: 27).  Cheeky buggers. Where have they been?

Years later, at the last minute, Herod did something similar. He asked Jesus to perform a parlor trick for him (Luke 23: 6-12), but it was too late to make nice with God (Acts 12: 20-23). 

 Second, God goes back to the reason for the Covenant in the first place, and that is to shape a society that operates with justice and righteousness as befits God’s character. The leaders of a godly society would not enrich the rich, rather they would take care of the health, the housing, and the hunger of the poor. So, God says, ‘first thing in the morning, when you wake up, before you do anything else’, “Execute justice … and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed.” 

 That’s a pretty basic function of the government, but it gets messy when the leaders and their rich cronies are the one doing the robbing and oppressing. They push the poor to the margins of society and then make them work for a pittance just to get help. Who are the poor? We will see next week.

 The leaders have led in robbery and oppression according to the charges that God made through Jeremiah (Jeremiah 2:34, 5:1, 5:28-29, 7:5-7). A younger contemporary of Jeremiah’s, Ezekiel the prophet of the exiled people in Babylon, put it this way; the shepherds are the kings, priests, and house prophets. 

 “To the shepherds—thus says the Lord GOD: Woe, you shepherds of Israel who have been

feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat; you clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatted calves, but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak; you have not healed the sick; you have not bound up the injured; you have not brought back the strays; you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them (Ezekiel 34:2-6). 

 Ezekiel goes on to record that God says that he himself will come down and shepherd his flock. No wonder Jesus identified himself as the ‘Good Shepherd’ in John 10:11-18. 

 Through Jeremiah God warns the people not to consider Jerusalem as an impregnable city. It was high, but there were higher mountains around, and Babylonian armies would ‘come down’ to besiege the city (Goldingay, Jeremiah, page 483).

 Finally, pay attention to the final phrase, “I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings.” Someone may say, but I will repent and ask for forgiveness. John the Baptist hit the nail on the head when he said, “Bear fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:8). 

 Repentance is not just a belief; it is an action. One who has repented, been forgiven, and is grateful is to follow the intent of the Covenant laws and the commands of Jesus. It all has to do with how you treat other people, and that applies whether you are in a retirement community or in the governor’s mansion. 

 Someone complains, ‘But that makes God’s promises conditional’. Well, they are. Even the promise that Israel will inhabit the land. The Bible is full of ‘if-then’ statements, followed by ‘but-therefore’ statements. We’ll close with one about two choices about going down one path or the other.

“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.

"But if your heart turns away and you do not hear but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall certainly perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.

Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him, for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” (Deuteronomy 30:15-20).