Jeremiah 12
IN verses 1 to 4 Jeremiah appeals to God. He acknowledges that 'His acts are righteous, though he does not fully understand. Why, he asks, as has many another, why does the way of the wicked prosper? This is part of the complaint voiced in Psalm 73, which also gives the answer. Those whom Jeremiah referred to were empty religious professors; God was near in their mouth, but far from their reins (their inward thoughts). He asks that they be judged; the Christian is never taught of God to seek vengeance upon his enemies, but such desires will be right in the believing children of Israel when the day of reckoning for this world approaches. So many of the Psalms breathe language suited for that time, and Revelation 6:9-119And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 10And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 11And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. (Revelation 6:9‑11) shows a company of martyrs of the future day calling for the judgment of their former oppressors.
In verse 5 and 6 God brings the state and coming judgment of Judah pointedly before His servant Jeremiah, Those who would serve Him well in the gospel must themselves realize in their own souls the prospect before the sinner going on heedlessly to eternal judgment.
In verse 7 Jeremiah is told that all is over with Judah; there remains only the actual emptying of the land, which would shortly be done by Nebuchadnezzar as God's instrument of judgment. Never since that day has God dwelt among His earthly people; never since have they been in the enjoyment of divine favor as a nation, nor will they be until there is a national repentance, not only of their sins of idolatry and rejection of the Word of God, but now also the sin of deeper dye—the rejection of their Messiah.
The land of Israel is unlike any other, as we have noticed before. Let us refer to Deuteronomy 32:7-437Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. 8When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. 9For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. 10He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. 11As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: 12So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. 13He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock; 14Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. 15But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. 16They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger. 17They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. 18Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee. 19And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters. 20And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. 21They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. 22For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. 23I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. 24They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. 25The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs. 26I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men: 27Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the Lord hath not done all this. 28For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. 29O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! 30How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up? 31For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges. 32For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter: 33Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps. 34Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures? 35To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. 36For the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left. 37And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted, 38Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection. 39See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. 40For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever. 41If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me. 42I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy. 43Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people. (Deuteronomy 32:7‑43); Exodus 3:88And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. (Exodus 3:8); Isaiah 5:1-71Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: 2And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. 3And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. 4What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? 5And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: 6And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. 7For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry. (Isaiah 5:1‑7); Ezekiel 33:24-20; Joel 2 and 3. From that land, first possessed by the sons of Jacob nearly 3,400 years ago (B.C. 1451) ten of the twelve tribes of Israel were removed because of their sins in little more than 700 years (B.C. 721); they have never returned, and only God knows where they are today.
The two tribes referred to as Judah, the Jews, as they have long been designated, were removed after 845 years (some remained 18 years longer) in the land, and though permitted to return to it by proclamation of the Persian king Cyrus 70 years later, though not all did so. Those who slid return were in large measure unsubdued in. heart, and the final test cane when Jehovah—Jesus in lowly grace came among them. Him they crucified, and since then their land has been desolated; they are a homeless people, and their country, God's heritage, awaits their return, and their full repentance,- as to which the Old Testament prophets have spoken.
That day, we believe, is near, Already the land is attracting thousands of Jews, and its resources are being developed, but the time has not come (nor will it, we are persuaded, short of the Lord’s return) when it will yield what God has in prospect for it.
The chapter closes with the promise of blessing for Judah, and, if their Gentile neighbors "diligently learn the ways" (not, of course, the old sinful ways, but the ways of a redeemed and born-again people) of His people, God will build them up in the midst of Israel. If they will not obey, they will be plucked up and destroyed. This fulfilment belongs to the Millennium which is yet future, but not, we believe, far distance.
Messages of God’s Love 9/16/1934