God’s relationship with
Israel began like a marriage. God would be faithfully hers,
and she would be lovingly his. On a high and holy hill,
they made their covenant. God would live with his bride, and
her heart would be vowed to him.
But the bride’s love would be short lived.
Israel’s vows to God would quickly slip. For she would commit adultery whoring
after false gods on their high hills, bowing in pagan courts and bringing foreign
lovers through God’s Holy Temple doors. So, at the opening of Jeremiah, God is
a wounded husband calling to his bride. Return, return! Repent, repent! For you
have broken your vow and our covenant. This is the constant lament, the continuous
plea of Jeremiah and his prophecies. You see, Jeremiah was born into a time of
reform during the reign of the good king, Josiah. Israel had forsaken her vows to the Lord. She forgot her marriage
and played the whore. But King Josiah rediscovered
the vows of their covenant. He learned that Israel was supposed
to be bound to God as a husband. She was to give herself
to no other god but him. For if she did, the covenant Josiah uncovered
promised that God would bring her under punishment. So, Josiah was led to call God’s
bride, Israel, to widespread repentance. He tore down false idols on high hills,
destroyed the temples of false gods, overthrew houses of cult prostitution, and uprooted the
pagan places where people sacrificed their daughters and sons. And it is this battle against Israel’s spiritual adultery led by
king Josiah that forms the backdrop to the book of Jeremiah. They had hoped that Israel would return, return, repent,
repent, for they had broken their vow and God’s covenant. God put words in Jeremiah’s mouth about how he would
send armies from the North to punish Israel in the South. Jeremiah warned that they
would be uprooted and torn down, destroyed for forsaking their husband,
overthrown for cheating on their spouse. But Jeremiah was also given words about how their
destruction could be turned around, how God would rebuild a nation out of those still faithful to him, how he
would plant them in their land, never to be plucked up again. He wanted them to return, return, repent, repent,
for they had broken their vow and his covenant. But the outrageous thing was Israel
thought they had continued to keep it. Their leaders led them to believe that
they could behave any way they saw fit. Though it made no sense, Israel believed as long as
the temple stood, God’s covenant would have to stand. She wrongly thought that as long as their marriage altar
was intact, they would never be kicked out of their land. As far as the bride was concerned, adultery didn’t count
as long as God’s wedding band stayed on their hand. So, despite Jeremiah’s pleas
that Israel return to her love, her Lord, there seemed to be no healing balm
that could cure Israel from playing the whore. But Jeremiah pleaded with Israel to change.
He begged her to be transformed. He urged Israel to return, return, repent, repent,
for they had broken her vows and God’s covenant. But his words could not stand against the allurement of the idols
who had warped Israel’s heart until it was completely deformed. Israel would not listen to Jeremiah’s
cries for repentance or pleas for reform. And so, unlike Israel’s priests, Jeremiah did not
speak of an enduring marriage, but of a divorce. For Israel’s heart no longer belonged to the Lord. She had handed over what she adores
to other gods from other shores. So, Jeremiah said she needed a new heart
if her adulterous ways were to ever be cured. And through Jeremiah, God
promised that he would do this. He would send his spirit to renew his
covenant and make his bride internally pure. But the people’s sin only got worse. For under the new king, Johoiakim,
anything Josiah took down was eventually restored. Everything Jeremiah stood for Johoiakim ignored. He rebuilt the high hills of Israel’s adultery,
reinstated pagan worship and idolatry, and, once again, led God’s
people away from their divine monogamy. And this constant spiritual apostasy, their relentless infidelity,
broke God’s heart because he loved his bride whole-heartedly. Yet Israel took God’s promises of
love and fidelity and spat in his face. Their hearts were dead to his
love and needed to be replaced. This un-runnable race, this un-winnable battle
is what made Jeremiah weep for God’s people. For he knew the fate that awaited adulterous Israel. For the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah and told
him to offer a prophecy against Israel and Johoiakim to warn them that God was going to bring punishment
in the form of the armies of the Babylonians. As Jeremiah spoke to his nation,
he now spoke to Jehoiakim: Return, return! Repent, repent!
For you have broken your vow and God’s covenant. But Johoiakim would not listen. He would not pay attention to Jeremiah’s
proclamations about death, sword, and famine. So, he burned the warnings of Jeremiah’s scroll.
That was the state of Jehoiakim and Israel’s soul. No word from the Lord would pierce or take hold. So, God put a word in Jeremiah’s mouth about how he would send armies of Babylon from the North to punish Israel in the Nouth. They would be uprooted and torn down, destroyed for forsaking
their husband, overthrown for cheating on their spouse. And that’s how Jeremiah’s account
ends with the conquest of Jerusalem, the burning of the temple,
and the exile of God’s bride by the Babylonains. Now the bride could see the aftermath of
her adultery, the height of her hypocrisy. It was she who uprooted her temple.
She tore down its doors. She destroyed her marriage.
She overthrew the vows she swore. She had broken the covenant
her husband longed to restore. But now she was alone
and knew she was a whore. Could she return? Could she repent
after breaking her vows and God’s covenant? But what was torn down, God would rebuild.
What was uprooted, he would replant. God would come again as a husband.
Through Jesus he would remake his covenant. The faithful husband would come to his faithless
bride to renew his marriage with his unworthy wife. His love would make us pure again.
He would remember our sin no more. He would make us virgins again,
though we had played the whore. Jesus came with vows too good to be true, that he could
take our broken hearts and make them completely new. Hearts that could forsake all
others and finally say, “I do.” On the cross, Jesus proved that covenant
breakers can’t break his love for us. For he proved his vows unbreakable
in the new covenant of his blood. So, through Jesus we return.
Through Jesus we repent. For though we all have broken our vows,
Jesus will forever keep his New Covenant. Hey, I’m David with Spoken Gospel. Thank you so much for watching our
video introducing the book of Jeremiah. We are a non-profit ministry committed to speaking
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