THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Jeremiah: Prophet Of Judgment Followed By Blessing

Part LXXIII: God's Consistent Righteousness To Judge Repeat Sin

(Jeremiah 44:1-14)

 

I.                 Introduction

A.    All of God's attributes are eternal, for our God is an eternal God, cf. 1 Timothy 1:17.

B.     God's righteousness is thus also eternal, meaning He never wavers from His righteous demands of His people, and this truth is clarified for us in Jeremiah 44:1-14 for our insight and application (as follows):

II.              God's Consistent Righteousness To Judge Repeat Sin, Jeremiah 44:1-14.

A.    After God punished Judah and Jerusalem for idolatry by means of the nation's fall to the Babylonian army, the remnant in Judah had verbally implied that they had learned their lesson to look to God and not idols when they asked Jeremiah for God's message on whether they should stay in Judah or flee to Egypt, Jer. 42:1-6.

B.     However, when Jeremiah had said God wanted them to stay in Judah and trust that He would preserve them from harm by Babylon for Ishmael's assassination of Babylon's puppet governor Gedaliah, they had rejected his message and forcibly taken Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch with them down into Egypt, Jer. 42:7-43:7.

C.     While in Egypt, Judah's remnant had spiritually gone from bad to worse: they had started to worship idols like they did in Judah before the fall of Judah and Jerusalem, revealing they had not repented from God's punishment to avoid idolatry.  Accordingly, God had Jeremiah give them a final message of the Lord's consistent righteousness to judge Judah's repeat sin of idolatry in Jeremiah 44:1-14 as follows:

1.      First, the Lord through Jeremiah reminded Judah's remnant in Egypt that their nation and capital had fallen to the Babylonians due to their long refusals to heed God's prophets to repent from idolatry, Jer. 44:1-6:

                             a.         While in Egypt, God had Jeremiah address the remnant of Judah that had relocated to Egypt, those in Lower (northern) Egypt at Migdol, Tahpanhes (where Jeremiah had been taken) and Noph or Upper (southern) Egypt in the land of Pathros, Jer. 44:1; 43:7; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Jer. 44:1-14.

                            b.         God reminded these Hebrews of His destructive judgment on Judah and Jerusalem for all the peoples' sins of worshiping false pagan gods in place of the true God of Scripture, Jeremiah 44:2-3.

                             c.         The Lord reminded them how He had consistently sent them all His prophets, "rising early" and sending them, an expression of consistent effort like the early, consistent rising of shepherds or farmers to do their daily chores, to warn them to turn from their idolatrous sins, but they had not heeded them, Jer. 44:4-5.

                            d.         Accordingly, God had leveled His judgment on Judah and Jerusalem, destroying the nation, Jer. 44:6.

2.      Second, the Lord through Jeremiah asked Judah's remnant why they were then returning to the practice of idolatry in the land of Egypt where they had gone to live in view of their past history, Jeremiah 44:7-10:

                             a.         With this history of God's judgment behind them, God then asked why the remnant in Egypt was functioning in a way that would incite His wrath against them by worshiping false gods there, Jer. 44:7-8.

                            b.         The Lord asked if they had forgotten the wickedness of their fathers, the kings of Judah, the kings' wives and their own idolatrous practices in Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, Jeremiah 44:9.

                             c.         God lamented that the remnant of Judah had not humbled themselves from having before faced God's destructive judgment in their past so as to depart from idolatry and to return to Him, Jeremiah 44:10.

3.      Third, God thus declared that the remnant would once again face a destructive invasion in Egypt as they had in Judah for their repeat sins of idolatry, Jeremiah 44:11-14:

                             a.         The Lord then announced that He would again level His calamitous judgment on the remnant of Judah there in Egypt where they gone to live, Jeremiah 44:11.  They would be slain by the sword and by famine in another invasion, becoming "an oath, a horror, a curse and a taunt," Jeremiah 44:12 ESV.

                            b.         God would punish the remnant of Judah in Egypt like He had punished them in Judah and Jerusalem, by the sword, by famine and by disease, and only a few fugitives of those who had fled from Judah into Egypt would survive this invasion of Egypt and return back to the land of Judah, Jeremiah 44:13-14 ESV.

             

Lesson: When Judah's remnant initially hypocritically claimed to have turned to the Lord as if they had learned to reject idolatry with Judah's fall only to reject God's will that to stay in Judah and instead go down into Egypt, they returned to practicing the idolatry they had alleged to have abandoned in the fall of Judah and Jerusalem.  Thus, God promised to revisit them with His judgment of another invasion in Egypt for their return to idolatry.

 

Application: God is consistently righteous, so we must not only repent, but consistently stay upright for blessing!