What is an abomination? The original Hebrew word for abomination is תּוֹעֵבָה (to-ey-VAH) which is an detestable act, thing or things, loathsome to the Lord. In Deuteronomy 27:15, it is written, “Cursed is the man who makes an idol or a molten image, an abomination.”
2 Kings 23:13: “The high places which were before Jerusalem, which were on the right of the mount of destruction which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and Milcom the abomination of the sons of Ammon, [these] the king [Josiah] defiled.”
Solomon created abominations for his pagan wives. In the early days of Jeremiah’s ministry, King Josiah removed the abominations that King Solomon set up on behalf of pagan wives.
After Josiah’s death, the people returned to idols. The Lord them said to them in Jeremiah 32:33-35, “They have turned to Me the back, and not the face. Though I taught them, rising early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction. They set their abominations in the house which is called by My Name... they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech...”
Jeremiah 4:2: “And you shall swear, ‘The Lord lives,’ in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; the nations shall bless themselves in Him, and in Him they shall glory.”
In Genesis 22:18, the Lord had a plan. It was “In your Seed [Israel’s seed referring to Christ] all the nations of the earth shall be blessed...”
The nations are blessed in the Seed of Abraham. That seed is Christ. In Galatians 3:8, Paul wrote: “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Gospel beforehand to Abraham, ‘All the nations will be blessed in you.’” Paul notes in Galatians 3:16, God “does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of One, ‘And to your Seed’ who is Christ.”
Jeremiah 4:3: “For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns.” Christ is who we need in the soil of our hearts.
Hosea 6:12: “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till He comes and rains righteousness on you.” Righteousness is from the Lord.
Judah’s leaders needed to break up their fallow ground. Instead of serving idols, they needed to prepare the soil of their hearts to receive Messiah. He was coming to them.
In Mark 4:15-20, Jesus compared His Word to seed that if put in good soil will produce abundantly. Seed sown along the path Satan takes away. Seed sown on rocky places lasts only a short time. Seed sown among thorns are choked and unfruitful. Seed sown on good soil, hears the Word, accepts it and produces a crop.
Jeremiah 4:4: “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest My fury come forth like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.”
The Lord speaks of circumcision as a heart operation that urgently needs to be done for the patient to survive.
In Deuteronomy 30:6, we read, “The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.” Praise God for such a circumcision!
Colossians 2:11-12: “In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” Christ performs the circumcision that replaces sin with new life in Him.
Jeremiah 4:5-6: “Declare in Judah, proclaim in Jerusalem, and say, ‘Blow the trumpet in the land. Cry, gather together, and say, assemble yourselves, and let us go into the fortified cities.’ Set up the standard toward Zion. Take refuge! Do not delay! For I will bring disaster from the north, and great destruction.”
God gave Judah action steps: sound the alarm, do not delay, and take cover. Your enemy is swooping in for a kill. His talons are sharp.
A similar prophecy appears in Hosea 8:1: “Set the trumpet to your mouth! He shall come like an eagle against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law.”
In Deuteronomy 28:49, the Lord promised to bring a nation against Israel from the end of the earth, as an eagle swoops down, a nation whose language they would not understand, if they sinned against Him.
Jeremiah 4:7: “The lion has come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of nations is on his way. He has gone forth from his place to make your land desolate. Your cities will be laid waste, without inhabitant.”
The prophecy of Jeremiah 4:7 was fulfilled in days of King Jehoiakim. In 2 Kings 24:1, it is written, “In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant for three years. Then, he turned and rebelled against him.”
The Lord compares Babylon to a roaring lion. Babylon is coming. How can anyone be silent? Amos 3:8 says, “A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken! Who can but prophesy?”
In Daniel 7:4, the Lord compared Babylon to a lion. “The first was like a lion and had the wings of an eagle. I kept looking until its wings were plucked, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man; a human mind also was given to it.”
Jeremiah 4:8: “For this, clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament, and wail. For the fierce anger of the Lord has not turned back from us.”
Judah’s best option at this point was to put on the garments of repentance, and to cry before the Lord. They needed His forgiveness and His mercy.
Jeremiah 4:9: “And it shall come to pass in that day, says the Lord, that the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes. The priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder.”
The “elite” of the city were not going to escape the judgment of the Lord.
Jeremiah 4:10: “Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Surely You have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘You shall have peace,’ whereas the sword reaches to the heart.”
In Jeremiah 6:10, the false prophets were saying, “Peace, peace, when there was no peace.” False prophets are as clear as mud about God.
In Isaiah 30:10: “The people had said to the seers, ‘You must not see.’ And to the prophets, ‘You must not prophesy to us what is right, speak to us pleasant words, prophesy illusions.’”
According to Nehemiah 9:26-27, before the exile, prophets had warned the Jerusalemites to turn back to God, but they blasphemed God and killed His prophets. So, He delivered them into the hands of their enemies.
In 1 Kings 22:19-23: “A spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’ ‘By what means?’ the Lord asked. ‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said. ‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it.’”
In 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12: “They [the deceived ones] perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”
In Luke 21:7-8, when the disciples asked Jesus to tell them the signs of the end of the age, he said to them, “Take heed that you not be deceived. For many will come in My Name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and ‘The time has drawn near.’ Do not go after them.”
Jeremiah 4:11-13: “At that time, it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A dry wind of the desolate heights blows in the wilderness toward the daughter of My people—not to fan or to cleanse — a wind too strong for these will come for Me. Now, I will also speak judgment against them! Behold, he shall come up like clouds, and his chariots like a whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are plundered!”
In Matthew 3:12, John the Baptist compared Messiah to a winnower whose “winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Jesus separates those who are for Him from those who are not.
Jeremiah 4:14: “O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?”
In Matthew 23:25, Jesus spoke woes to the hypocrites of Jerusalem. He told them that though they looked clean on the outside that their hearts were “full of extortion and excess.”
Jeremiah 4:15-16: “For a voice declares from Dan and proclaims affliction from Mount Ephraim: ‘make mention to the nations, yes, proclaim against Jerusalem, that watchers come from a far country and raise their voice against the cities of Judah.’”
The Assyrians had already attacked the northern tribes of Israel. Their captivity was a signal to the southern tribes as by watchmen that their captivity was next.
Jeremiah 4:17-18: “Like keepers of a field, they are against her all around, because she has been rebellious against Me, says the Lord. Your ways and your doings have procured these things for you. This is your wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reaches to your heart.”
According to 2 Kings 25:1, Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled in the ninth year of King Zedekiah’s reign. King Nebuchadnezzar’s army camped about Jerusalem and attacked it.
Jeremiah 4:19: “O my soul, my soul! I am pained in my very heart! My heart makes a noise in me. I cannot hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.”
In Romans 9:2-5, Paul expressed his heart for Israel saying, “I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off.” Theirs is the adoption to sonship, the glory and covenants, the giving of the Law, God’s service, the promises and the patriarchs, from them is traced the human ancestry of Messiah.
Their story is so tragic! God was good to them, but they were bad toward God. They did not realize what they had in God. They exchanged the real God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, for fake gods made of wood and stone. They reaped a bad harvest when they could have enjoyed a great one.
In Galatians 4:19, Paul wrote, “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.” Paul travailed in prayer before God that people would become Christ-like.
Jeremiah 4:20: “Destruction upon destruction is cried, for the whole land is plundered. Suddenly my tents are plundered, and my curtains in a moment.”
Wave after wave of assault by their enemies left Jerusalem’s refugees in tents, but even their tents were plundered.
Jeremiah 4:21-22: “How long will I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?” The trumpet or ram’s horn was early warning system in ancient days. Nowadays, we have air raid sirens to warn of an incoming attack. My people are foolish, they have not known Me. They are silly children, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.”
True religion is about a personal relationship with God. The Lord lamented in Isaiah 1:3 because His people did know Him. “An ox knows its owner, and a donkey its master’s manger, but Israel does not know. My people do not understand.”
Prior to His crucifixion, Jesus warned His disciples: “They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me.” (John 16:2-3)
Pride distorts our view of ourselves. We may perceive ourselves as super people but realistically be super sinners.
Romans 1:22, 28: “Professing to be wise, they became fools.” “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.”
Jeremiah 4:23-26: “I beheld the earth, and indeed it was without form, and void; and the heavens, they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and indeed they trembled, and all the hills moved back and forth. I beheld, and indeed there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens had fled. I beheld, and indeed the fruitful land was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of the Lord, by His fierce anger.”
Jeremiah sees the earth and heavens as they were in Genesis 1:2, “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep...” He sees an apocalyptic scene where people, birds, crops, and cities are gone. A worse scene than this awaits those who reject Christ.
Jeremiah’s vision is like John’s vision in Revelation 20:11. John wrote, “Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it. From whose face the earth fled away. And there was found no place for them.”
Jeremiah 4:27-30: “For thus says the Lord: the whole land shall be desolate; yet I will not make a full end. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black, because I have spoken. I have purposed, and will not relent, nor will I turn back from it. The whole city shall flee from the noise of the horsemen and bowmen. They shall go into thickets and climb up on the rocks. Every city shall be forsaken, and not a man shall dwell in it. And when you are plundered, What will you do? Though you clothe yourself with crimson, though you adorn yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain you will make yourself fair; your lovers will despise you; they will seek your life.”
In 2 Kings 9:30 , “When Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out the window.” Jehu had her killed. Outward beauty cannot thwart divine judgment.
In Revelation 17:2-3, the Lord showed John a deceptive woman like Jezebel in the last days, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication.”
Jeremiah 4:31: “For I have heard a voice as of a woman in labor, the anguish as of her who brings forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion bewailing herself. She spreads her hands, saying, ‘Woe is me now, for my soul is weary because of murderers!’”
In Matthew 24:7-8, Jesus compared the trials of the last days to birth pangs. “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pangs.”
There are numerous parallels between Jeremiah’s Jerusalem and Revelation’s Jerusalem. Both exhort people to repent. Both speak of tribulations. Both speak of better kingdoms to come.
Jeremiah provides us insight into what it is like to speak to people who do not want to hear God’s Word but need to hear it. Revelation provides us valuable insights into what God and His angels are doing in the heavenlies to bring about repentance.
In James 4:8, God says, “Draw near to Me, and I will draw near to you.”
Attached is a link to a power point version of this article which I have recorded on my YouTube channel:
https://youtu.be/3tfNb-r3TjY
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