In John 18:20, Jesus said, “I have spoken openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together; and I spoke nothing in secret.”
Peter prophesied in the temple in Jerusalem. In Acts 5:20, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Go stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this life.”
Proverbs 8:1-2 says, “Does not wisdom cry out, and understanding lift up her voice? She takes her stand on the top of the hill, beside the way, where the paths meet.”
Jeremiah 7:3: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.”
In Jeremiah 21:8, the Lord said, “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.”
Jeremiah 7:4: “Do not trust in these lying words, saying, ‘The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these.’”
According to Micah 3:11, Jerusalem’s leaders pronounced judgment for a bribe. Her priests instructed for a price and her prophets divined for money. Yet they leaned on the Lord saying, “Is not the Lord in our midst? Calamity will not come upon us.”
In Matthew 3:8, John the Baptist preached: “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” What does the fruit of repentance look like? It looks like good fruit.
In Matthew 3:9, the Baptist told the Pharisees, “Do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.”
“For if you thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt, then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.” Jeremiah 7:5-7
The action steps of Jeremiah 7:5-7 are to love God and love people by using good judgment so as not to oppress: foreigners, orphans, widows. Protect the innocent. Be faithful to God.
The Lord says in James 1:27 says, “Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
Jeremiah 7:8: “Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.”
The false prophets had prescriptions for winning that did not require repentance of sin. They tried to silence Jeremiah.”
The counterfeit were leaders supported by counterfeit followers. According to Isaiah 30:10, “They say to the seers, ‘You must not see visions’ and to the prophets, ‘You must not prophesy to us what is right, speak to us pleasant words, prophesy illusions.’”
Jeremiah 7:9 -10: “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, and then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My Name, and say, ‘We are delivered to do all these abominations?’”
The Jerusalemites perceived themselves thus: “We go to the temple. We are good.” The reality from God was, “You are Law breakers who need to repent.”
In Ephesians 5:5, the Lord says, “For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”
In Revelation 21:8, the Lord says, “The cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
In Revelation 22:15, it is written, “Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying.”
In 1 John 2:6, we read, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just He walked.” When Christ abides in us, He transforms the way we think and behave. He conforms us to God’s image. He saves us FROM sin - not TO sin.
The problem with disregarding God’s guidance is that we get the devil’s guidance by default. In Romans 1:28, it is written, “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” The devil’s goal is to defile and demonize his victims.
In Romans 1:18, the Lord speaks of those who hold the truth in unrighteousness. They have God’s Word but live contrary to it! Jesus Christ helps us to overcome heresy by the power of His indwelling Holy Spirit. Jesus said in John 7:38, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
Jeremiah 7:11: “Has this house, which is called by My Name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says the Lord.”
Jesus referred to this passage in Mark 11:17 when He told the money-changers, “You have made this house a den of robbers.”
Jeremiah 7:12: “Go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My Name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.”
In 1 Samuel 2:13-14, High Priest Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phineas, were vile in God’s sight. He did not restrain them. God said that there was no atonement for their sins.
In 1 Samuel 2:12-17, 22, “The sons of Eli were corrupt. They did not know the Lord.” They took the meat offerings before the fat was burned as an offering to the Lord. When anyone tried to stop them, they took the meat by force. They also laid with the women who assembled at the tabernacle’s door.
Jeremiah told the people if they did not repent, God would make their temple like Shiloh which was destroyed in the days of Hophni and Phineas.
Jeremiah 7:13: “Now, because you have done all these works, says the Lord, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you, but you did not answer.”
Trust in the Ark is misplaced trust. Trust in the Temple is misplaced trust.
Jeremiah 7:14: “Therefore, I will do to the house, which is called by My Name, in which you trust, and to this place which I gave to you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.”
A personal relationship with the Lord is absolutely necessary to please God.
In Matthew 26:59-61, evil men said of Jesus that He was planning to destroy God’s temple. In Acts 6:13-14, evil men said of God’s servant Stephen, “We have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place [the temple].” A personal relationship with God is better than pride in a temple built by human hands.
God replaced the brick and mortar temple with the body of Christ. In Micah 6:8, it is written, “He has shown you O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you, to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”
Jeremiah 7:15-16: “I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren—the whole posterity of Ephraim. Therefore, do not pray for this people, nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you.”
The words, “cast out” harken back to Adam and Eve being cast out of the Garden of Eden. Think of it! They committed one sin and were cast out. Sin is a serious matter. Jesus spoke of sinners being cast into hell.
“Do not pray for this people. “I will not hear you,” “When people are given up to judicial hardness of heart, intercessory prayer for them is unavailing.”
Jeremiah 7:17-19: “Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger. Do they provoke Me to anger? says the Lord. Do they not provoke themselves, to the shame of their own faces?”
“Queen of heaven cakes were made of honey, fine flour and other ingredients in a round flat shape to resemble the moon. The Phoenicians called the moon Ashtoreth or Astarte. Baal or Moloch was considered the king of heaven. Monday, or Moon-day, relates to moon worship.”
Jeremiah 7:20: “Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place—on man and on beast, on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground. And it will burn and not be quenched.”
Jeremiah’s prophecy is reflected in Revelation 16:1, “My fury will be poured out.” The Lord promises to pour out wrath during earth’s last days.
Jeremiah 7:21-23: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat. For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.’”
Jeremiah’s words are reflected in 1 Samuel 15:22: “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed than the fat of rams.”
In Psalm 51:16-17, we pray, “You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it. You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise.”
In Mark 12:33, it is written, “To love Him [God] with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is much more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.”
Some will continue to rebel against the Lord until the time of His second coming. In Revelation 16:9, it is written, “Men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues. And they did not repent and give Him glory.”
Jeremiah 7:25: “Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them.”
Hundreds of years after Jeremiah delivered the Lord’s Word to Jerusalem’s leaders, Stephen delivered a similar word to the leaders there in his day. In Acts 7:51-53, Stephen told them, “You men who are stiff-necked... are always resisting the Holy Spirit... Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? ...You who have received the Law given through angels but have not obeyed it.”
Jeremiah 7:26: “Yet they did not obey Me or incline their ear but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.”
In Proverbs 8:34, God says, “Blessed are those who listen to Me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at My doorway.”
Jeremiah 7:29: “Cut off your hair and cast it away and take up a lamentation on the desolate heights; for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.”
Walter Brueggemann wrote, “Without grief there is no change.”
Years ago, an anti-pollution ad on television used the image of a weeping Indian to encourage people to stop littering the roadways. His tears bore good fruit. Littering decreased across the country.
In Job 28:1, 12-13, it is written, “Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is refined.” “But where can wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Man does not know its value, nor is it found in the land of the living.” Wisdom is from God.
The Lord responds to a person’s grief, humility, repentance, and cries. God blesses those who turn from sin to Him via prayer.
Jeremiah 7:30: “The children of Judah have done evil in My sight, says the Lord. They have set their abominations in the house, which is called by My Name, to pollute it.”
King Josiah commanded Hilkiah (Jeremiah’s father) to remove idols from the temple. Kings after him, brought them back. According to 2 Kings 23:4, priests and doorkeepers removed from the Lord’s temple all the vessels that were made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven. Josiah “burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel.”
Jeremiah 7:31: “They have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart.”
In Leviticus 18:21, it is written, “You shall not give any of your offspring to offer them to Molech, nor shall you profane the Name of your God. I am the Lord.”
Jeremiah 7:32: “Therefore behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when it will no more be called Tophet, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Tophet until there is no room.”
In Revelation 19:17, John saw an angel crying out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in midheaven, “Come, assemble for the great supper of God.”
A corpse consumed by birds is a curse of the Law. A corpse would not be consumed by birds if it had been buried. This means the people are about to die from a national calamity. In Deuteronomy 28:26, it is written, “Your carcasses will be food to all birds of the sky and to the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.”
Jeremiah 7:34: “Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. For the land shall be desolate.”
In Revelation 18:23, it is written, “The light of a lamp will not shine in you [last days Babylon] any longer. And the voice of the bridegroom and bride will not be heard in you any longer; for your merchants were the great men of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery.”
How does reformation begin? It begins with God’s Word. In Psalm 119:130, it is written, “The entrance of Your words give light. It gives understanding to the simple.”
In Jeremiah 7, the people who called themselves God’s people were worshipping idols and doing evil. Jeremiah grew up in this corrupt religious circle, but something happened that changed his point of view. God’s Word came to Jeremiah. He believed it and proclaimed it.
Attached is a link to a power point version of this article which I have recorded on my YouTube channel:
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