Love The Lord Your God - Jeremiah 3

Jeremiah 3:1: “They say, ‘If a man divorces his wife, and she goes from him and becomes another man’s, may he return to her again?’ Would not that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the harlot with many lovers. Yet return to Me, says the Lord.”

In Deuteronomy 24:1-4, God said that a man may divorce his wife… But after she has departed, and becomes another man’s wife, if that second husband “detests her” and divorces her or if he dies, the first husband must “not take her back to be his wife... That is an abomination before the Lord.” Abominable acts pollute the land.

The Jerusalemites were all over the map with their beliefs about God. He compared their worship of other gods, to being a “harlot with many lovers.”

In Deuteronomy 22:21, God commanded Israel to execute harlots to purge evil from among them.

In Jeremiah 3:1, we see a glimpse of the Gospel. The Lord says to Israel, “You have played the harlot with many lovers; yet return to Me.” Amazingly, God offered to take Judah back if she would return to Him.

In John 8:3-11, Scribes and Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman caught in adultery. They said, “Moses, in the Law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?” They wanted to accuse Him. At first, Jesus wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. “When they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, ‘He is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.’” Their consciences convicted them. Jesus did not condemn her but told her to go and sin no more. They all left.

God graciously offers to us an uncommon opportunity for a renewed relationship with Him. “Though you have been unfaithful, return to Me.”

In Matthew 21:31-32, Jesus warned the religious leaders that harlots were entering God’s kingdom, but they were not. The Pharisees refused to repent when God called them to do so.

The Gospel in the Book of Jeremiah is, “You have played the harlot with many lovers. Yet return to Me, says the Lord.” If they did, God promised to forgive and welcome them back.

Jeremiah 3:2-3: “Lift up your eyes to the desolate heights and see. Where have you not lain with men? By the road you have sat for them like an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your harlotries and your wickedness. Therefore, the showers have been withheld, and there has been no latter rain. You have had a harlot’s forehead. You refuse to be ashamed.”

The pollution God speaks of in Jeremiah 3:1 is not about greenhouse gases or plastic bottles floating in an ocean! It is pollution caused by sin.

God’s Word in Hosea 1:2: “The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, and broke the everlasting covenant.”

If we don’t value our relationship with God and teach our children to do the same, there is a high probability that our nation will decline and become spiritually polluted.

Some strongly oppose spanking children, but God says to us in Proverbs 23:13-14, “Do not withhold discipline from a child, if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with a rod and save his soul from death.” The goal of a spanking is to apply a lesser pain to save a child’s soul from an greater pain, namely, hell.

God’s Word in Psalm 51:5: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” God’s Word in Romans 5:12: “Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” Sin is a deadly venom in our bloodstream.

Painful discipline helps us to realize that our sin hurts us and the people around us. In Proverbs 22:15, we read that, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. The rod of correction will drive it far from him.” The thought of painful consequences may or may not deter us from sinning. What we really need is a cure for our sin.

God’s Word in Romans 9:29, “Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a Seed, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah.”

Christ within us is the seed we need for victory over sin. In Genesis 3:15, God said the Seed of woman [Jesus] would bruise the serpent’s [Satan’s] head. The serpent deceived Adam and Eve to sin. Sin causes people to behave like Sodomites.

Sin is comparable to snake venom. It has spread throughout the entire human race. Satan’s thoughts and words are like viper venom. We absolutely need a cure lest we perish.

Antivenin is the cure for poisonous snake bites. Antivenin is made from sheep blood. When a sheep is bitten by a viper, its blood releases powerful antibodies that neutralize the venom. A sheep’s antibodies can also be injected into a human’s blood to cure them.

In Exodus 12:23, the Lord did not allow the destroyer to slay the firstborn males of people who placed lamb’s blood on their doorposts.

In Genesis 3:17-18, the sin of Adam and Eve cursed creation. When the Egyptians hardened their hearts against God, plagues ensued. When Jeremiah’s city rejected God’s Word, starvation, disease and death followed. Similarly, in Revelation 16:8-9, end times people will experience plagues, but refuse to repent and give God glory.

Creation wants Christ to return and remove sin’s curse from it. Romans 8:19 says, “The earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.” Romans 8:22 says, “The whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.”

Faith in Christ is the solution to pollution. One day He shall return and make creation anew.

Jeremiah 3:4: “Will you not from this time cry to Me, ‘My Father, You are the guide of my youth?”

C.S. Lewis wrote, “Pride is the mother hen under which all other sins are hatched.” The people of Judah needed to humble themselves before the Lord.

God urged them to cry out to Him as their Father. This was not a new concept of God. In Deuteronomy 32:6, Moses asked Israel, “Is He not your Father, who bought you? Has He not made you and established you?” In Matthew 6:9, Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father in heaven.”

In Jeremiah 3:5: “Will He remain angry forever? Will He keep it to the end?” God replied, “Behold, you have spoken and done evil things, as you were able.”

In Jeremiah 3:6, the Lord reminded Jeremiah that after the northern tribes abandoned Him for idols, they were carried displaced from their land.

Jeremiah 3:6: “The Lord said also to me in the days of Josiah the king: ‘Have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and there played the harlot.’”

The people of the northern tribes of Israel were removed from their homeland almost 100 years prior to the removal of the people of the southern tribes. Judah saw what happened to them but did not repent of idol worship.

Jeremiah 3:7: “I said, after she had done all these things, ‘Return to Me.’ But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. Her treacherous sister Judah saw it.”

God had said to Israel, “Return to Me.” Israel had replied, “No!”

Jeremiah 3:8-10: “Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear but went and played the harlot also. So it came to pass, through her casual harlotry, that she defiled the land and committed adultery with stones and trees. And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to Me with her whole heart, but in pretense, says the Lord.”

If we fake our turning back to God, we only fake ourselves not God. He knows our heart. In Jeremiah 29:13, the Lord says, “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Jeremiah 3:11-13: The Lord said to Jeremiah, “Backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.” Judah had the advantage of seeing what happened to Israel when God sent them into exile, but did not repent. The Lord said to Jeremiah, “Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say: return, backsliding Israel, says the Lord; I will not cause My anger to fall on you. For I am merciful, says the Lord; I will not remain angry forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God, and have scattered your charms to foreign deities under every green tree, and you have not obeyed My voice, says the Lord.”

In Proverbs 28:13, it is written, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.”

In Acts 3:26, Paul preached to his listeners, “God, raised up His Servant Jesus. He sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.”

In Revelation 3:19, Jesus declared, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore, be zealous and repent.” William Barclay wrote, “Jesus’ great love was expressed in His rebuke. It is, in fact, God’s final punishment to leave a person alone.”

God’s bride needed prodding.

Jeremiah 3:14: “Return, O backsliding children, says the Lord; for I am married to you. I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.”

Despite their unfaithfulness to Him, the Lord proclaims that He is still married to them. He promises to bring them back to Jerusalem from their various places.

Jeremiah 3:15: “I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.”

Good shepherds lead people to Christ and not to superstitions such as trusting in a lucky charm or a rabbit’s foot. Think of it! The rabbit did not escape being killed, and you are trusting in its foot.

Thanks be to God for sending His Son Jesus into the world to show us how a good shepherd serves people. Jesus said He was the door to the sheep. Jesus laid down His life for His sheep. This is what a good shepherd does.

Jeremiah 3:16: “Then it shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land in those days, says the Lord, that they will say no more, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they visit it, nor shall it be made anymore.”

Our Heavenly Father brought it to pass. No longer do we look to a human priest standing before a metal box called the Ark of the Covenant to beseech God’s forgiveness for our sins.

The two angels at either end of the top of Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat in between them foreshadowed Christ’s resurrection. After Jesus resurrected from the dead, two angels appeared where His body had previously been. Jesus was/is the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

It is written in John 20:11-12: “As she wept (Mary), she stooped down and looked in the tomb. And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.”

Jeremiah 3:17: “Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord. All the nations shall be gathered to it, to the Name of the Lord, to Jerusalem. No more shall they follow the dictates of their evil hearts.”

“Jerusalem shall be called the Lord’s throne” likely refers to the millennium age when, as God says in Revelation 20:4, those who were martyred for Jesus and for the Word of God “lived and reigned with Christ for a 1,000 years.”

In Isaiah 2:2 and Zechariah 2:11, the Lord speaks of nations streaming to the house of the Lord, and of many nations joining themselves to the Lord to be His people. And God will dwell in the midst of them.

According to Isaiah 2:4, in those days, military weapons will be converted into instruments for food production, and God’s Word shall go forth from Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 3:18: “In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance to your fathers.”

The Lord restores relationships. He removes barriers between brothers. In Psalm 133:1, 3, David wrote, “See how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to live together in unity! There the Lord gives the blessing, even life forever more.”

Jeremiah 3:19: “How can I put you among the children and give you a pleasant land, a beautiful heritage of the hosts of nations? “ I said, “You shall call Me, My Father, and not turn away from Me.”

How could God put them among His children and give them a pleasant land? The answer is adopt them! In Romans 8:15, the Lord says to them, “…You have received a spirit of adoption...” In Ephesians 1:5, Paul confirmed that the Lord, “predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.”

God’s adoption of people is according to love.. In 1 John 3:1, we read, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God, and such we are.”

Jeremiah 3:20: “Surely, as a wife treacherously departs from her husband, so have you dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel, says the Lord.”

The Lord confronted her unfaithfulness because He wanted a better relationship with her. He reduced resources to restore relationship.

Jeremiah 3:21: “A voice was heard on the desolate heights, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel. For they have perverted their way. They have forgotten the Lord their God.”

Forgetting God to focus on perversion will eventually yield laments, tears and desperate begging for help.

Walter Brueggemann wrote, “Without grief there is no newness. The role of the prophet is two-fold: to evoke grief and create amazement: grief for what has been lost, and amazement for the new worlds that are possible.”

Jeremiah 3:22: “Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. ‘Indeed, we do come to You, for You are the Lord our God.’”

Repentance restores God’s to Him. A healthy community of faith turns to the Lord for He is their God.

Jeremiah 3:23: “Truly, in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains; truly, in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.”

They had worshipped idols on their hills, but their souls remained empty. Only the true God can fill the God-shaped hole in one’s heart.

Jeremiah 3:24-25: “Shame has devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth—their flocks and their herds, their sons, and their daughters. We lie down in our shame, and our reproach covers us. We have sinned against the Lord our God, we, and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”

The worship of idols had robbed them of flocks, herds, and children. They repented, but too late. In Lamentations 5:16, they moaned, “The crown is fallen from our head. Woe unto us, that we have sinned!”

The Hebrew word for repent is: שׁוּב (shoove). Shoove is to turn from something and to turn to something else.

According to Luke 1:16, John the Baptist was about to turn many of the children of Israel TO the Lord their God.”

In 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, Paul spoke of how the Thessalonians “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven...” They turned from idols to God. Judah needed to turn from idols to God.

The primary goal of repentance is knowing Christ. Blake Glosson wrote, “If we think the chief end of repentance is a behavior—not a Person—then every time we repent, we reinforce an anti-gospel message which says that our hope is in our own ability to ‘do better’ next time.”

In Philippians 3:8, Paul counted all things as loss compared to gaining Christ.

In Matthew 22:37, Jesus said that the first and greatest commandment is to, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

In Jeremiah 3:1 and Revelation 2:4, the Lord calls us to return to our first love for Him before days of tribulation begin.


Attached is a link to a power point version of this article which I have recorded on my YouTube channel:

https://youtu.be/T_qeNRg0Oho