“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with the point of a diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of your altars.” Jeremiah 17:1
Sin was engraved in their hearts like chiseled letters in a stone. They were cold and insensitive to God and to one another. What did abandonment of God do for them? Prodigal behavior brought prodigal pain. They lost family, friends and provisions. They exchanged fullness and favor for hunger and insult.
They should have done as Proverbs 7:2-3 says, “Keep My commands and live, and My Law as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.”
2 Corinthians 3:3 says, “You are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”
“While their children remember their altars and their wooden images by the green trees on the high hills.” Jeremiah 17:2
The Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary says, “Instead of forsaking the idols of their fathers, the children kept them up. Proof their sin is graven in their hearts.” “The Hebrew word for ‘grove’ is Asherah. Groves refer to “images of Astarte” the goddess of the heavenly hosts, represented as a sacred tree. Astarte is the Hellenized (Greek) form of the goddess’s name, while Ashtaroth is the Hebrew plural form used in the Bible. The singular Hebrew form is Ashtoreth. Astarte is linked to the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, with shared associations with fertility, sexual love, and war. During the Hellenistic period, the Phoenician goddess ʿAštart (Astarte), a variant of the Ishtar figure, was identified with the Egyptian Isis. How crazy is it that as recent as the twenty-first century, people who identified as Isis were killing people who believe in the God of the Bible.
“O My mountain in the field, I will give as plunder your wealth, all your treasures, and your high places of sin within all your borders.” Jeremiah 17:3
The Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary says, “As Jerusalem was surrounded by mountains, the sense probably is, ‘You rely on your mountainous position, but I will make my mountain to become as if it were in a plain (field).” In other words, all their defenses will fail them.
Once, Jesus cursed a fig tree. It dried up. In this context, He said to His disciples, “Whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.” (Mark 11:20-23) The mountain that Jesus was dealing with at that time was the false teachers in Jerusalem who lead the people to crucify Him. Those leaders would eventually be removed and destroyed.
“And you, even yourself, shall let go of your heritage which I gave you; and I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you do not know; for you have kindled a fire in My anger which shall burn forever.” Jeremiah 17:4
They will not be able to hold onto their heritage no matter how hard they try to do so. The fire of the Lord’s anger would refine them as a smelter’s fire removes dross from gold. What no caring prophet could do with words, God would do with pain.
“Thus says the Lord: cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited.” Jeremiah 17:5-6
When people depart from God, curses follow. Rebellion against the Creator is the devil’s enterprise. He wants us to think that the whole concept of God is below our dignity.
The Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary says that unbelievers “shall not see when good comes” because they wither in the heat of the unbelief while the believers draw life from a hidden source (the Lord) as a tree’s hidden roots draw water from a river.
Psalm 118:8 says, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.” Psalm 146:3 says, “Do not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.” Hebrews 3:12 says, “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.”
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8
Psalm 1 uses a tree planted by water as a metaphor a for a person who meditates on the Law of the Lord day and night. In John 15:5, Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.”
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” Jeremiah 17:9-10
Hitler’s heart told him that only the strong should survive. His heart led him to massacre over 15,000 handicapped people. He influenced others to embrace eugenics, euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination. Richard Weikart, in his book entitled, “From Darwinism to Hitler,” concluded that Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles.
Margaret Sanger’s heart told her that certain people were unfit for life. In a 1920 public statement, Sanger said birth control was “nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit [and] of preventing the birth of defectives.” Sanger primarily linked the concept of “unfit” with conditions she believed were inherited, such as insanity, syphilis, poverty, and “feeble-mindedness.” She collaborated with figures like Lothrop Stoddard, a Ku Klux Klan member and Nazi sympathizer. In 1939, Sanger and other advocates launched the “Negro Project” to bring birth control to impoverished Black communities in the American South. Sanger suggested using Black ministers to prevent rumors that the birth control movement was trying to “exterminate the Negro population.” She is considered by many to be the mother of the modern abortion movement. [2]
Dr. James Waller, a specialist on genocidal studies, stated at a ministerial conference that prior to genocidal events, one group of people begins to dehumanize another group. For example, in Rwanda, the Tutsis started calling the Hutus cockroaches. After the Tutsis were fully convinced that the Hutu’s were inhuman, they proceeded to slaughter them. The Tutsis massacred 800,000 Hutus in 30 days. Abortionists have dehumanized preborn people. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 73 million abortions occur globally each year. This figure is based on data from 2015 to 2019 and is subject to variation.
“The Lord searches the heart and tests the mind.” These free examinations are His grace to us. He helps us to discern our successes and failures so we get better. Hebrews 4:12 says that “the Word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
Someone once said, “We tend to look at the sins of others with a microscope (close up) and our own sins with a telescope (from afar). We need the Lord to reward our deeds as they deserve. Otherwise, we may not catch the difference between our rudeness and our goodness.
Have you had a heart and mind checkup with the Lord recently?
“The heart is deceitful.” The Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary says that the word here for ‘deceitful’ stems from the Hebrew word ‘to supplant.’ Israel descended from Jacob who supplanted his brother Esau. They had the deceit of their forefather but not his faith. They supplanted “trust in God” with “trust in man” but God was not fooled.
“The Art of War” is a book attributed to a Chinese man named Sun Tzu (544-496 BC). He taught that all warfare is based on deception. Some deceptions that he used to win wars included:
Satan’s deception is that sin yields pleasure and God is too loving to punish it. God’s truth is that the wages of sin is death and God is too righteous not to punish it.
Jesus warned about the last days, saying: “Watch out that no one deceives you.” Matthew 24:4
Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The only way to be with God after we die is to believe in His Son Jesus Christ.
“Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay are those who gain riches by unjust means. When their lives are half gone, their riches will desert them, and in the end they will prove to be fools.” Jeremiah 17:11
Those who think they are getting ahead by serving themselves and defrauding God are foolish. At the end of their life, they will regret what they did. In Luke 12:20-21, spoke of man who laid up treasure for himself, but was not rich toward God. God said to him, “Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?”
“A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.” Jeremiah 17:12
Those who take sanctuary under the shadow of the Lord’s wing will eventually come to see Him on His glorious throne. Revelation 3:21 says, “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”
“O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be ashamed. ‘Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.’” Jeremiah 17:13
Names written in the earth are blown away by the wind. Names written in heaven are eternal.
In Luke 10:20, the disciples of Jesus rejoiced when they were able to cast out demons in His Name. Jesus said, “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.”
“Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for You are my praise.” Jeremiah 17:14
Heal me! Jeremiah had been wounded by those he tried to save! They plotted to destroy him, he continued to praise the Lord.
In Acts 16:25-26, Paul and Silas praised God while in prison and God broke their chains. “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.”
Psalm 34:19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”
“Indeed they say to me, ‘Where is the Word of the Lord? Let it come now!’” Jeremiah 17:15
Mockers mocked Jeremiah. They did want to face reality. 2 Peter 3:3-4 says, “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’”
“As for me, I have not hurried away from being a shepherd who follows You, nor have I desired the woeful day; You know what came out of my lips; it was right there before You.” Jeremiah 17:16
The Lord by His Spirit helped Jeremiah with two miracles. One, to not behave as a hireling when the proverbial wolves attacked him. Two, not to desire woes upon ungrateful sheep.
In Acts 20:20, 27, the Lord gave Paul a similar ability. He testified, “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you publicly and from house to house.” “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.”
“Do not be a terror to me; You are my hope in the day of doom.” Jeremiah 17:17
The Lord gave Jeremiah vivid details of what was to come for his nation. He knew that he too was a sinner in need of Savior. So, he prayed to be spared from harm on dooms day.
Concerning the end times, Jesus said in Luke 21:35-37, “For it [the tribulation] will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
It’s okay to pray to be delivered from doom. I used you to meet with disciples once per week in China. Concerning myself, I would pray one word, “Help!” The Lord knew my “help” meant that I did not want to be arrested by China’s Public Security Bureau (PSB) agents. “Help” also meant that if I were arrested, I wanted Him to be with me. As for the discipleship gatherings, they continued for eight years without being raided up by PSB. Praise the Lord!
“Let them be ashamed who persecute me, but do not let me be put to shame; let them be dismayed, but do not let me be dismayed. Bring on them the day of doom and destroy them with double destruction!” Jeremiah 17:18
Jeremiah asked the Lord to direct shame and dismay towards his persecutors. He asked God to destroy them with double destruction. John the apostle heard a voice from heaven say, “Pay her back even as she has paid and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.” (Revelation 18:6) It is Scriptural.
Our goal is to glorify God, but the adversary aims to arrest us! In Ephesians 6:12-13, Paul wrote, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day...” The armor of God includes the Gospel of peace, salvation, righteousness, truth, faith, God’s Word, prayer, watchfulness and perseverance according to Ephesians 6:14-18.
Many of David’s Psalms came to him during seasons of persecution, In Psalms 70:2, he prayed, “Let those be ashamed and humiliated who seek my life; let those be turned back and dishonored who delight in my hurt.” One day, after many fights, he was crowned king.
“Thus the Lord said to me: “Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, by which the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem; and say to them, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates.” Jeremiah 17:19-20
The gate referred to above was on the main street of the city. Here, buyers and sellers heard the voice of God via Jeremiah. He addressed both leaders and workers, saying...
“Thus says the Lord: take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; nor carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, nor do any work, but hallow the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.” Jeremiah 17:21-22
Sabbath breaking was one of the chief causes of Judah’s captivity. Leviticus 26:34-35 and 2 Chronicles 36:21 speak of the Promised Land resting for the years that the Sabbath was not kept. God based the length of the exile on the 490 years of unkept Sabbath Years. To make up for every seventh-year (Sabbath-Year) they defied, God gave them a year in captivity.
The Babylonian exile lasted 70 years. “To fulfill the Word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate, she kept Sabbath, to fulfill 70 years.” (2 Chronicles 36:21)
How many times did Jesus tell Peter that he should forgive a brother who sinned against him? In Matthew 18:22, Jesus said to Peter, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.’’ That is 490 times which is the number of years that God forgave the Israelites for not keeping the Sabbath year rest.
Jesus cleared the money changers out of the house of God and quoted Jeremiah 7:11 when He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” Jesus did not approve of buying and selling in His house, but He did do many healing miracles on the Sabbath Day. He walked from place to place on the Sabbath. He taught and preached on the Sabbath Day. In Mark 2:27, He explained to the Pharisees that “Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” In other words, rest days and rest years were meant to be a gift to people from God.
In Exodus 20:8-11, God promised Israel that He would provide for the rest day.
In Leviticus 25:1–7, God promised to provide for rest year. The Sabbath Day and the Sabbatical Year are reminders that one day this current cursed world will be no more, and we will return to paradise with God. In Revelation 14:13, a voice from heaven said to John, “Write: blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.” Yes, in heaven, we will rest from our labors.
“They did not obey nor incline their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear nor receive instruction.” Jeremiah 17:23
In Proverbs 29:1, God says, “He, that being often reproved hardens his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” God’s people frustrated Him by insisting on doing things the hard way. They suffered greatly when He withdrew His hand from them.
“And it shall be, if you heed Me carefully, says the Lord, to bring no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work in it, then shall enter the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, accompanied by the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain forever. And they shall come from the cities of Judah and from the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin and from the lowland, from the mountains and from the South, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and incense, bringing sacrifices of praise to the house of the Lord.” Jeremiah 17:24-26
God promised that they would enjoy international trade deals and royal visitations. Jerusalem would last forever. People from the countryside would enjoy abundant crops and bring their offerings and their praises to God into the city. The “carrying of no burdens” refers to not bringing merchandise into the city for selling on the Sabbath Day.
The Lord wants Christians to gather for fellowship. Christians gathering for fellowship in God’s Word and for prayer is mentioned throughout the Book of Acts. In Hebrews 10:24-25, the Lord said, “Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
“But if you will not heed Me to hallow the Sabbath day, such as not carrying a burden when entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.” Jeremiah 17:27
To hallow is to honor something as holy. Genesis 2:2 says, “On the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” God set the example for us. We honor Him when we follow His example.
God promised to set Jerusalem’s gates on fire if they disobeyed Him. In other words, He would destroy the place that was defiled by their disobedience.
They didn’t listen or obey the Lord. 2 Kings 25:9 says, “He [King Nebuchadnezzar] burned the house of the Lord, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire.” In fact, the city was turned into rubble. Nehemiah 1:3 says, “The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.”
In Hebrews 12:25 and in Revelation 20:15, the Lord warns us today of more dire consequences than He warned the people in Jeremiah’s day. He warns us against being robbed of an eternity with Him in heaven. “See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven.” “Anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.”
God does not want anyone to perish. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” He loves us. He gave to us. He wants us to enjoy everlasting life, but we must listen to His instructions and follow them.
There’s one way to heaven. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
[1] From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany was released in 2004 (paperback edition in 2006) with Palgrave Macmillan in New York, a major publisher of historical scholarship, from dustjacket
[2] Google AI resources
Iron pen: unyielding nature of Judah's sin
Diamond point: lasting impact of their sin
Tablet of the heart: not superficial but ingrained
Horns of the altars: religious practices tainted by sin
Engraved: Not easily erased - a constant reminder
Sin was engraved in their hearts like chiseled letters in a stone. They were cold and insensitive to God and to one another. What did abandonment of God do for them? Prodigal behavior brought prodigal pain. They lost family, friends and provisions. They exchanged fullness and favor for hunger and insult.
They should have done as Proverbs 7:2-3 says, “Keep My commands and live, and My Law as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.”
2 Corinthians 3:3 says, “You are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”
“While their children remember their altars and their wooden images by the green trees on the high hills.” Jeremiah 17:2
The Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary says, “Instead of forsaking the idols of their fathers, the children kept them up. Proof their sin is graven in their hearts.” “The Hebrew word for ‘grove’ is Asherah. Groves refer to “images of Astarte” the goddess of the heavenly hosts, represented as a sacred tree. Astarte is the Hellenized (Greek) form of the goddess’s name, while Ashtaroth is the Hebrew plural form used in the Bible. The singular Hebrew form is Ashtoreth. Astarte is linked to the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, with shared associations with fertility, sexual love, and war. During the Hellenistic period, the Phoenician goddess ʿAštart (Astarte), a variant of the Ishtar figure, was identified with the Egyptian Isis. How crazy is it that as recent as the twenty-first century, people who identified as Isis were killing people who believe in the God of the Bible.
“O My mountain in the field, I will give as plunder your wealth, all your treasures, and your high places of sin within all your borders.” Jeremiah 17:3
The Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary says, “As Jerusalem was surrounded by mountains, the sense probably is, ‘You rely on your mountainous position, but I will make my mountain to become as if it were in a plain (field).” In other words, all their defenses will fail them.
Once, Jesus cursed a fig tree. It dried up. In this context, He said to His disciples, “Whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.” (Mark 11:20-23) The mountain that Jesus was dealing with at that time was the false teachers in Jerusalem who lead the people to crucify Him. Those leaders would eventually be removed and destroyed.
“And you, even yourself, shall let go of your heritage which I gave you; and I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you do not know; for you have kindled a fire in My anger which shall burn forever.” Jeremiah 17:4
They will not be able to hold onto their heritage no matter how hard they try to do so. The fire of the Lord’s anger would refine them as a smelter’s fire removes dross from gold. What no caring prophet could do with words, God would do with pain.
“Thus says the Lord: cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited.” Jeremiah 17:5-6
When people depart from God, curses follow. Rebellion against the Creator is the devil’s enterprise. He wants us to think that the whole concept of God is below our dignity.
The Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary says that unbelievers “shall not see when good comes” because they wither in the heat of the unbelief while the believers draw life from a hidden source (the Lord) as a tree’s hidden roots draw water from a river.
Psalm 118:8 says, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.” Psalm 146:3 says, “Do not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.” Hebrews 3:12 says, “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.”
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8
Psalm 1 uses a tree planted by water as a metaphor a for a person who meditates on the Law of the Lord day and night. In John 15:5, Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.”
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.” Jeremiah 17:9-10
Hitler’s heart told him that only the strong should survive. His heart led him to massacre over 15,000 handicapped people. He influenced others to embrace eugenics, euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination. Richard Weikart, in his book entitled, “From Darwinism to Hitler,” concluded that Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles.
Margaret Sanger’s heart told her that certain people were unfit for life. In a 1920 public statement, Sanger said birth control was “nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit [and] of preventing the birth of defectives.” Sanger primarily linked the concept of “unfit” with conditions she believed were inherited, such as insanity, syphilis, poverty, and “feeble-mindedness.” She collaborated with figures like Lothrop Stoddard, a Ku Klux Klan member and Nazi sympathizer. In 1939, Sanger and other advocates launched the “Negro Project” to bring birth control to impoverished Black communities in the American South. Sanger suggested using Black ministers to prevent rumors that the birth control movement was trying to “exterminate the Negro population.” She is considered by many to be the mother of the modern abortion movement. [2]
Dr. James Waller, a specialist on genocidal studies, stated at a ministerial conference that prior to genocidal events, one group of people begins to dehumanize another group. For example, in Rwanda, the Tutsis started calling the Hutus cockroaches. After the Tutsis were fully convinced that the Hutu’s were inhuman, they proceeded to slaughter them. The Tutsis massacred 800,000 Hutus in 30 days. Abortionists have dehumanized preborn people. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 73 million abortions occur globally each year. This figure is based on data from 2015 to 2019 and is subject to variation.
“The Lord searches the heart and tests the mind.” These free examinations are His grace to us. He helps us to discern our successes and failures so we get better. Hebrews 4:12 says that “the Word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
Someone once said, “We tend to look at the sins of others with a microscope (close up) and our own sins with a telescope (from afar). We need the Lord to reward our deeds as they deserve. Otherwise, we may not catch the difference between our rudeness and our goodness.
Have you had a heart and mind checkup with the Lord recently?
“The heart is deceitful.” The Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary says that the word here for ‘deceitful’ stems from the Hebrew word ‘to supplant.’ Israel descended from Jacob who supplanted his brother Esau. They had the deceit of their forefather but not his faith. They supplanted “trust in God” with “trust in man” but God was not fooled.
“The Art of War” is a book attributed to a Chinese man named Sun Tzu (544-496 BC). He taught that all warfare is based on deception. Some deceptions that he used to win wars included:
Misinforming and misleading his enemy
Posturing as weak where he was strong
Posturing as strong where he was weak
Appearing to retreat when he was attacking
Always masking his true intentions
Satan’s deception is that sin yields pleasure and God is too loving to punish it. God’s truth is that the wages of sin is death and God is too righteous not to punish it.
Jesus warned about the last days, saying: “Watch out that no one deceives you.” Matthew 24:4
Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The only way to be with God after we die is to believe in His Son Jesus Christ.
“Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay are those who gain riches by unjust means. When their lives are half gone, their riches will desert them, and in the end they will prove to be fools.” Jeremiah 17:11
Those who think they are getting ahead by serving themselves and defrauding God are foolish. At the end of their life, they will regret what they did. In Luke 12:20-21, spoke of man who laid up treasure for himself, but was not rich toward God. God said to him, “Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?”
“A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.” Jeremiah 17:12
Those who take sanctuary under the shadow of the Lord’s wing will eventually come to see Him on His glorious throne. Revelation 3:21 says, “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”
“O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake You shall be ashamed. ‘Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.’” Jeremiah 17:13
Names written in the earth are blown away by the wind. Names written in heaven are eternal.
In Luke 10:20, the disciples of Jesus rejoiced when they were able to cast out demons in His Name. Jesus said, “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.”
“Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for You are my praise.” Jeremiah 17:14
Heal me! Jeremiah had been wounded by those he tried to save! They plotted to destroy him, he continued to praise the Lord.
In Acts 16:25-26, Paul and Silas praised God while in prison and God broke their chains. “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.”
Psalm 34:19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”
“Indeed they say to me, ‘Where is the Word of the Lord? Let it come now!’” Jeremiah 17:15
Mockers mocked Jeremiah. They did want to face reality. 2 Peter 3:3-4 says, “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’”
“As for me, I have not hurried away from being a shepherd who follows You, nor have I desired the woeful day; You know what came out of my lips; it was right there before You.” Jeremiah 17:16
The Lord by His Spirit helped Jeremiah with two miracles. One, to not behave as a hireling when the proverbial wolves attacked him. Two, not to desire woes upon ungrateful sheep.
In Acts 20:20, 27, the Lord gave Paul a similar ability. He testified, “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you publicly and from house to house.” “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.”
“Do not be a terror to me; You are my hope in the day of doom.” Jeremiah 17:17
The Lord gave Jeremiah vivid details of what was to come for his nation. He knew that he too was a sinner in need of Savior. So, he prayed to be spared from harm on dooms day.
Concerning the end times, Jesus said in Luke 21:35-37, “For it [the tribulation] will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
It’s okay to pray to be delivered from doom. I used you to meet with disciples once per week in China. Concerning myself, I would pray one word, “Help!” The Lord knew my “help” meant that I did not want to be arrested by China’s Public Security Bureau (PSB) agents. “Help” also meant that if I were arrested, I wanted Him to be with me. As for the discipleship gatherings, they continued for eight years without being raided up by PSB. Praise the Lord!
“Let them be ashamed who persecute me, but do not let me be put to shame; let them be dismayed, but do not let me be dismayed. Bring on them the day of doom and destroy them with double destruction!” Jeremiah 17:18
Jeremiah asked the Lord to direct shame and dismay towards his persecutors. He asked God to destroy them with double destruction. John the apostle heard a voice from heaven say, “Pay her back even as she has paid and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.” (Revelation 18:6) It is Scriptural.
Our goal is to glorify God, but the adversary aims to arrest us! In Ephesians 6:12-13, Paul wrote, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day...” The armor of God includes the Gospel of peace, salvation, righteousness, truth, faith, God’s Word, prayer, watchfulness and perseverance according to Ephesians 6:14-18.
Many of David’s Psalms came to him during seasons of persecution, In Psalms 70:2, he prayed, “Let those be ashamed and humiliated who seek my life; let those be turned back and dishonored who delight in my hurt.” One day, after many fights, he was crowned king.
“Thus the Lord said to me: “Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, by which the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem; and say to them, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, who enter by these gates.” Jeremiah 17:19-20
The gate referred to above was on the main street of the city. Here, buyers and sellers heard the voice of God via Jeremiah. He addressed both leaders and workers, saying...
“Thus says the Lord: take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; nor carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, nor do any work, but hallow the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.” Jeremiah 17:21-22
Sabbath breaking was one of the chief causes of Judah’s captivity. Leviticus 26:34-35 and 2 Chronicles 36:21 speak of the Promised Land resting for the years that the Sabbath was not kept. God based the length of the exile on the 490 years of unkept Sabbath Years. To make up for every seventh-year (Sabbath-Year) they defied, God gave them a year in captivity.
The Babylonian exile lasted 70 years. “To fulfill the Word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate, she kept Sabbath, to fulfill 70 years.” (2 Chronicles 36:21)
How many times did Jesus tell Peter that he should forgive a brother who sinned against him? In Matthew 18:22, Jesus said to Peter, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.’’ That is 490 times which is the number of years that God forgave the Israelites for not keeping the Sabbath year rest.
Jesus cleared the money changers out of the house of God and quoted Jeremiah 7:11 when He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” Jesus did not approve of buying and selling in His house, but He did do many healing miracles on the Sabbath Day. He walked from place to place on the Sabbath. He taught and preached on the Sabbath Day. In Mark 2:27, He explained to the Pharisees that “Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” In other words, rest days and rest years were meant to be a gift to people from God.
In Exodus 20:8-11, God promised Israel that He would provide for the rest day.
In Leviticus 25:1–7, God promised to provide for rest year. The Sabbath Day and the Sabbatical Year are reminders that one day this current cursed world will be no more, and we will return to paradise with God. In Revelation 14:13, a voice from heaven said to John, “Write: blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.” Yes, in heaven, we will rest from our labors.
“They did not obey nor incline their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear nor receive instruction.” Jeremiah 17:23
In Proverbs 29:1, God says, “He, that being often reproved hardens his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” God’s people frustrated Him by insisting on doing things the hard way. They suffered greatly when He withdrew His hand from them.
“And it shall be, if you heed Me carefully, says the Lord, to bring no burden through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the Sabbath day, to do no work in it, then shall enter the gates of this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their princes, accompanied by the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain forever. And they shall come from the cities of Judah and from the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin and from the lowland, from the mountains and from the South, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and incense, bringing sacrifices of praise to the house of the Lord.” Jeremiah 17:24-26
God promised that they would enjoy international trade deals and royal visitations. Jerusalem would last forever. People from the countryside would enjoy abundant crops and bring their offerings and their praises to God into the city. The “carrying of no burdens” refers to not bringing merchandise into the city for selling on the Sabbath Day.
The Lord wants Christians to gather for fellowship. Christians gathering for fellowship in God’s Word and for prayer is mentioned throughout the Book of Acts. In Hebrews 10:24-25, the Lord said, “Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
“But if you will not heed Me to hallow the Sabbath day, such as not carrying a burden when entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.” Jeremiah 17:27
To hallow is to honor something as holy. Genesis 2:2 says, “On the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” God set the example for us. We honor Him when we follow His example.
God promised to set Jerusalem’s gates on fire if they disobeyed Him. In other words, He would destroy the place that was defiled by their disobedience.
They didn’t listen or obey the Lord. 2 Kings 25:9 says, “He [King Nebuchadnezzar] burned the house of the Lord, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire.” In fact, the city was turned into rubble. Nehemiah 1:3 says, “The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.”
In Hebrews 12:25 and in Revelation 20:15, the Lord warns us today of more dire consequences than He warned the people in Jeremiah’s day. He warns us against being robbed of an eternity with Him in heaven. “See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven.” “Anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.”
God does not want anyone to perish. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” He loves us. He gave to us. He wants us to enjoy everlasting life, but we must listen to His instructions and follow them.
There’s one way to heaven. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
[1] From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany was released in 2004 (paperback edition in 2006) with Palgrave Macmillan in New York, a major publisher of historical scholarship, from dustjacket
[2] Google AI resources
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