Abide in God’s Love

Jeremiah is standing at the gate of the temple and giving God’s Word to the people. He describes what will happen to them if they continue to distant themselves from God.

“At that time, says the Lord, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of its princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves.” Jeremiah 8:1

The Babylonian conquerors were about to unearth the treasures of the wealthy dead.

They shall spread them before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and which they have served and after which they have walked, which they have sought and which they have worshiped. They shall not be gathered nor buried; they shall be like refuse on the face of the earth. Then death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of those who remain of this evil family, who remain in all the places where I have driven them, says the Lord of hosts.” Jeremiah 8:2-3

Jeremiah 8:3 parallels Revelation 9:6 revealing that as it was in Jeremiah’s day so will it be in the last days before Jesus returns. Revelation 9:6 says, “In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them.”

“Moreover, you shall say to them, thus says the Lord: will they fall and not rise? Will one turn away and not return? Why has this people slidden back, Jerusalem, in a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit they refuse to return.” Jeremiah 8:4-5

Normally, if one falls, he gets up. Normally, if one strays from the path, he returns to the path. Why then does not Jerusalem do so? How many times do we ask God, “Why?” when something goes wrong? Here we have God asking His people why they are always backsliding.

Remember Samson? He took God’s faithfulness to him for granted once too often. Finally, the Lord let Samson’s enemies defeat him and take him into captivity. Guess what? God still warns against this.

Hebrews 12:25 says, “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.”

“I listened and heard, but they do not speak aright. No man repented of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turned to his own course, as the horse rushes into the battle.” Jeremiah 8:6

The horse “rushes” is literally, “pours forth,” as water that has burst its embankment.

2 Peters 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”

Luke 15:17 says that when the prodigal son came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger!”

“Even the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times; and the turtledove, the swift, and the swallow observe the time of their coming. But My people do not know the judgment of the Lord.” Jeremiah 8:7

Proverbs 6:6 says, “Go to the ant, O sluggard. Consider her ways. Be wise.”

“The instinct of the migratory birds leads them with unfailing regularity to return every spring from their winter abodes; but God’s people will not return to Him even when the winter of His wrath is past, and He invites them back to the spring of His favor.” Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary

“How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us?’ Look, the false pen of the scribe certainly works falsehood.” Jeremiah 8:8

In Matthew 15:6, Jesus said, “You invalidated the Word of God for the sake of your tradition.”

“The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken. Behold, they have rejected the Word of the Lord; so what wisdom do they have?” Jeremiah 8:9

“Possessing the law, on which they prided themselves, the Jews might have become the wisest of nations; but by their neglecting its precepts, the law became given “in vain,” as far as they were concerned.” Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary

“Therefore I will give their wives to others, and their fields to those who will inherit them; because from the least even to the greatest everyone is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely.” Jeremiah 8:10

Deuteronomy 28:30 says, “You shall betroth a wife, but another man will violate her; you shall build a house, but you will not live in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit.”

“For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ When there is no peace.” Jeremiah 8:11

The Lord sent Jeremiah to them to warn them, but they did not want to hear about sin and judgment. They preferred false informants who preached what they wanted to hear.

Lamentations 2:14 says, “Your prophets have seen for you false and foolish visions; and they have not exposed your iniquity so as to restore you from captivity, but they have seen for you false and misleading oracles.”

“Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed, nor did they know how to blush. Therefore, they shall fall among those who fall; in the time of their punishment they shall be cast down, says the Lord.” Jeremiah 8:12

They had no remorse for their betrayal of God and of God’s people. Kind of like the religious leaders who crucified Christ and afterwards were most concerned that Pilate would post guards to ensure that His body would not disappear. They totally glossed over the fact that Jesus Christ made blind eyes see, lame legs to walk, totally eradicated leprosy from people’s bodies, multiplied food for the hungry, and said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

“I will surely consume them, says the Lord. No grapes shall be on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things I have given them shall pass away from them.” Jeremiah 8:13

In Mark 11:20-21, the fig tree that Jesus cursed because it had no fruit was symbolic of the lack of faith that the religious leaders of Jerusalem had. He had revealed His Messiahship to them, but they refused to believe in Him.

“Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us enter the fortified cities, and let us be silent there. For the Lord, our God has put us to silence and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the Lord.” Jeremiah 8:14

In Matthew 27:34 and Mark 15:23, as Jesus was being crucified, a Roman soldier offered Him “wine to drink, mixed with gall.” Wine mixed with bitter herbs or myrrh created a potion that dulled the sense of pain. Jesus refused it to take the full brunt of pain for humanity’s sin.

In Acts 8:23, Peter uses the term gall in rebuking Simon the sorcerer, “For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.”

In Revelation 8:10–11, a great star named Wormwood falls from heaven. It causes a third of the waters on earth to become bitter so that many people die.

“We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and there was trouble!” Jeremiah 8:15

Where’s peace? Where’s health?

“The snorting of His horses was heard from Dan. The whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of His strong ones; for they have come and devoured the land and all that is in it, the city and those who dwell in it.” Jeremiah 8:16

The devouring army is like a swarm of locusts. This description of Babylon’s army parallels the army in the last days that will attack Israel.

Revelation 9:7, 17 says, “The shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men.” “For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents and have heads, and with them they do harm.”

“For behold, I will send serpents among you, vipers which cannot be charmed, and they shall bite you,” says the Lord.” Jeremiah 8:17

Enemies whose power, persuasion cannot counteract. See also Numbers 21:6–9.

“I would comfort myself in sorrow. My heart is faint in me.” Jeremiah 8:18

This parallels the description Jesus gave of the earth’s last days in Luke 21:26, “Men’s hearts will fail them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

“Listen! The voice, the cry of the daughter of my people from a far country: ‘Is not the Lord in Zion? Is not her King in her?’ ‘Why have they provoked Me to anger with their carved images—with foreign idols?’” Jeremiah 8:19

People tend to ask, “Where is God?” when sin has yielded undesirable outcomes.

“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved!” Jeremiah 8:19

“One season of hope after another has passed, but the looked-for deliverance never came.” Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary

Proverbs 10:5 says, “He who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who acts shamefully.” They needed to wake up and act on God’s Word.

“For the hurt of the daughter of my people I am hurt. I am mourning; astonishment has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead, is there no physician there? Why then is there no recovery for the health of the daughter of my people?” Jeremiah 8:21-22

Jeremiah 8:21-22 parallels what Jesus said to the Church in Laodicea. They needed healing eye salve applied to their spiritually blind eyes so they could open their eyes up see the writing on the wall.

In Revelation 3:18, Jesus said, “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.”

In Revelation 3:19, Jesus declared, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest 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.”

The Lord urges us in Jude 1:20-21, “Beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.”