Jeremiah 26:1-13 – God’s Faithful Justice

Reverend Leo H. McCrary II

When God makes His final judgment, Jeremiah 26 shows us that He will be faithful to give us what we wanted, and He will be just.

Introduction

A question I have often been asked, even as a teenager, is about God’s judgment on who goes to heaven.  The question is this:  How is it fair that God will send good people to hell just because they didn’t believe in Him?  

If you are someone who has asked that question, or have been asked that question, this lesson is definitely for you.  I feel like that is a question that must be answered so that we are aware of the consequence of the spiritual choice that we make.  

This week’s Sunday School commentary will cover scripture from Jeremiah 26:1-13. 

What we will focus on learning in this week’s Sunday School commentary:

1. Understanding the fairness of God’s judgment.
2. Understanding the consequence of one’s spiritual choice.
3. Not diminishing the word of God.

The Days of Jehoiakim’s Reign

Before we dive into answering that all-important question, this week’s lesson opens with God giving Jeremiah some serious instructions to carry out.

Jeremiah 26:1 highlights that God gave these instructions in the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign as king of Judah.  Jehoiakim had been made king by Pharaoh Necho, after his brother had been carried away to Egypt as Necho’s prisoner.

During this period of time, Judah had found itself in a rather precarious position.  Jehoiakim’s father, Josiah, was the last good king of Judah, as he had restored worship of God in the land.  However, while his father was a man of God, the people were not, and the fierceness of God’s wrath was not turned away from the people (2 Kgs. 23:26).

    2 Kings 23 tells the story of how at that time, Egypt and Assyria had allied together to try to stop the rise of Babylon.  For whatever reason, Josiah felt it necessary to get involved in the conflict and was killed by Pharaoh Necho.  So, Necho assumed power of Judah, taxed the people, and Jehoiakim paid the tax in the people’s silver and gold.

The Assyrians and Egypt eventually fell to Babylon.  2 Kings 24:1 speaks of how Nebuchadnezzar, who had become king of Babylon, invaded Judea and made Jehoiakim his vassal (or servant) for three years.  However, before that happened, God had given the message to Jeremiah to preach to Jehoiakim and the people.

Choice Presented by God

In my sermon – Break Free – I preached about the free will God has given to us, and how there is a consequence to every action, whether good or bad.

God presents all of us with the choice of obedience or disobedience, and you should understand their consequences.  God’s desire is for us to live in a manner that pleases Him so that we can dwell with Him for everlasting life.  Though our nature is sinful, God repeatedly gives us opportunity after opportunity to make corrections because He has no desire to destroy us (John 3:17).

Repeated opportunities of mercy

What Jeremiah 24:2-6 shows us is that God will give us repeated opportunities to make corrections until He determines we have exhausted those opportunities.

Now, you may think to yourself, when does God determine we have exhausted our opportunities at mercy?  I believe Judah is a great example for answering such a question.  By this time in Scripture, Israel, the northern kingdom, had long been conquered by the Assyrians.   The northern kingdom was conquered due to its rejection of the covenant and lawful living.

The fall of Israel should have served as a warning sign to Judah.  By Jeremiah 26, Jeremiah had already been serving as a prophet, calling on those of Judah to repent.  So, the Lord had already been presenting to them the chance of mercy.

However, in Jeremiah 26:2-6, God instructed Jeremiah to speak to Judah one more time, calling for them to repent.  God instructed Jeremiah to stand in the temple’s court so that all of those who came to the temple to worship could see and hear the message.  

Now, let me be clear: the majority of those who were going to the temple to worship during Jeremiah’s day were sinners; they participated in idol worship or were just going through the motions of manufactured religion.  Jeremiah standing in the temple courtyard would eliminate any excuses one may have in saying they didn’t hear the message of repentance.

If you ever wonder why God gives us repeated opportunities to make corrections, the answer is certainly so that there are no excuses in the day of His judgment.  When one stands before the Lord in judgment, their choice will be final.  God will have given several opportunities for one to live how they wish, and after repeated chances, one will have lived the life they chose. 

In our judicial system, when a judge is given a verdict from a jury, there are no more chances for that case to be made to that judge, whether for one’s guilt or innocence.  Though, truth be told, judges’ decisions can be appealed to higher courts until it reaches the highest court, where final judgments can become somewhat final.  

However, in God’s court, when He has judged, there are no appeals afterwards.  What court is there that is higher than God’s court for one to appeal to?  This is the seriousness that one should have in mind with how they live:  God is judging your choice right now, and will make a final judgment over the life you have lived.

God’s warning not diminished

With that seriousness in mind, I want to note God instructing Jeremiah not to diminish a word of God’s warning.  

The warning that Jeremiah wasn’t supposed to diminish:  “If you will not listen to Me, to walk in My law which I have set before you, to heed the words of My servants the prophets whom I sent to you, both rising up early and sending them (but you have not heeded), then I will make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.”

Shiloh was a prominent city in Israel that was located north of Jerusalem, in the land that was allotted to Ephraim.  In Jeremiah 7:12, God called Shiloh “My place”, where He set His name at the first.  In Joshua 18, the children of Israel assembled in Shiloh and set up the tabernacle there, and it was the home of the Tabernacle of Meeting and the Ark of the Covenant for hundreds of years.

In 1 Samuel 4:3-4, the children of Israel desperately sought to bring the Ark of the Covenant from Shiloh to their camp when fighting against the Philistines.  The people were putting their faith in a box rather than in the Lord, and the Philistines killed 30,000 foot soldiers that day (1 Sam. 4:10). 

After killing 30,000 foot soldiers, 1 Samuel 4:11 states that the Philistines took the Ark of the Covenant (1 Sam. 4:11).  Jeremiah 7:12 also indicates that Shiloh was destroyed because of the people’s idolatry.  In Jeremiah 7:12, God said, “But 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.”

God didn’t want Jeremiah to mince words with those of Judah because He was so moved against their wickedness.  As I said before, this warning should have been taken serious because Israel had already been conquered by Assyria.  Now, with a reference to what the Philistines had done to Shiloh, burning it down, the people in Judah should have taken the warning seriously. 

What really concerns me today is that not enough of us pastors and preachers are preaching the word of God and His warning with the seriousness that is needed today.  God is going to judge, and many are being left to His judgment without understanding the consequences of living sinfully.  

So, let me just say it now: if you choose to live sinfully, the day is coming when God is going to cast you away from His presence for everlasting life.  Outside of God’s presence, there will be no peace, happiness, or joy.  Outside of God’s presence, all that is left is guilt, shame, regret, and heavy burdens that will grieve and pain the soul – this will be the fire of your eternal condemnation.

Anger Towards God’s Word

We will see an angry response from the ‘religious leaders’ and the people in Jeremiah 26:7-11.  After they heard Jeremiah’s words, they laid hold of him so that they could kill him for prophesying against them and Jerusalem.  

What was established in the lesson – God Sends a Righteous Branch – is that the people had been scattered from God by false teaching.  The people had bought into the teaching of the false teachers who had taught that there was nothing wrong with how they had chosen to live.  Jeremiah, on the other hand, preached against their living, and his message was a warning of the destruction that Babylon would bring.

Now, what is crazy about the people refusing to listen to Jeremiah was the fact that they were, at that time, already under the thumb of Pharaoh Necho.  Again, I remind you, Jehoiakim’s reign didn’t start off with Judah living in any kind of freedom.  The people were losing their silver and gold, not to benefit Jerusalem, but to benefit the Pharaoh!

Think about this for a moment:  Judah wasn’t living in slavery to Egypt at that time, but they were being taxed by Egypt.  Because of their foolish choices of living, they had essentially found themselves in a position that was akin to their forefathers!  The crazy thing is that the people thought that kind of living was fine and that Jeremiah was the crazy one!

I am reminded of Proverbs 14:12, which states, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”  I am reminded of Proverbs 1:32, which states, “For the turning away of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.”

I also consider the words of that old saying, “The truth hurts”.  As Paul said, God hasn’t put his preachers in the world so that they may seek the approval of the people.  No, God has ordained His servants to do the good work, and often, that work requires His servants to rebuke sinful living.

If you minister the word of God today, Jesus already warned that you should prepare yourselves to be hated by a world that thinks that there is nothing wrong with sinful living.  Yes, some will heed God’s word when you share it, but others will despise God’s word, thinking that they are wiser than the Lord.

Now, because of the history that I have already shared, we know that Babylon was not far off in Judah’s timeline; we know that Jerusalem’s destruction is coming and that many will be carried away in exile.  The people would have been wise to listen to Jeremiah, and the same holds true for many today because the kingdom of heaven is not far off.

Anger Towards God’s Judgment

The last words we see of Jeremiah in this week’s lesson should be the words of preachers and teachers of God’s word today.

In Jeremiah 26:12-13, Jeremiah spoke to all the princes, saying to them that God sent him to prophesy against the temple and Jerusalem.  Jeremiah told them to amend (change) their ways and obey God’s voice, and God would relent.  This really was a warning of essentially the Lord saying, ‘Change your way or else.”

Judah didn’t change its ways.  Jehoiakim was eventually carried away in bronze chains to Babylon, where he died (2 Chr. 36:5-8).  Jerusalem was besieged and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and many of its citizens, aside from the poor, were carried away in exile, where the Jews lived for 70 years until their return.

Question:  Do you think God’s judgment against Jerusalem was fair?  God had given them plenty of chances to get right, but they refused and refused and refused again.  Those of Jerusalem had exhausted their opportunities and suffered the consequences of their decision.  They had chosen not to live as God’s people, so God removed them from the city and the land He had given to them.

I have had the conversation and have seen many speak about how it is unfair that good people won’t get to heaven just because they don’t believe in God.  This is a talking point that many have used to speak against pastors and preachers, as a kind of moral high ground for why they won’t believe “the God of the Bible”.

Here’s the problem with being mad at God that good people won’t go to heaven just because they don’t believe.  Problem:  Who are you to determine what is and is not the qualifications for one to inherit the kingdom of heaven?  How can you determine what is and what is not good so that one ce inherit the kingdom?  Are you God?

Let us understand God’s judgment for determining who will inherit His kingdom.  God will judge whether or not one walked with and dwelt with Him in this world.  IF you loved the Lord, walked with Him, and dwelt with Him in the world, God will welcome you to dwell with Him in His kingdom – this is the reward of faithfulness.

However, if you chose not to dwell with God in the world, the question ought to be asked: why would you want to do it for eternity?  The mistake here is that people believed what they were taught as children:  all good people go to heaven.  

When Jesus taught Nicodemus, Jesus made it extremely clear that whoever believes in Him will not perish but will have everlasting life.  Yes, the product of believing in Christ and walking by faith is the bearing of fruits like love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, and patience.  However, inheriting the kingdom of heaven boils down to whether or not one loved Christ and desired to be His bride.

IF you choose today that you don’t want part in loving the Lord, His only begotten Son, His word, and if you choose to live free from God, then God will reward your desire for eternity.  God will be faithful to your desire and remove you from His presence so that you don’t have to ever dwell with Him.

Now, ask yourself, is God wrong for faithfully giving you what you have desired?  Let us all understand that there is a consequence to the decision you make.  God is faithful to keep what He has promised. 

John 3:16-18 is arguably the most important scripture there is in the Bible.  The reason why I say that is because Christ did not mince words about who is and who is not condemned.   If you are living and breathing right now, God is presenting to you another opportunity to make corrections so that you do not end up in a place where you don’t want to truly be.