A brief overview of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Jeremiah 12:1-13 for Sunday, June 25, 2023, with the title, “Exclusive.”

A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:

INTRO   ??? Can you share a time when you/someone you know, suffered for doing the right thing??? 

(Some Biblical examples would be Joseph in Genesis, who resisted Potiphar’s wife’s advances and was falsely accused for it; or Daniel, who prayed and was arrested and thrown into the lions’ den for it.

But there are many modern examples as well: For example, in 2013, Aaron Klein, co-owner of Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery in Oregon, was fined $135,000 for refusing to make a gay wedding cake that violated his conscience. Last year the State reduced the fine to “only” $30,000. Klein and his wife had to shut down their business and leave the state. They did the right thing — but they suffered for doing it. 

There are many such examples; you/others in your group can share examples from your lives/ones you’ve heard. 

There’s something particularly difficult about suffering when you have done the right thing. When we do something wrong and suffer for it, we kind of know we deserve it, so we can be at peace with it. But when you do what is RIGHT and suffer for it, something in us that revolts at that; it’s unjust. THIS is the situation that Jeremiah faces in our lesson for this week in Jeremiah 12:1-13.

CONTEXT 

We’ve seen that Jeremiah has been preaching the messages that God gave him (all the “Thus says the LORD’s” in the texts. But sometimes preaching or teaching God’s truth makes people angry. This happened in Jeremiah 11. The people of Jerusalem said in :21 “Do not prophesy in the name of the LORD, so that you will not die at our hand.” That is the context of the prayer that Jeremiah prays at the beginning of Jeremiah 12, and the answer God gives him later in this chapter. 

OUTLINE

I. Jeremiah’s Question  (:1-4)

II. God’s Answer    (:5-13) 

A. To Jeremiah personally in :5-6, and  

B. His answer to the question in :7-13.

I. JEREMIAH’S QUESTION (:1-4)

:1 “Righteous are You, O LORD, that I would plead my case with You.”

— First Jeremiah makes the foundational point: God IS righteous! 

— And He has a personal relationship with Him (remember “LORD” in all 4 caps means it’s Yahweh, the personal name of God.) Jeremiah does have a personal relationship with this righteous God.

— Because of these two things, he CAN “plead his case” with Him. If God was not a personal God, you couldn’t ask Him. And if He was not a righteous God, there would be no need to ask Him why bad things happened/whatever, because we wouldn’t expect Him to do good. It’s only because God IS good that we don’t understand when those bad things happen. 

Here in :1 Jeremiah asks God a question:  “WHY has the way of the wicked prospered? WHY are all those who deal in treachery at ease?”  He asks God “WHY?”

Some would = it’s wrong to ask God “why?”

But we see a number in scripture who do:

— Psalms 43:2, “Why have You rejected me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression on the enemy?”

— Job 3, “Why did I not die at birth?” “Why is light given to him who suffers?”

— JESUS! “My God, My God WHY have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46, etc.) 

So the example of the Psalms, others, and especially Jesus shows it’s ok to ask God “why?” If Jesus did, it can’t be wrong!

God may nor may not choose to give us the answer, but we can ask. 

??? Anyone want to share a time when you asked God, “Why?”???

(EX: several of mine would be in ministry: why would He allow certain things to happen in church; or why not bless or move or provide …. I know my wife Cheryl has asked about certain people she knew, why did this person live, while another, more righteous person was taken from this life early?

You/your group will have similar things you can share.) 

??? What specifically does Jeremiah ask “Why?”, about here???
(“Why has the way of the wicked prospered? Why are all those who deal in treachery at ease?”

As we saw, he was asking this in the context of his own situation: here HE was, doing God’s will, preaching His word, and his life was being threatened — but the wicked people who opposed him were prospering. WHY was this?

I want to introduce what may/may not be a new term to you: “THEODICY.” Theodicy deals with justifying God in the face of evil. It basically seeks to answer to the question: “If God is good, then why does He allow bad things to happen?”  Theodicy attempts to give an answer to those questions.  

This is Psalm 73, if you are familiar with that Psalm.

Asaph says in :3 “I saw the prosperity of the wicked … (:5 they are not in trouble as other men …”. He says in :13 “Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure.” He’s saying, Why am I taking the trouble to do good, when the wicked prosper?!  This is basically the same question Jeremiah is asking: “Why has the way of the wicked prospered?
Now, if you read “the rest of the story” in Psalm 73, Asaph goes on to say in :16 “it was troublesome in my sight” (:17) “UNTIL I came into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end.” He says in :19 “How they are destroyed in a moment.” So he had wrestled with this, but when he went to the temple, God showed them that they would not end well; they WOULD be judged. 

If you or someone you know wrestles with issues of Theodicy, you might read, or have them read Psalm 73. But this is what Jeremiah was struggling with — some of the folks in your class may be doing the same.

Just a couple of other interesting points in this section: 

:2 As he describes these wicked people he uses a powerful expression: “You are near to their lips but far from their mind.” That’s strong! The word “mind” here is literally “kidneys” or “inner man” — in other words, their HEART. They TALK about God a lot — but He’s not really in their heart. 

Jesus says this same thing in Matthew 15:8, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.” 

:3 “But you know me, O LORD; You see me; and You examine my heart’s attitude toward You. Drag them off like sheep for the slaughter …”.  Jeremiah says, You know my heart. And here’s what I want: “Drag them off like sheep for the slaughter” — he is talking about these wicked. Don’t let them prosper any more. You are a righteous Judge; give them what they deserve. 

:4 says “How long is the land to mourn and the vegetation of the countryside to wither? For the wickedness of those who dwell in it …”. He says the whole country is suffering — crops, etc., — because of their wickedness. “Because they have said, ‘He will not see our latter ending.’” The wicked don’t think they’ll be judged.

So in :1-4 Jeremiah is asking God WHY are the wicked prospering? And He implores Him to judge these wicked people who are oppressing him.

II. GOD’S ANSWER :5-13

A. His answer to Jeremiah personally: (:5-6)

:5 I think is a good question for many Christians today:

“If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out, then how can you compete with horses?”

Do you see the picture God is giving Jeremiah here? Basically He’s saying: “If you think this is hard, it’s going to get worse than this.” These are the “footmen,” spiritually. The “horses” — bigger and stronger and faster — are coming! 

He says, “If you fall down in a land of peace, how will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?” Harrison says this is “the flood plain of the (Jordan) River, which was covered with luxurious vegetation. It was the haunt of wild animals …”. So again, the picture is: if you fall down in a clear field, what are you going to do in the jungle-like wilderness of the Jordan? 

The point He’s making is: Jeremiah, if you’re discouraged at what you see happening now, you’d better get ready, because worse things than this are coming!  

There may be some application here for US today, too. Some of us may be disappointed/discouraged/weary with all the evil we see and experience in today’s world — but God may be saying to US, like He did to Jeremiah: If you find it difficult serving Me TODAY, when Christianity is legal, and everyone is supportive of you, how will you do when there is real persecution for walking with Christ? It may be about to get a lot worse than it is now! 

??? SO: How comforting do you think this answer was to Jeremiah??? 

(I would say, that’s not very comforting!  But the truth is, God does not always have an “easy, comforting” answer for us. Sometimes the answer is: you know what; things are hard, and you need to persevere through it! Sometimes the answer is like it is to Jeremiah here: things are going to get worse before they get better! Sometimes things are going to get harder before they get easier! That was the case with Jeremiah here. God says: You’re running with footmen now, but soon you’re going to be running with horses. If this is wearing you out; it’s fixing to get worse! 

Then He says in :6 “even your brothers and the household of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you.”

And God adds: “Do not believe them, although they may say nice things to you”! 

Again: that’s not very comforting! Your own family is going to be against you, and they may SAY some nice things to you, but you can’t believe them! 

So basically God is telling Jeremiah here, you need to toughen up. This is just “the first quarter,” in a sense. You’ve got a long way to go, and you are going to have to persevere through it.

Augusus Saint- Gaudens created famous Civil War statues of Admiral Farragut, General Sherman, and others in New York City. He once said:  “stick to it. Those who hang on are the only ones who amount to anything.” (David McCullough, The Greater Journey, pp. 373-374)

And God may be saying similar things to some of us. Some of us have some things in our lives that we just need to persevere through. There is no “easy out;” there is no “quick solution.” We just have to persevere through it — “stick to it” like Saint- Gaudens said — and we CAN with God’s help, just like Jeremiah did. 

B. His answer to the question  (:7-13)

So after this personal word to Jeremiah, God answers his question in :7-13. And His answer is, don’t worry Jeremiah, I AM going to judge them. Things are not going to go well for them in the future. He talks in :7+ about what was going to happen to them. Now, He speaks in “past tense”, the “perfect tense” in Hebrew, as if it has already happened — because in God’s eyes it HAD already happened. It was GOING to happen. They were not going to “get away” with anything. They were going to be judged. 

1. Notice first of all, WHAT God was going to do. There are so many pictures of God’s judgment in :7-13:

:7 “forsaken My house; abandoned My inheritance … given into the hand of her enemies”

:9 the beasts of the field will devour them

:11 it’ll be made a desolation

:12 destroyers will come; there is no peace for anyone

:13 they will sow wheat but reap thorns. 

All these together show us: the wicked are not “getting away” with anything. The wicked who were persecuting Jeremiah may be prospering right now, but God says don’t worry; His judgment is coming on them. 

We should always remember this too: never worry because the wicked seem to be prospering. They WILL get what is coming to them. 

In the 1800s there was a politician in New York who went by the name of “Boss Tweed.” He controlled New York City politics, and stole millions of dollars. If he wanted something done, he just paid politicians so much per vote for it. They went to build a courthouse for New York City, that was supposed to have cost $250,000 — a good sum in the 1800s. But they put so much fat and bribes and corruption and unnecessary jobs and unneeded extras into it, that by the time it was completed, that $250,000 building ended up costing 13 MILLION dollars. And Tweed seemed to be just getting away with it, and running New York City. Until one day the end came. A newspaper reporter exposed his corruption, and reported it in the New York Times, and Tweed was finally arrested, charged with stealing over $200 million, and was sent to prison, where he died in the Ludlow Street Prison. 

For a time it appeared “the wicked was prospering” and he was getting away with it — but his judgment came. 

That kind of thing happens so often.

But listen: the Christian faith is that even when the judgment does NOT come in this life, that they will still not escape the judgment of God. For example, in the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16, it appeared that the Rich Man got away with it — he never did face judgment in this life. But one moment after death, he was suffering in agony. 

All of this is a good reminder to us: The wicked do not “get away” with anything. Never envy the wicked; never feel like you are doing good for nothing. God’s judgment WILL come — sometimes as early as in this life, and sometimes in eternity. But it WILL come. That is our faith. Hold to it!  

2. But secondly, notice God’s ATTITUDE in the judgment He is bringing:  He says: in :7, “I have given the beloved of My soul into the hand of her enemies.” God calls the people of Judah “the beloved of My soul.”

??? What does this tell us about God’s ATTITUDE towards the judgment He is about to bring???

(Of course the answer is that He LOVES these people. God isn’t bringing this judgment because He hates them; He is doing it because He HAS to do it, as a just Judge. But He never stops loving His people. 

It remind me of Hosea 11, when God has to judge the Northern Kingdom, Israel, for years of idolatry and unrepented sin. He says in :8 ‘How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel? … My heart is turned over within Me. All my compassions are kindled.”  In this passage God is the same way: He has to judge them, but He still loves them passionately. 

Sometimes, even when it is someone you love, you have to “give them over” — sometimes it is just for a time, to give them time to “hit bottom,” or come to themselves, and Lord willing they will finally repent.

The father of the Prodigal Son did that: he let him go. He still loved him greatly, as the passage shows, and he longed for him to come back. But sometimes there comes a time when you have to let go of them. It’s HARD, but it has to be done.

GOD was like that here. He LOVED Jerusalem. He LOVED the Temple and those people. But He was giving them into the hand of their enemies. It had to be done.

There are several applications for us here:

— One, even when God has to judge/discipline us, it is always out of love. He never stops loving us.

— A second application, when He judges other people, He still loves THEM too — so we should also! Let’s never become hard-hearted towards people, even those who are rebelling against God, and even whom we may have to personally discipline or punish. If we have to discipline, let’s always do it with a tear in our eye. 

So God WILL judge the wicked. They will not endlessly “prosper” like Jeremiah was worried about. But God is going to do it with a loving heart. And when we have to discipline others, we should do it with a tear in our eyes, like He does.  

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