A brief overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Jeremiah 23:1-2, with the tithe, “Rules,” for Sunday, July 9, 2023.

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

INTRO: You might begin this week’s lesson by asking for examples of godly political spiritual leaders your members appreciate, and/or by sharing what author Jonathan Alter wrote about former President Jimmy Carter:

“He practiced what he preached. As a state senator, Carter had turned down an offer of free eyeglasses from an optometrist, and as governor, he reimbursed a sporting goods store that sent him a single can of tennis balls. …  Even his enemies called him squeaky clean.” (His Very Best, pp. 188-189) Whether you agreed with his politics or not, Jimmy Carter seemed to be a man of integrity.

You/your group could share examples of godly political and spiritual leaders that you appreciate. Then I’d say: in today’s lesson we are reminded that not every leader is godly; but that God will judge those who are not — and He has sent us the ultimate Leader in the Messiah, Jesus. 

CONTEXT

We are continuing our study in the Book of Jeremiah, whom God called to be His prophet during perhaps THE most difficult time in Israel’s history: when the land was very sinful and was about to be judged by God. The Lord gives another message to Jeremiah here in Chapter 23. He condemns what’s been going on in the land, and promises judgment and restoration in the future, including the Messiah He will send for them.

Let me say at the outset, I believe :5-6 are the key verses this week, especially the concept of the Messiah being “The LORD our righteousness” and what that means for us — with what I think is a great example from the life of Benjamin Franklin that you can use. So I’ll touch on some of the other sections in the focus passage, but I plan to give the bulk of my attention to that. Of course you should pray and emphasize what God impresses you to, for your group. 

OUTLINE

I.  Unrighteous Leaders  (:1-2, :9-11)

II. God’s Righteous Judgment & Restoration  (:3-4, 7-8, 12)

III. God’s Righteous Messiah  (:5-6) 

I. THE UNRIGHTEOUS LEADERS (:1-2, 9-11)

:1 begins: “‘Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of My pasture,’ declares the LORD.”

We see this key phrase: “declares the LORD.”

EXERCISE:  Challenge your class to scan :1-12 and see how many verses have the phrase “declares the LORD”

(There are SEVEN: :1, :2, :4, :5, :7, :11, :12) 

So AGAIN God emphasizes this: that this is not just Jeremiah’s word, or opinion, but GOD’S WORD. “Declares the LORD”!

And what IS the word God is giving?
(“WOE to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of My pasture!”)

God is using the picture of a shepherd, which was common in their day, to speak about the leaders of His people. 

There were two kinds of leaders He was referring to here:

1) Political leaders.   The kings of Israel had not been faithful to lead the people in God’s way. 

— II Kings 21:5 says Manasseh, the predecessor of Judah’s king, “built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.”  And as we see all through Israel’s history, as the kings went, so the people went. They followed the kings into idolatry. So instead of being shepherds who led the people TO God, they led them away from Him. 

2) Spiritual leaders.  But it was not only the political leaders who had misled the people; it was also the spiritual leaders.

Look at :9, he says: “As for the prophets …” then he says in :11 “For both prophet and priest are polluted; even in My house I have found their wickedness”  

We see some examples of this in other scriptures:

— I Samuel 2:22 Eli’s sons were immoral with the women who served at the tabernacle, the tent Israel worship at before the Temple was built. This kind of thing evidently continued in Jeremiah’s day

— In Ezekiel 8:12 God showed Ezekiel what was going on: 

“Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are committing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, ‘The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the land.’”  So they worshiped false gods even in the Temple of God.

So the “shepherds”: the prophets and priests who were supposed to be leading the people spiritually, were committing immorality and idolatry, and not just anywhere, but even in the Temple of God itself. 

To facilitate some discussion and apply this to today, I might ask my group: ??? In what ways can political leaders “destroy and scatter” God’s people, like Jeremiah says???   And how can spiritual leaders do the same thing???

(Now I would do my best not to go down the “rabbit trail” of complaining about politicians and preachers, but the truth is, there is a lot of ungodliness among both today. For example:

— I was shocked and saddened to see the White House decked out with a huge LGBT flag for “Pride” month.

— But sadly, it’s not only politicians, but many churches today are doing the same thing. Pastors, who should be leading their flocks to holiness, are instead encouraging the very immorality God’s word condemns!

There are many, many ways that ungodly political and spiritual leaders can be harmful to God’s people, just as the Lord says here through Jeremiah, and sadly we don’t have to look far to see examples of it. 

II. GOD’S RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT & RESTORATION  (:1-2, 3-4, 7-8, 12)

A. I would emphasize here that God takes this seriously. He IS going to judge. We see several references to that here. 

— He says in :1, “WOE” to these shepherds. He is going to bring evil upon them. 

— He said at the end of :2, “Behold, I am about to attend to YOU for the evil of your deeds.”

— He says in :12 “Their way will be like slippery paths to them … I will bring calamity upon them, the year of their punishment.”

So God will judge these rulers. It’s just like we saw a couple of weeks ago, when we talked about Theodicy: NO ONE IS GETTING AWAY WITH ANYTHING! It may appear for a while like the wicked prosper, etc., but God WILL bring them to account. 

DON’T fall into a cynical attitude: “People are just getting away with everything.” No they aren’t; God will judge them.

Or worse yet: don’t imitate their evil deeds, and think, “Everybody’s doing it; I might as well.” No, keep doing what’s right. God will reward your righteousness, and judge their sin. Don’t join them in their sin, and bring down God’s punishment on YOU as well as them! 

B. The second thing God promises here is that He will RESTORE Israel. They were about to be judged by the Babylonians, who would invade them, and take them 500 miles away into captivity for 70 years. But God says here that He will gather them back again: 

— :3 “Then I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and bring them back …”.

— He says in :7, “Therefore behold the days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when they will no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt, (:8) but ‘As the LORD lives, who brought up and led BACK the descendants of the household of Israel from the north land and from all the countries where I have driven them.’ Then they will live on their own soil.”

So they about to be carried away into exile into a foreign country, Babylon, for their sins, God says, I am going to bring you BACK. 

Up till that time, God’s most famous act was bringing Israel out of Egypt in the Exodus. But He says, now I am going to be known for bringing them back from where they have been scattered in Babylon, and all over the earth.

And the neat thing is, GOD DID THAT! Judah was overrun and captured by Babylon, and they were there for 70 years. But after those 70 years, God brought them back. 

And not only that, Israel was scattered again after the time of Christ — but God has continued to bring the Jews back together to the Promised Land, to this day. It is a miraculous thing. As someone said, has there ever been a nation that was dead for 2000 years, come back to life again?! But it HAS in Israel. We may hold different views on exactly what will happen in the last days, but surely the gathering of Jews from all over the world will play a role in God’s plan for the end time.  

But the greatest thing God has done, is not gather the people of Israel together, but send His Messiah. And this is what He talks about in :5-6, and where our focus is going to be today: 

III. GOD’S RIGHTEOUS MESSIAH

:5-6 Is a prophecy of the coming Messiah:  “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; and He will reign as King and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.

In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely; and this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The LORD our righteousness.’”

So a key part of God’s promise for the future was the Messiah that He would send. God says I’ll raise up a “righteous Branch, and He will reign as King” — so this “branch” is a Person, who will be a King. 

But notice a key word which is repeated THREE TIMES in those verses: “righteous/righteousness.”

— He says in :5 He will be a “righteous” Branch

— at the end of :5 He says He “will do justice & righteousness in the land”

— And at the end of :6 He says: “And this is His name by which He will be called: ‘The LORD our righteousness.’”

When God repeats something in His word, He’s emphasizing it.

So THREE TIMES He’s emphasizing “righteous/righteousness.”

That is the key to this section. 

He even says His name will be called “The LORD our righteousness.” This is SO significant. As we have seen many times, when we see the word “LORD” in all 4 caps like that, that means it is not “Adonai” or “Lord” in the Hebrew text, but the personal name of God, “Yahweh,” or “Jehovah.”

BUT in addition to this, there are a number of descriptions added to the name of God in the Old Testament, that tell us what kind of God He is. For example:

— YHWH-Elohim (“Yahweh God”)

— YHWH/Jehovah-Jireh (“Yahweh our Provider”)

— YHWH-Rapha (“Yahweh Healer)

And so on (some of your group may suggest some others if they are familiar with them)

BUT HERE we find another name for God and Who He is: 

YHWH-Tzedeknu: “Yahweh our Righteousness” (Tzedek is “righteousness”

This is SO important. It is NOT “just another name” for God. It describes how we are saved. 

See, “righteousness” means “rightness” with God. How can we be “right” with God? What is the source of our righteousness?

MOST PEOPLE try to become “righteous” by doing their own good works & deeds. 

ONE GREAT EXAMPLE of this is Benjamin Franklin. (The following is from Walter Isaacson’s book, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, pp. 89-91). You may or may not want to use this whole thing, or summarize it, or use parts of it. I’m going to give you the whole thing here, so you can use as much of it as you are led to. But I believe it is a powerful picture of failed human righteousness.

As a young adult in Philadelphia, Franklin attended a Presbyterian church for 5-6 weeks, and he decided it wasn’t for him. So he went home and started his own “perfection project”: 

“First he made a list of twelve virtues he thought desirable, and to he appended a short definition: 

Temperance: Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. 

Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 

Order: Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. 

Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. 

Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others of yourself; (i.e., waste nothing)

Industry: Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. 

Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly. 

Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. 

Moderation: Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.

Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. 

Chastity: Rarely use use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation, 

A Quaker friend “kindly” informed him that he had left something off: Franklin was often guilty of “pride,” the friend said, citing many examples, and could be “overbearing and rather insolent.” So Franklin added “humility” to be the thirteenth virtue on his list. “Imitate Jesus and Socrates.” …

Mastering all of these thirteen virtues at once was “a task of more difficulty than I had imagined,” Franklin recalled. The problem was that “while my care was employed in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another.” So he decided to tackle them like a person who, “having a garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad herbs at once, which would exceed his reach and his strength, but works on one of the beds at a time. 

On the pages of a little notebook, he made a chart with seven red columns for the days of the week and thirteen rows labeled with his virtues. Infractions were marked with a black spot. The first week he focused on temperance, trying to keep that line clear while not worrying about the other lines. With that virtue strengthened, he could turn his attention to the next one, silence, hoping that the temperance line would stay clear as well. In the course of the year, he would complete he thirteen-week cycle four times.

“I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined,” he dryly noted. In fact, his notebook became filled with holes as he erased the marks in order to reuse the pages. So he transferred his charts to ivory tablets that could be more easily wiped clean.”

So Benjamin Franklin was trying here to establish his OWN righteousness. He was trying to be Temperate and Silent and Orderly — and all of these 13 qualities. 

??? But what did he find??? 

(He couldn’t do it! Even going by his OWN standard of the “right” life — “righteousness” — Franklin found he couldn’t do it. He fell short of his own standard of rightness. 

The point I would emphasize, is that this is what becomes of ALL human attempts at righteousness. We all fall short. Like Isaiah 64:6 says, “All our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.”

This is the inevitable outcome for EVERY person who tries to establish their own righteousness. We can try, but we fail. And this is what virtually ALL world religions do: they try to give you “good works” to do, to establish your own righteousness with God, so that you can be “right” with Him. But they fail.

??? Can you think of any religions that are based on good works???

(Hinduism: they make sacrifices, give offerings, etc.

Islam: “good deeds outweigh your bad” on the “scales”: pray 7 times a day, give alms, go to Mecca, etc.  And so on.

Every world religion except Christianity is based on a person’s own good works or deeds — they try to establish our own “righteousness.”But the problem is, we all fall short. Our righteousness is just not good enough. Scripture makes this clear: 

(EXERCISE: you might distribute these verses to your members as they arrive, and have them read them one at a time here. We will hear over & over in these verses that our works can’t save us:

— Romans 3:10 “There is none righteous, not even one”

— Romans 3:20 “by the works of the Law, no flesh will be justified in His sight”

— Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”

— Galatians 2:16 “nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law”

— Titus 3:5 “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness”

— James 2:10 “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all”

All these verses and more make it clear, that we cannot be saved by our OWN righteousness. 

So how can we be saved? This is THE great problem that faces mankind. Everybody is trying to establish their own righteousness through good works & deeds, but it’s not enough; it can’t save them.  Just like Benjamin Franklin, all our attempts at righteousness are “full of holes” of our repeated errors & mistakes.

So what is the answer? It is found in this name for God we find here in Jeremiah 23:6, YHWH-Tzedeknu, “GOD our righteousness.” Our righteousness is not good enough to save us, so God made a way to give us HIS righteousness. 

This is why Jesus came. He lived a perfect life. It’s easy to say: “Jesus lived a perfect life” as if it’s no big deal. But when you think about it in relation to Ben Franklin’s list of attributes, it’s unfathomable: That Jesus was always Temperate, always Just, always Modest, always every single one of those things, with NO failure, EVER, even in His heart or mind! That is literally beyond our comprehension! But that is what He was and did. He had a PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS.

And the perfect righteousness that He achieved, He GIVES us when we put our faith in Him as our Savior:

— II Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  This is the “great exchange”: we give Him all our unrighteousness and He gives us HIS righteousness.

— Romans 4:5 “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness.”  DO YOU SEE THAT: “His FAITH is CREDITED to him as RIGHTEOUSNESS.”  In other words, you are not “really” righteous; but you are “credited” with His perfect righteousness, when you put your faith in Jesus.

THIS is what Jeremiah 23:6 is talking about here: when the Messiah comes, “He will be called ‘The LORD our righteousness’” — YHWH Tzedeknu!  We don’t have to worry about being “righteous enough” to get into heaven; HE is our righteousness. 

The big application to make here, is to encourage your members to make sure this is true for THEM personally.  The old evangelism question is: “If you were to stand before God and He were to ask you, ‘Why should I let you into My heaven?’ What would you say?”

— any answer that mentions your good works: baptism, going to church, trying to be good, etc., shows that you are trusting YOUR OWN righteousness

— the one right answer is that JESUS saved you; that you are trusting in HIS righteousness to save you.

Make sure that is YOUR answer! Trust JESUS’ righteousness, not your own, for your salvation. Make sure He is YOUR “YHWH-Tzedeknu”! “The LORD YOUR righteousness”!

It’s just like the classic hymn:

“My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” Our only hope of heaven is not OUR righteousness, but that JESUS is our righteousness.  And thank God this is just what He has provided for us. Jesus came to be “The Lord our righteousness.”  Just make sure that He is YOUR righteousness! 

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— Remember if you’d like to read/print a text version of this overview, to print out the Benjamin Franklin story, or some of the verses or anything else, that is available on my blog at http://www.shawnethomas.com (I’ll post that address in the comments section below).

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