Jeremiah 16:1-21 “Known to All Nations”

1:07For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God? When we come to the end of our lives on this earth, only one thing will matter. And that is knowing God. It will not matter whether we were rich or famous or accomplished or even liked. All that will matter in the end is that we know God. Or, as Paul says in Galatians, that we are known by God. Do you know God?

2:04I'm not asking merely if you know about God. Everybody knows something about God because He's revealed Himself through what He has made, and He's revealed Himself through our consciences. So everybody knows something about God. I'm asking whether you know God as He has revealed Himself through His Word and His Spirit, and especially through His Son, Jesus Christ. Do you know God? In that sense, most people in the world do not know God. And if that is what makes life worthwhile, both this life and the life that is to come, then we must seek to know God and to make Him known.

2:59Friends, last. Last week in Jeremiah chapter 15, we saw the prophet complaining, pouring out his sorrow and his frustration to God. He has been faithful. He has done everything that God has called him to do, and yet the people cursed him. And Jeremiah felt upset about this reality. Haven't we all felt that way before? Haven't we all felt upset at some time because we did not think that God was treating us fairly, wasn't treating us as our lives seemed to deserve?

3:37Jeremiah felt that way. He was hated and oppressed and persecuted for speaking and obeying God's word. His ministry was legitimately difficult. In his kindness, God promised to deliver him out of the hand of the wicked. But God in his kindness also corrected him and called him to repent of his ungodly attitude, his wrong attitude that accused the Lord himself of not dealing fairly and justly with him. Today in chapter 16, we see that Jeremiah responds well to God's correction.

4:14And God calls him to do something very difficult, to again participate in what we could call a living sermon, to act out the word of the Lord. And Jeremiah's living sermon would show people that once again, judgment was coming. But that God was going to pour out his mercy and his grace on his people in the end. And not just them, but people from every nation on the earth. They would come to know God. Friends, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ here today, you know God.

4:54You are known by God. And so the question before us today in Jeremiah chapter 16 is: will we live to make him known? Let's pick up here in the text in verse 1. You see here in this first paragraph that it starts off with this very difficult command: Jeremiah is forbidden to marry or to start a family. Now, you must understand, in Jeremiah's day, a single man was completely unheard of. In fact, being an unmarried man in Israel was so abnormal that there wasn't even a word for it.

5:41Let me say that again. There is no word in the Hebrew language for bachelor. What did they watch on TV? So Jeremiah's singleness is going to raise a lot of questions. All of the obnoxious questions that single Get asked. Is there anybody special? You've been on any dates lately? Aren't you ever going to get married? Amen? Beyond that, Jeremiah had one of the most difficult ministries in history, and he would have no family to comfort him. So, if I've had a tough day or a tough week in ministry, I have a wife and I have children to comfort me, to cheer me up, to help me find joy in the midst of very hard circumstances.

6:32But not Jeremiah. And the whole point is that when people looked at the social experiment that was his real life and they asked him, Why aren't you married? Jeremiah's job was to tell them, Because everyone in this land is going to die. We are going to be attacked. We are going to be besieged. People are going to die from sword and famine and disease, and anyone who survives is going to be carried off into exile for the rest of their life.

7:10That's why I'm not married. That's why I don't have kids. That's fun, isn't it? Bet that got Jeremiah invited to a lot of parties. But you know what? It didn't matter if he was invited to parties or not, because in verses 5 through 9, God's next commands prohibit. Him from ever entering the house of mourning or the house of feasting. That's right, Jeremiah is not allowed to attend funerals or weddings. He's not allowed to comfort the grieving or to celebrate with the rejoicing.

7:46Again, in Jeremiah's day, this is completely unthinkable. A family member or a friend not showing up to a funeral or a wedding, not dropping by when someone is sick, not attending a party or a celebration of any kind. But friends, remember, Jeremiah's life is supposed to be a living sermon. His social isolation shows that when God's judgment falls on them in the form of Babylon, there would be no one left even to bury the dead, much less mourn for them.

8:21There would be no one left to marry, much less anyone to celebrate you if you did get married. Brothers and sisters, our callings are not the same as Jeremiah's. Jesus taught that some are called to marry and some are called to a life of singleness. Both can honor the Lord, both are callings from God, both come with blessings and with challenges. We're also taught that we are to rejoice with those who rejoice and to mourn with those who mourn.

9:00So, our calling is different than Jeremiah's in some important respects. But our calling is the same in the sense that our lives are supposed to be living sermons of sorts. This is the consistent message throughout the New Testament. Take a look at Matthew chapter 5. Jesus says, You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.

9:36In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Look at 1 Peter chapter 2. He says, Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Friends, our lives are supposed to be living sermons that people look at and they are pointed to the glory of God in heaven.

10:16And I am concerned that the world ignores us because there is nothing noticeably different about the way that we spend our time or our money, the way that we spend our time. Talk to other people in person and online, the way that we talk about other people in person and online, the way that we handle those who disagree with us. I'm concerned that our hopes and our dreams for ourselves and for our children are more cultural than Christian.

10:55It's natural to look at Jeremiah's life and say, I don't think I could have done that. But I trust that God gave him grace and strength to obey these difficult commands. And friends, in the same way, God has given each one of us grace and strength to obey the command that He has given us. Whether that's to a life of marriage or singleness, a life of constant rejoicing with others when you cannot rejoice yourself, or mourning with others when you have not gone through those exact same things.

11:29God has called all of us to these different lives that look different from the way the world handles wealth and time and grief and joy, so that when they look at us, they would say, Why do you live your life like that? And we could respond, because of my faith in Jesus. Can I tell you more about my faith in Jesus? That's the point. Let's pick up in verse 10. And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, Why has the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?

12:20Then you shall say to them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and have gone after other gods, and have served and worshipped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law. And because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me. Therefore, I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.

12:59As we saw a few chapters earlier, the people seem shocked that God is going to discipline them for their sin and their idolatry. They ask, as they did before, how have we sinned? What have we done wrong? And the Lord replies by telling them that their fathers turned their backs on him. Instead of serving and worshiping God, which is the very reason he brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of slavery, they served and worshipped. False gods.

13:33Now, the people might have replied, that's not fair. How can you hold us responsible for what our ancestors did? God says, you've been even worse than them. Every one of you does what is right in his own eyes and refuses to listen to me. And so in verse 13, God says he's going to hurl them out of the land. And they are going to worship other gods day and night. You see, in this situation, there is an irony that should not be missed. Throughout their time in the Promised Land, the people continually chose to worship false gods. That was their choice.

14:23But when God hurls them out of the promised land into exile, they are going to have no choice but to worship other gods day and night. In other words, God is going to give them exactly what they wanted. Look at this famous quote from C.S. Lewis. He writes, There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, Thy will be done. And those to whom God says, in the end, thy will be done.

15:10That's why when Joshua led the people into the promised land, he challenged them with these words. Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.

15:45But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua challenged the people to choose to serve God rather than the false gods of the nations around them, to say to God, Thy will be done. But they didn't have to do that. They could make another choice. They could choose to serve idols. And that is the very choice that they made over and over again, to serve the powerless gods of the nations. And so God said to them, Thy will be done.

16:30If you'd rather worship those false idols instead of me, I will let you do it. And then I will cause you to be carried off to a foreign land where you will have no choice except to worship those false gods day and night, just like you wanted. Friends, one of the greatest mysteries and wonders is that the God of the universe has given both angels and human beings the choice to worship him or not. Satan and many other angels chose not to. They rebelled against him and they were thrown down.

17:11And now they await a certain final judgment when Christ returns. And similarly, God created human beings in his own image and likeness, and he gave us a choice: the choice to worship and serve him and enjoy his blessing, or the choice to worship and serve ourselves and live under a curse. And sadly, our first parents chose not to worship or serve God. Instead of saying, Thy will be done, they rebelled against God and did what was right in their own eyes. And so God said to our first parents, Thy will be done.

17:56We've all done the same. This is what Paul talks about in Romans. Romans chapter 1, look on the screen. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. He goes on to say this: And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.

18:48They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. The good news of the gospel is that God sent His only Son, Jesus, to be a second. Adam, to be the man that we were all called to be, to be the person we were all called to be.

19:38And we were not. Jesus came to say, unlike Adam and Eve, thy will be done. And that is the very thing that he said in the garden, isn't it? When he suffered and he prayed ahead of the cross, he said, God, if it be possible, Father, if it be possible, take this away from me, yet not my will, but thy will be done. Friends, he came and succeeded, or every one of us has failed. It is critical to understand that God will not make us do what we do not want to do. He will allow us to choose to worship any gods that we want to.

20:24But those gods are not real. They cannot hear us, or heal us, or help us or deliver us. And so if you've come to a place where you have clearly seen the foolishness of idolatry, of turning to other gods, giving your life and allegiance to those that are not real and cannot help you, then I implore you to choose life today. Turn away from your sin and turn to Jesus Christ. He will forgive you, he will cleanse you. He will give you the real and abundant life that you are searching for so diligently, but you cannot find apart from him.

21:10Verse 14. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, as the Lord lives, who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but as the Lord lives, who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them. For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers. Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterward, I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. But first, I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.

22:21The first couple of verses in this section are so hopeful that they almost seem completely out of place. Reality that's led some critics to conclude that these verses had to have been added later on. But, friends, remember Jeremiah's calling back in chapter 1. He was not called by God just to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and overthrow. He was also called to plant and to build. And these words represent some of that hope for the future, these verses 14 and 15. God says that He is going to bring His people back from exile, and it's going to be so remarkable that it is going to replace the Exodus as the greatest deliverance in the people of Israel's history.

23:17But how in the world could that be? I mean, think about that for just a moment. In Egypt, the people were enslaved for 400 years. That last Pharaoh was so stubborn that it took 10 miraculous plagues and the death of his own firstborn son for him to finally relent and let the people go. The people of Israel watched as the angel of the Lord passed over their homes because they obediently shed the blood of a spotless lamb and spread it on the doorposts. These people walked through the Red Sea.

24:00How in the world is this going to be greater? Jeremiah says that when the people come back from exile, it's going to eclipse even God's work in the Exodus. Well, friends, that's going to be the case. Not because the deliverance from exile was more miraculous, but because it was more merciful. When the people of Egypt were enslaved for 400 years, what did they do to deserve that? Had they been sinning greatly as a nation? Had they been worshiping false idols? No.

24:46No, Jacob and his sons went to Egypt because there was a famine, and Joseph was in power. So it was a great place to go in that time. They just stayed there because they had Joseph and the Pharaoh's favor. But of course, a Pharaoh comes up who doesn't know Joseph and what he had done for Egypt, and so the people end up enslaved. But why are these people in Jeremiah? Why are the people of Judah being sent into exile?

25:21They are being sent in exile because they have been worshiping false gods for the past 400 years. For discourse. Disobeying and rebelling against God. They chose their own slavery, slavery to gods who demanded everything and gave them nothing in return. In Egypt, God's people did not deserve to be enslaved. But in Babylon, God's people did not deserve to be delivered. That's why the exile is going to surpass the Exodus. Not because it's more miraculous, but because it's more merciful.

26:04It reminds us how Paul talks about the gospel in Romans chapter 5. Take a look. He writes, For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Friends, these Israelites were not good people. Verse 17 confirms that God sees every wicked thing that they do. That's why he's going to send out these nations like fishers and hunters to gather them up. They did not deserve anything except for the judgment of God. And that judgment was coming. That's what he promises in verse 18. That's going to happen. But then he's going to pour out mercy that they do not deserve. And he is going to bring them back from exile. His grace is going to be so overwhelming that it will overshadow the greatest event in Israel's history: the deliverance from Egypt.

27:22Friends, in the same way, you and I are not innocent bystanders, people who do not deserve judgment from God. Like Adam and Eve, we have willfully chosen to rebel against God, to reject Him, and to put ourselves in His place. We have chosen to enslave ourselves with our own sin and idolatry. But Christ died for the ungodly. While we were yet sinners, God shows His love in this way. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He did not send Jesus to tell us, you guys need to try harder to do better.

28:10He sent Jesus to say, the wrath of God is coming on you because of your sin. But I am here. I have come to absorb all of his wrath in your place. I have come to die for you and to rise again. That is why Jesus came. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not amazing because it confirms our goodness. The gospel of Jesus Christ is amazing because it confirms just how awful our sin and rebellion really are and how great God's love for us is anyway. A love that did not withhold his only begotten Son, but sent him to die and to rise again for us. Thanks be to God.

29:05Let's pick up in verse 19. O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say, Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit. Can man make for himself gods? Such are not gods. Therefore, behold, I will make them know. This once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.

29:57When Jeremiah considers the coming judgment of the Of God, he is moved to prayer. And he prays to the Lord, crying out to him and declaring that God is my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble. It is a colossal understatement to say that hard times were coming for Jeremiah. In fact, already in his life, hard times were upon him. He had already suffered greatly as God's mouthpiece. He had no wife to comfort him. He had no children to comfort him, and he would never have a wife or children. He could not mourn with friends. He could not rejoice with friends. He could not go anywhere and celebrate. Jeremiah had no people.

30:49400 years earlier, David wrote this in Psalm 46. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Now, listen, I have no doubt that Jeremiah knew Jeremiah 46, or Psalm 46, very well. In his head, he had always known that God is a refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. But friends, over the course of his life and ministry, Jeremiah came to know that God is his refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

31:31He came to know it. Not in his head, but in his heart. In these closing verses, Jeremiah prophesies that one day the nations are going to realize that the religions passed down to them by their fathers, the gods that their people have worshipped for generations, are no gods at all. They are not a strength or a stronghold or a refuge. They are nothing. And so the nations are going to come from the ends of the earth to confess their idolatry and that God is the only true God.

32:11That is the future that Jeremiah sees, a future where the nations come to God, confessing him as the one true God, the stronghold and refuge that they need in repentant faith. Friends, that's the future that God promised to Abraham when he said that through him, all of the families of the earth would be blessed. Look again at verse 21. God says, Therefore, behold, I will make them know. This once, I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.

32:55Three times in a row, you see it there. God declares that he's going to make the nations know. Know not just his power and his might. The nations are going to know him intimately. God says they are going to know his name. And friends, knowing someone's name in Scripture represents a lot more than just knowing something about them. To know someone's name in Scripture is to know them intimately. We would say in our day that we're on a first-name basis, that we know them intimately, not just about them. Jeremiah says that a day is coming. God says that a day is coming when the nations will not be ignorant of him. They won't just have head knowledge about him, but they will know him like Jeremiah knows him.

33:55They will know him by name. Look at Habakkuk chapter 2. He says, For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. One day the nations are going to know God by name. They would come to know him as a strength and a stronghold and a refuge. But they would learn that the hard way, just like the people of Judah. They'd learn it only after they had seen and experienced for themselves that. The gods that they made and worshipped their entire life are no gods at all.

34:39Throughout the Bible, God's judgment is pictured as a great storm, a great flood. Of course, we see this most vividly in Genesis, where God judges the entire earth through the flood. Only Noah and his family are saved because they are safe in the refuge of the ark that God commanded him to build. At the end of Jesus' most famous sermon, he says there are two types of people who hear his words. The first type of person hears them and he does them. And that person is like one who builds their house on a rock.

35:25The storms come, the floods come, but the house stands firm. It is a stronghold and a refuge. But the second person is one who hears the words of Jesus, but they don't act on them. And Jesus says, that person is like one who built their house on the sand. And the storms and the floods come, and the house is destroyed because it wasn't a refuge. It wasn't a stronghold. When we think about the storms of life, we often picture things like natural disasters or financial crises or health scares or even the death of a loved one.

36:16And to be sure, those are times of trouble, and God is near to be our strength in those times of trouble. But, friends, what we need most is not a refuge from the everyday trials of life in a fallen world. What we need most is a refuge, an ark, that can carry us safely through the flood of God's judgment. Friends, Jesus is that ark. He is the one whom God sent to save us from the flood of his judgment.

36:56The gods that we manufacture and worship cannot save us. Jesus said that he alone can save us from God's judgment. The apostles declared that there is no other name in heaven and on earth by which we can be saved. So do not wait until God makes himself known to you at the end of all things, when Christ returns or when you die, because by then it's too late. Do not wait. The scripture says it is appointed once. For a man to die, once for a person to die, and then the judgment.

37:37But Jesus offers you forgiveness, reconciliation with God, and everlasting life that begins today through repentance and faith in Him. He is the one who has made God's salvation known to us, and He is the way. If you've already done that, if Jesus is your Lord and Savior, then I want you to understand the implication of this passage. One day God is going to make all of the nations know. Paul says in the New Testament that one day every knee is going to bow, every tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

38:18And so, friends, our holy privilege is to go to our neighbors and to go to the nations with the good news of Jesus, imploring them to repent and believe and receive his grace through faith in his life and death and resurrection. One day God is going to make himself known to all nations. Brothers and sisters, we know God. Will we live to make him known? Let's pray. Father, the greatest wonder and the greatest privilege in the world is being known by you.

39:20You have revealed yourself through what you have made, you have revealed yourself through our consciences. But we praise you this morning because you have revealed yourself to us through your Spirit and your word and your Son Jesus. Thank you. Father, we pray that we would be those who don't hoard the knowledge of you to ourselves, to our Christian brothers and sisters in the church, but that we would live every day with the holy purpose of praying and working to make you known.

40:06In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.