Jeremiah 17:1-27 “The Heart of the Problem”

1:15In one section, Pascal is considering the nature of man and how we are not purely rational beings, but guided and directed by our hearts, by what we love. And he says, This, this is one of my favorite quotes of all time. He writes, The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. In Jeremiah 17, we have one of the best-known verses in the Bible, Jeremiah 17:9. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.

2:03Who can understand it? Indeed, who can understand the human heart? Why do we do what we do? Especially when so many of the things that we do are irrational, they make no sense, no logical sense, no medical sense, no financial sense. Many of the things that we do make no kind of sense at all. Even the Apostle Paul expressed frustration with his inability to understand and make sense of his own actions. Look what he writes in Romans 7: For I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

2:58The human heart was a mystery. Even to the greatest theologian who ever lived. But the human heart is not a mystery to the Lord. Right after Jeremiah asks the question, who can understand it? God replies in verse 10, I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind, to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds. The word I is emphatic in the Hebrew. Jeremiah says, Who can understand the human heart? And God replies, I can, and I do.

3:43I search it and I know it. I understand it thoroughly and completely. Nothing is hidden from me. If we want to understand the mystery of the human heart, then God has to explain it to us because it is otherwise beyond our comprehension. The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. Now, the modern person is very likely to point out that the heart is just an organ that pumps blood through the body. We make decisions with our brains, they would say, not our hearts.

4:24But understand that when the Bible talks about the heart, it's not talking about the blood-pumping organ, per se. It's talking about the spiritual and emotional part of us, the center of our being, the part of us that cannot be seen or examined in a laboratory. And the reality is that although we are rational beings, we do not make purely rational decisions. We decide to do something because we want to, because the heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.

5:03And from birth, our hearts are corrupted by sin. So you see that Jeremiah 17 opens by acknowledging that sin is engraved on the tablet of the human heart. It's not written in pencil. It's not even written with those cool eraser pens from the 90s. Sin is written with a pen of iron, with a point of diamond, tools that were used to engrave stone. And that is a fitting analogy, because the hearts of the people of Judah were rock hard toward the Lord.

5:46And a hard heart is not filled with faith, but fear. Even believers like Jeremiah, or perhaps like you and me, we aren't immune from acting out of fear. Rather than faith. It's part of the mystery of the human heart that even born-again believers with new hearts can still struggle to walk by faith rather than by fear. This is why Paul had to remind Timothy, who is certainly a born-again believer with a new heart, that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and love and self-control.

6:27So, friends, today we're going to explore three fears of the human heart: fears that are common to all people, fears that you might be dealing with even today, even in this moment as you sit here. And those fears are: God won't save me, God won't justify me, and God won't provide for me. So, let's look at these first few verses here and consider that first fear that God won't save me. In these first four verses, Jeremiah is highlighting the people's idolatry, how they worship this goddess Asherah, the goddess of fertility, beside every green tree and on the high hills, on the mountains in the open country.

7:16They adopted all of the sinful, lewd, sexual practices of the nations around them who worshipped Asherah. And then, in verse 5, we see that the people didn't all. Always just put their trust in idols, but also in other people, in man. And it seems from earlier chapters that the people did this by putting their trust in military alliances with other nations around them, like Egypt and Assyria, instead of trusting in God. So that is what they are doing.

7:53They are worshiping idols and trusting in kings and armies to protect them. But the question is, why? Why are they doing these things? Friends, the entire Old Testament and the entire book of Jeremiah seems to give us the answer. The people turned to idols and they turned to other nations because they were afraid. And their fear is that God won't save me. You see, the people of Judah lived in a time where families were absolutely essential to survival.

8:33These were people who lived off the land. And when you live off the land, you need workers. And workers most often are members of your own family and especially your children. So not being able to conceive wasn't just disappointing, it was an economic disaster. If you didn't have a son, you had nobody to take over the family business. You had no one moving in with you when he got married to help with it either. You were, if you had daughters, sending daughters out in marriage, but you were not receiving anybody else into your home or any children that they may have.

9:19Being childless was scary. And you see that all over the Bible. You see that in the fear displayed with Abraham and Sarah and their decision to have a child through Hagar. You see it later in Genesis when Rachel screams at Jacob: Give me children or I shall die. In that environment, you can understand why the Israelites heard of this foreign deity named Asherah, this goddess supposedly of fertility, and were tempted to start worshiping and offering sacrifices to her out of fear.

10:02And as we know, the people were scared of the nations around them as well. Nations that were larger with better military technology, better weapons. The threat of invasion was ever-present. And I remind you that these nations did not operate under the rules of the Geneva Convention. Nothing was out of bounds. Prisoners of war had no rights. Soldiers did what they pleased. With the captives. So the people were scared, and understandably so. They turned to nations like Egypt and Assyria.

10:43Church, we desire to be saved from whatever we fear. And that fear may be childlessness or military defeat, as was the case with Judah. But it might also be singleness or a bad marriage. It may be poverty or simply having access to the money and resources that will give us the things that we want. It might be obscurity or untapped potential or a lack of success in whatever our field of study is. And because we long to be saved from whatever it is that we fear, we will turn to someone or something for salvation.

11:34And in the end, Jeremiah sets these two options before us: we can turn to man or we can turn to the Lord. Look at verse 5. Thus says the Lord: Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

12:14He says the first option when we are scared and longing for salvation from whatever it is that we fear is to turn to man or to man-made gods of any kind. We can trust in ourselves, believing that if we're going to be saved, then it's all up to us. We can make our own flesh our strength. We can put our hope in other people, politicians, doctors, scientists, believing that they can save us from whatever it is that we fear.

12:46But Jeremiah says that the person who turns away from the Lord, whose heart turns away from the Lord, who puts their trust in themselves or in other people or in man-made gods, he or she is like a shrub in the desert and shall not see any good come. A shrub in the desert has no chance of survival. A shrub in my yard basically has no chance of survival. It is not a cactus. It's not something that's built to live in the desert.

13:25It cannot happen. But contrast that with the blessed person. Look at verse 7. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. The blessed person is not compared to a shrub, but a tree, and a tree that is planted by water. He or she has deep roots that go down into the soil, deep towards the water, the source of life. And remember, earlier in Jeremiah, we had this picture again and again of the Lord as the fountain of life, but the one from whom the people had turned away and had put their hope in empty, broken cisterns.

14:34The blessed person, though, has these deep roots growing towards the water, towards the Lord, the fountain and source of life. There is no need to fear. Look at that language. There's no need to fear. He does not fear when heat or drought comes because he or she trusts in the Lord. What an important passage for our. Our time. It does not say that the blessed person who trusts in the Lord will never experience heat or never experience drought. It does not say that the blessed person will always be healthy or wealthy. It says, when the heat comes and it will come, you don't have to fear.

15:24It says, when the drought comes and it will come, you don't have to be anxious because your trust is in the Lord. What a gift. Friends, the human heart is fearful. It is deceitful and sick. And it tells us that God cannot be trusted. That if we are going to be saved from whatever it is that we fear, we have to put our hope elsewhere. We have to diversify our portfolio, so to speak, to make sure that all of our eggs are not in one basket. Because if we only trust in the Lord, He will let us down. That is what our hearts tell us.

16:08But that is not what the Word of God tells us. And that is not what God's track record tells us with His people. It tells us that He is always faithful, He is always trustworthy, and that He has never let His people down. And so, when we are tempted to look elsewhere for salvation to idols or to ourselves or to other people, it Especially when the heat comes, especially when the drought comes, we must ask ourselves, where am I going to look for salvation?

16:40Will I look to the Lord or will I look elsewhere? Look at Psalm 56. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. We all want to be saved from the things that frighten us, and we will look somewhere for salvation, whether to man or to God. Church, when we feel afraid, we must put our trust in the Lord, who alone can save us. Let's move on now to verse 14, where we see this second fear that God won't justify me.

17:21Verse 14, Jeremiah prays this: Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed. Save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise. Behold, they say to me, Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come. I have not run away from being your shepherd, nor have I desired the day of sickness. You know what came out of my lips before it was before your face. Be not a terror to me. You are my refuge in the day of disaster. Let those be put to shame who persecute me. But let me not be put to shame.

18:00Let them be dismayed, but let me not be dismayed. Bring upon them the day of disaster. Destroy them with double destruction. Unlike the people of Judah, Jeremiah knew that God alone can save him. So he prays to God: Save me, and I shall be saved. He knew that Asherah couldn't save him, Egypt couldn't save him, Assyria couldn't save him, so he cried out to God. But the human heart, who can understand it? Walking by faith or walking by fear are not mutually exclusive options. We walk by faith in some areas and fear in others. And I think that is what we see here with Jeremiah. In verse 15, Jeremiah confesses that there are people mocking him, coming to him and saying, Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come.

19:09In other words, they're saying, Jeremiah, you've been saying for years that God is going to judge us. That an army is going to come out of the north. We're going to be attacked and conquered, carried off into exile. That is your only sermon. And yet here we are. Where is this judgment that you keep promising? It seems like the only false prophet around here is you. Well, it's hard enough to deal with that kind of mockery if you are surrounded by other people who hold your same beliefs, who are also being persecuted along with you. But Jeremiah is all alone. He doesn't have anyone. As we saw last time, he has no wife, he has no children, he has no one to comfort him, preaching a message of judgment that still has yet come to pass.

20:02So in verse 16, he reminds God that he has not run away from being his shepherd. He has not longed for the day of sickness, that can also be translated the day of disaster, to fall on Judah. No, instead, he's pleaded with them through tears for years and years to repent and turn to the Lord. He has been faithful to do everything that God has commanded him to do. But, friends, Jeremiah is just like every believer. He is a mixture of faith and fear. He truly believes that God alone can save him, and at the same time, he is afraid. And his fear is God won't justify me.

20:54Jeremiah is in a truly no-win situation. On the one hand, He wants to see the people repent. He wants to see them spared God's judgment. So through tears, he has preached a message of repentance calling them to turn to the Lord and away from their sin. But on the other hand, Jeremiah wants to be justified. He's tired of being mocked. He's tired of having people imply that he is a false prophet. Year after year, he's preaching about the coming judgment. Year after year, it does not come. So he has to endure the laughter and the shame and the mockery from all of his countrymen.

21:38But the only way for Jeremiah to be justified is if God brings down the judgment that he's promised on his people. So look at this prayer again in verse 18. Let those be put to shame who persecute me, but let me not be put to shame. Let them be dismayed, but let me not be dismayed. Bring upon them the day of disaster. Destroy them with double destruction. What do you think of that prayer? More importantly, what does God think of that prayer?

22:26We don't know. Because unlike at other times, God doesn't respond to Jeremiah. But we do have much teaching from other places in Scripture. Take a look at Romans chapter 12 on the screen. Paul says, Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, declares the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

23:08You see, Jeremiah is very close to being overcome by evil, by those who mocked him and would later beat him and try to arrest and kill him. Now, to his credit, he never takes revenge, but as Paul teaches, he leaves revenge to God. If they're going to be repaid, he does trust God to repay them. But also, just like us, Jeremiah seems to forget what we all seem to forget when we are persecuted and sinned against in various ways. And that is the reality that if God treated everyone as they deserved, then we too would be put to shame, dismayed, and destroyed with double destruction, because we too have sinned against God.

24:01But God has not treated us as our sins deserve. Instead, we have received grace upon grace. Jeremiah was a recipient of God's grace. That is why Paul commands us to feed our enemies, to quench their thirst, to overcome evil with good. It's why Jesus commands us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us, because we do not deserve to be justified, but condemned. Through faith in Christ, we will be justified by his blood, and we will be justified in the end. That is what 2 Peter 3 teaches us.

24:45In 2 Peter 3, the Apostle Peter teaches that in the last days, scoffers are going to come that will mock our belief that Jesus is going to return one day to judge the living and the dead. But the mockers and scoffers say, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. So look how Peter responds to that in 2 Peter chapter 3. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

25:31But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. The scoffers mock us because it has been 2,000 years since Jesus died and rose again and ascended into heaven, and he still hasn't returned. Like Jeremiah, we can burn with the desire to be justified in their eyes. We can pray that Jesus would return just so that other people would see that we were right.

26:11But Peter explains that the whole reason that Jesus has not returned yet, and the whole reason that God was so long-suffering with the people of Judah is because he is patient. He does not want anyone to perish. He does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. He desires that all should reach repentance. And so this morning, I want to challenge you to think about those who mock you and your faith. Maybe they're members of your family, people you work with, people in a project group at school, your neighbors.

26:55Do you long to be justified before them? Perhaps. So much so that you would pray for Jesus to return just so they would see you were right. Brothers and sisters, in the end, God will be justified. He is non-mocked. He will be seen to be exactly who he said that he was. Perfectly just, perfectly righteous. He'll be seen not only to be a promise maker, but a promise keeper. He will be justified in the end. And so will all who put their hope and trust in him.

27:35That is why we can love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. It's why we can bless our enemies and overcome evil with good. When we feel afraid, we must put our trust in the Lord, who alone can justify us. Let's move on to this final section, verses 19 through 27, where we confront that third fear: God won't provide for me. Verse 19. Thus said the Lord to me, Go and stand in the people's gate by which the kings of Judah enter and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem who enter by these gates. Thus says the Lord, take care for the sake of your lives, and do not bear a Burden on the Sabbath day, or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath, or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers. Yet they did not listen or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck, that they might not hear and receive instruction. But if you listen to me, declares the Lord, and bring in no burden by the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but keep the Sabbath day holy and do no work on it, then there shall enter by the gates of this city kings and princes who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their officials, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And this city shall be inhabited forever. And people shall come from the cities of Judah and the places around Jerusalem, from the land of Benjamin and from the Shephelah, from the hill country and from the Negev, bringing burnt offerings and sacrifices, grain offerings and frankincense, and bringing thank offerings to the house of the Lord.

29:36But if you do not listen to me, to keep the Sabbath day holy, and not to bear a burden and enter by the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and shall not be quenched. The problem that God identifies in these verses is a problem that goes back all The way to the earliest days of the Exodus, and that is breaking the Sabbath.

30:07When God brought the people out of Egypt, he gave them what we know as the Ten Commandments. And the fourth commandment is this: Take a look: remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

30:40Now, think about this for a moment. The people of Israel had been enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. For four centuries, every able-bodied person worked from sun up to sundown seven days a week with no breaks. There was no weekend, no holidays, no unions, no labor laws. It was just back-breaking work all day, every day, for 400 years. God miraculously delivered them from slavery in Egypt, and he gave Moses a set of commands that they had to obey. Disobedience to these commands was punishable. By death.

31:33And the fourth command is: you have to take a day off every week. That is it. You have to take a day off every week. How would you expect these former slaves to respond to that command? You would expect them to lose their minds with happiness, to sing and dance and go absolutely crazy. Never in their entire lives have they enjoyed a single day off of work, and God is commanding them to take a day off every single week.

32:14Well, spoiler alert, that's not what happened. After the Exodus from Egypt, they broke the Sabbath. After they entered the Promised Land, they broke the Sabbath. After God carried them away into exile, one of the primary reasons being that they broke the Sabbath, they came back into the Promised Land and broke the Sabbath. Why? Why would these people, of all people on earth, ever struggle with keeping a command not to work? I mean, all of the other commands. Don't lie, don't covet, don't steal. I understand why those might be a struggle, especially stealing.

33:10Thank you, for those of you that you know my story. But don't work? It's a struggle to obey the command not to work. The people of Israel had no reason to doubt God's provision for them. He had provided manna and water in the desert for 40 years. He led them into the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey. He had proven that he would take care of them. It was completely irrational to think that he wouldn't.

33:42Oh, but friends, the human heart is deceitful and desperately sick. Who can understand it? Instead of trusting God, they were overcome by fear. And the fear that overcame them was, God won't provide for me. Right before Moses dies and the people are about to enter into the promised land, he speaks the words that are recorded in Deuteronomy, which is a second retelling of the law. And at every other time in the Old Testament, when the Sabbath command is given, it is always tied back to creation before the fall. The Lord God created all things in six days, and then he rested on the seventh day. And so, because of that, this is a creation. Creation ordinance, you should work six days and rest on the seventh.

34:36But when they leave Egypt, and Moses is giving this second retelling of the law, he gives the fourth command to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. But then he says, This: take a look: you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. What is the rationale for keeping the Sabbath?

35:12Moses reminds them that they were slaves for 400 years, working seven days a week with no breaks at all, and that God delivered them from that. In the promised land, they no longer had to work every day of the week, sun up to sundown. For the first time in 400 years, they had freedom to rest. But, friends, do not miss this. By taking that freedom to rest, they were walking by faith. They were saying, We do not believe that we are solely responsible to provide for ourselves. We trust God to provide for us. We will work six days a week, and we will work hard.

36:00But by faith, we will stop working one day every week. You know, people routinely ask me, Pastor Allen, do Christians have to keep the Sabbath? Well, the short answer is no. Jesus fulfilled all of the law, the entire law, on our behalf, including the fourth commandment to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. So the short answer is no. But the longer answer begins with a question that I ask in return: Why wouldn't you want to?

36:44When the Pharisees confronted Jesus because the disciples were picking grain on the Sabbath, Jesus said to them, Man was not made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man. It is a great gift to us. But many Christians act like the Sabbath is a burden. And it's obvious in the question: do we have to keep the Sabbath? Do you have to stop working, studying, striving one day a week? No, I guess not. Here's why we don't want to do it: it's because we're afraid.

37:31We are afraid that if we quit working, quit studying, quit striving one day out of every seven, that we will not have enough. We won't have enough money. We won't have enough study time. We won't have enough hours on the clock to show our boss that we deserve that promotion, that raise, that new opportunity. In our hearts, we have this nagging fear that God will not provide for us. I'm not sure if you've ever thought about this, but the Jewish Sabbath was Saturday, the seventh day of the week. So their schedule was work, work, work, work, work, work, rest.

38:15They worked all week in order to rest. But when Jesus rose from the dead, he didn't rise from the dead on the seventh day, but the first day. And so Christians started an entirely new routine. And the new routine was rest, work, work, work, work, work, work. We are no longer working for rest, but from it. We rest in Christ, and then we work at whatever vocation that God has assigned to us with all of our hearts, with all of our strength, because that is how we honor the Lord. But it all starts with rest, resting in Christ.

38:59And so, friends, I'll be able to do that. Want to ask you today to take a hard look at your weekly schedule, take a hard look at any assumptions that you might be holding on to, to consider if it's not necessity or faith that's driving you to work or study seven days a week, but maybe fear. Fear that God will not provide for you. What's behind your striving, your relentless drive to work? It was not easy for the people of Judah to observe the Sabbath. That's evident from the fact that they struggled to keep it their entire existence. There's always more work to do. Work, studying, in some sense, it's never finished.

39:47But I submit to you that there may be no greater demonstration of faith in this culture, this culture that idolizes money and success and academic accomplishment, than to say, for one 24-hour period every single week, I am shutting it down. I am not going to work. I'm not going to study as an act of faith. Because manna is not my God. Mammon is not my God. Money, success, and accomplishment are not my gods. The Lord is my God. So I'm going to give one day and seven. To worship, to serve in ministry, to rest, to enjoy family and friends, to make disciples, to do all the things that we have been commanded and have the freedom and joy to do in Christ.

40:43When we feel afraid, we must put our trust in the Lord, who alone can provide for us. Friends, I want to conclude briefly this morning by encouraging you to trust in Jesus. He is the one who saves, he is the one who justifies, and he is the one who provides. In his life, Jesus did not attempt to justify himself. He stood silent before Pilate and his accusers and made no defense. In his life, he did not save himself, but instead he entrusted his spirit to the Father, giving himself up on the cross in our place for our sins.

41:28And Jesus finished the work that the Father gave him, sitting down at the right hand of the Father, resting from his work, so that through faith in his life and death and resurrection, we could enter the perfect and permanent rest that Jesus alone offers us through faith. Friends, every human being struggles with fear. And Jeremiah locates the problem in the heart, the center of our being. We fear that God won't save us, justify us, or provide for us. Us, but Jesus is the answer to every one of those fears. When we feel afraid, we must put our trust in Him.

42:10Let's pray. O Father, you know our many fears. You know all of the things that we think about in our minds. Some things once in a while, and some things more or less all day, every day. Things that we're afraid of. Futures that are undesirable. Worries that we think will come to fruition. And all day we are making choices about where to put our trust, where to put our faith. I pray that you would help us, as your people, to put our trust in our truth. Our trust where it belongs, and that is in you.

43:37You said through Paul, if you have not withheld your only Son, how will you not graciously with him give us all things? We have nothing to fear because we know you and are known by you. So, God, I pray for faith this morning. That every time we are tempted to fear, we would put our faith in Jesus afresh. And I pray for those who have never put their faith in Jesus, that this morning they would take those things that they fear and they would turn them over to you, Lord, making you Lord of their lives.

44:26Thank you for speaking to us through Jeremiah and for hearing our prayers. In Jesus' 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.