Day 214: Jeremiah 5-8 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Hey Bible nerds, this is Dr. Manny Arango. Welcome to the Bible Department podcast powered by ARMA. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebibledepartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. Family, welcome to day 214. We are in the book of Jeremiah going through chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8. Today we are going to actually start what is the famous Temple Sermon of Jeremiah. It starts in chapter 7. It ends in chapter 10. So we'll talk about it today and tomorrow. If you've done the reading, then you're gonna have all the context you need for all the stuff that we're gonna talk about today. If you haven't done the reading, hey, just a couple of chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8. Stop the audio, stop the video, and go do the reading today. Just four chapters of the book of Jeremiah. And man, they are good chapters. So with no further ado, let's dive in. All right, yesterday's reading, which I probably just forgot to say, yesterday's reading, which was Jeremiah chapter 1 to 4, is actually given during the reign of King Josiah. Okay, so Jeremiah is prophesying verses 1 through 4. Really, chapter 1 is his calling, but chapters 2 to 4, during the reign of King Josiah. Also, what I failed to mention yesterday, is that in the first movement, by the time we get to chapter 4, it is already promised, okay, that exile is going to happen. Two things that I want to say about that. So chapter 4, you just drop down to verse 6, and I know we're talking about yesterday. Sorry, just breaking the rules a little bit, and then we'll get to today's reading. So, verse 6, it says, So, by the time we get out of the first major movement of the book of Jeremiah, disaster from the north is already promised. Now, here's where the book of Jeremiah is unlike any other prophets that came before. Is that by the time we get to Jeremiah, this is it. Like, God's not even going to really let Jeremiah intercede for the people. Because the other prophets, the message is, warn them, warn them, warn them, warn them. If they repent, then God will relent. If the people change, then God won't punish them, or destroy them, or send them into exile. But with Jeremiah, it's actually, warn the people to not fight back.

Because if you fight the Babylonians, it's going to be worse. Just surrender. Now, I want to give a little bit of context here. Because that is insanely unpatriotic. Which is why Jeremiah is going to get death threats, and he's going to get persecuted, and he's going to get attacked. Okay? Jeremiah is not popular at all. It would be like, you know, after 9-11, imagine if there were prophets in America saying, let the terrorists attack us. We deserve it. We haven't been faithful to God. This is God attacking us. We don't need to fight them back. No, no, no, no, no. Let the terrorists do this. Because it's what we deserve. Okay? That would be seen. Yeah, I was, I was alive during 9-11. That would have been seen as insanely unpatriotic. Well, Jeremiah is very, is seen as unpatriotic. So, we're going to see through multiple moments where he's, there are people going to try to kill Jeremiah. Because he's literally saying, hey, don't fight the Babylonians. They are God's instrument to punish us. Don't, don't resist. It'll be worse if we resist. Let's just go, go off peacefully into slavery, because we deserve this. A very, very, very unpatriotic thing to be saying, and a very risky thing to be saying.

And we're going to see, as we continue to study the book of Jeremiah, that Jeremiah hates his message. He hates the fact that this is his message. However, it is true. That doesn't stop it from being true. Doesn't matter how many people don't like it or how much people don't like it. That doesn't stop it from being a hundred percent true. All right. Now, with all that kind of understood, let's get into chapter five. All right. We'll start with a little bit of context. So, yesterday's reading, Jeremiah is prophesying during the time of Josiah. Now, in today's reading, Jeremiah is prophesying during the reign of Jehoiakim. Okay. So, let's talk about how Jehoiakim comes to power. Jehoiakim became king at a devastating time in Judah's history. The Babylonians, Babylonians had almost wiped out the Assyrians, pushing them back to Carchemish, okay? So this is just straight history, all right? Now, remember, the Babylonians have been gaining power, the Assyrians have been losing power. So there is this dynamic shift, okay, where the Babylonians almost wipe out the Assyrians, and these are the two people groups that are gonna, you know, essentially rival for the superpower of the ancient world, okay? So the Assyrians are the people who are gonna take the northern kingdom of Israel into exile in 722 BC, but it's the Babylonians that are gonna take the southern kingdom of Judah into exile in 586. So the Babylonians take over on the world stage as the superpower, and they have to conquer the Assyrians in order to do it, right? Josiah, remember the dude who led all the reforms, okay, was anti-Assyrian, okay, in his zeal to have Yahweh as suzerain, he did not want Assyria as suzerain, he's anti-Assyria.

He tried to prevent, now this is where the geopolitics gets a little bit confusing, okay? The Egyptians under Pharaoh Necho march north to help Assyria defend itself against Babylon, or the Babylonians. Okay, so the Assyrians and the Babylonians are duking it out on a world stage, see who's gonna, are the Assyrians gonna remain the superpower, or the Babylonians gonna take over? The Egyptians march to try to help the Assyrians, well, who wants the Assyrians to lose? Josiah wants the Assyrians to lose, so what does he do? He tries to intercept the Egyptians so that the Egyptians cannot help the Assyrians because he wants them to be defeated by the Babylonians, alright? He tried to prevent the Egyptians getting to Carchemish and fought Nero's army at Megiddo, or Megiddo, Megiddo. Unfortunately, Josiah died in this battle, this is 609 BC, and Judah lost to the Egyptians. Pharaoh Necho then went north and managed to stop the Babylonian advance, so Egypt is successful in helping Assyria. On his return to Egypt, he reclaimed Judah as his vassal, so now Judah goes from being a vassal state of Assyria to a vassal state of Egypt. Next, Josiah's heir, Jehoahaz, is taken hostage to Egypt. Remember, Josiah dies in battle, Jehoahaz, his heir, is taken hostage to Egypt, and the people of Judah then made another one of Josiah's sons, Jehoiakim, king, in his brother's place. All of this can be found in 2 Kings chapter 23, verses 28 to 37, alright? So everything that we're about to read is going to be prophesied during this chaotic time in Judah's history. Judah had just lost its greatest king since David, okay? Josiah is an incredible king, and it had gone from almost independence from Assyria. They're all, I mean, they're almost independent, they can taste it. They're about to not be vassals of Assyria anymore. They go from near independence from Assyria to becoming vassals of Egypt. The Israelites were enslaved to the Egyptians once more. I mean, this is the worst case scenario, okay?

Literally, the thing that Yahweh saved them from in the Exodus is slavery to Egypt, and now we're back enslaved to the Egyptians. So that's all the context that we need for these chapters, okay? When we get into chapter 5, Judah essentially has two issues, a false sense of security and a false sense of superiority. Although Jeremiah is saying there's a disaster from the north that's coming, the people in Judah are essentially going, yeah, no way. Remember when Hezekiah was king and Sennacherib came and tried to attack Jerusalem? They weren't successful. If Sennacherib wasn't successful, nobody's going to be successful. You know why? Because we got this temple. And you know who's in the temple? Yahweh's in the temple. His presence is in the temple. And so as long as Yahweh's presence is in this temple and this temple's in Jerusalem, Jerusalem can never fall. Jerusalem is like, it's impossible for Jerusalem to fall because we got this temple. And they almost developed a superstitious attitude around having the temple and the temple being in Jerusalem. And so Jeremiah starts to preach in chapter 5. Hey, remember back when there was a tabernacle and it was in Shiloh and the Philistines were able to capture the Ark of the Covenant and God still allowed Shiloh to get destroyed even though that was the place of his dwelling? Yeah. Like if God allowed Shiloh to be destroyed, then He will allow Jerusalem to be destroyed. This is ridiculous. reasoning. So verse 15, I am bringing a distant nation against you, an ancient and enduring nation, a people whose language you do not know, whose speech you do not understand. Okay, so please listen to me. Y'all, we're gonna get taken

into exile. This is gonna happen. There's two things that Judah has. A false sense of security. They think that because we have the temple in our city, nothing that can happen. And two, superiority. We know God took away our brothers and sisters, the northern kingdom of Israel, but that's because they don't have a temple. We have a temple. So not only is there a false sense of security, there's a false sense of superiority. Also, let me read verse 12 to you of Jeremiah chapter 5 because it sums up exactly how the people of Judah feel about the situation. Jeremiah is saying, this is a bad situation, guys. We're gonna die. And the people, here's what they say in verse 12, they have lied about the Lord. They said He will do nothing. No harm will come to us. We will never see sword or famine. The prophets are but wind and the word is not in them, so let what they say be done to them. Okay, so the people are saying, verse 12, He will do nothing. No harm will come to us. We will never see sword or famine. Essentially, we don't have to be worried. We don't have to be scared. We're fine. We are eternal optimists. We have this temple. God's not gonna do anything. And so Jeremiah continues to declare over and over and over and over, no, God is going to do exactly what He said He's gonna do. And it's done. God's not warning anymore. I'm here to preach doom and disaster and destruction and death. And of course, this is not popular. So Jeremiah in chapter 7 goes to the temple and starts preaching in the temple. And what he has to say in the temple, we can actually get to chapter 7, what he has to say in the temple is, hey, none of this matters, okay? He's literally going to preach in the temple. And that's when he brings up Shiloh. And he says, hey, like verse 12, go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for my name and see what I did to it. Because of the wickedness of my people, Israel, while you were doing all these things, declares the Lord, I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen. I called you, but you did not answer. Therefore, what I did to Shiloh, I will now do the same. I will now do to the house that bears my name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave you and get your answer. I will thrust you from my presence just as I did with your fellow Israelites, the people of Ephraim. So you're no different than the Israelites, dude. You're no different than the Northern kingdom of Israel. You should not have a false sense of security or superiority. So do not pray

for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them. Do not plead with me for I will not listen to you. This is God telling Jeremiah, you're not allowed to intercede because unlike the other prophets, Jeremiah, you're not here to give a warning. You are here to tell them this is guaranteed. I am coming here to bring exile. One of the really cool things that happens verse 32 of chapter seven. So beware, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer call it Topheth or the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, where they will bury the dead in Topheth until there's no more room. So the Valley of Hinnom is going to get talked about a lot because when you're in the Valley of Hinnom, you can see the temple and they would sacrifice their children in the Valley of Hinnom. And so Jeremiah standing in the temple and he says, you think that you can offer sacrifice in this temple, but you were just in the Valley of Hinnom. You were sacrificing your children. You're worshiping Baal, you're worshiping Asher, you're worshiping Molech, you're worshiping Assyrian gods. You don't love God. You're just covering all your bases. You're doing all this religious stuff, but it means nothing because you were just in the Valley of Hinnom and you can see the temple while you're in the Valley, sacrificing your kids to Molech, burning your children in the fire. And so you know what? Guess what's going to happen. You are going to die in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom. You're going to die in the Valley of Hinnom. When the Babylonians come, your blood is going to be in the Valley of Hinnom since you've sacrificed your children in this Valley. Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere books are sold. Literally today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books A Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life.

I think this book is gonna be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. All right, that's all the nerdy nuggets I've got for you. Let's get to our timeless truth. My timeless truth today is actually really, really, really simple. It's this, it's easy to turn religion into superstition. The people think just because we got the temple, we're good. And God actually, this idea gets transferred into the New Testament. And that's why it's a timeless truth. It's not just true in this context, it's actually true in the New Testament because the New Testament church had began to think as long as we take communion, we're fine. Nothing can happen to us as long as we take communion. And so when John is writing, John is aware that this heresy has started, this superstition around communion, that as long as we take the communion, we're good, we're fine. And so in John's gospel, what happens is that Judas eats the communion and then the devil enters him, okay? That Satan enters into Judas as he takes the communion. And what John is doing is he's communicating to his audience, do not have a superstitious attitude

towards religious things. And so this group of people in Jeremiah's time, they think just because we got the temple, we got the temple, we're good. The people of the New Testament, the church of the New Testament is saying, we've got communion, we're fine. And you wanna know what can happen? It's almost like my dad, my father, he has me pray the sinner's prayer with him all the time. And it's because there's no fruit of repentance. And so he has a very superstitious attitude when it comes to religion. He's just like, all right, well, okay, I'm gonna live the way I wanna live, but every couple of months, I'm gonna have my son pray the sinner's prayer with me just because I die, I go to heaven. And that's actually not grace because grace is not just forgiveness. Grace is the empowering of the Holy Spirit to live the life that I would not be able to live just in the power of my flesh, okay? Grace is not just a get out of jail free car. It's not just forgiveness. It's saying the Holy Spirit has empowered me to live for God, to obey him, to not live an idolatrous lifestyle, but to live a lifestyle that's committed to holiness, not committed to perfection,

but committed to being set apart, set apart for God. And so we don't have a superstitious attitude. We're not saying as long as I do my devotions, I'm not gonna get into a car accident. Some people have a superstitious attitude about tithing. They're like, as long as I tithe, you know what I'm saying? I had people tell me when me and my wife were struggling with infertility, they're like, now y'all tithe, right? Because the Bible say that if you tithe, you won't have infertility or miscarriages. And I'm like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, we're not superstitious, okay? We don't do superstition. We do religion. We believe in Christianity as a religion. We believe in religious principles. We believe in all of it. We're not gonna get superstitious, okay? And it's easy for religion to start to slip into superstition. And you know that you're in superstition when you operate in these two things, when you operate in what I would say is illogical sense of security. When you think that just because you perform this religious act, it's gonna protect you somehow. Communion, having the temple, tithing, whatever it is, you could perform this religious thing and God still allow suffering or calamity

or hardship to happen to you, okay? Or this over here, paranoia. You're just paranoid that because you didn't do something that God is after you or that you're not protected. And so we don't operate in paranoia and we also don't operate with a false sense of security. We operate with a, and I know in part, and I see in part and bad things do happen to amazingly religious and awesome and incredible people. And so we don't let our religion and Christianity is a religion, okay? For all the people who are like, it's not a religion, it's a relationship. That's totally illogical. That doesn't even make any sense. And I don't have time to get into that right now on this episode, but that's crazy. Christianity is a religion, but it is not a superstition. That's a timeless truth. There's something about the human nature that gets superstitious about stuff. And so we don't believe in a superstition. We believe in a religion. And that religion is a thing that creates a relationship between us and God. That is our timeless truth. Tomorrow, we got day 215. We're gonna continue our trek through the book of Jeremiah. We got Jeremiah chapter nine, 10, and 11. Three amazing chapters of the book of Jeremiah.

I'll be right here, ready to dive into Jeremiah with you tomorrow. I'm so proud of you, especially if you're on a streak. Love you so much. See you right here tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment, share with a friend, and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. To learn more about the show, head to thebibledepartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.