Sermon: Jeremiah 10:1-16

Jeremiah 10:1-16:

·         The instructions given to a people who [should] know they face exile.

·         The one lesson the people of God being punished need to learn; and to teach to the nations.

·         The ever-present problem for God’s people: idolatry.

·         Ultimately, we would rather worship the things we’ve created.

·         Idolatry is not as simple or stupid as it seems when concrete: conceptually, it is deeply foolish.

·         Let’s face it: if someone was going to make up God, it would not look like this.

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When you’re a lawyer and your client is on trial for a criminal offence that might involve going to jail, it is your job to warn them about what might happen if they have to go to prison. You have to tell them what to expect in prison before it’s even been decided that they are going to prison. If you wait until they have been found guilty it might be too late, because once you’ve been found guilty your prison sentence can start immediately. You don’t get a chance to go home and pack a suitcase; you don’t get to say goodbye to your family; once that word “guilty” comes, your freedom is instantly gone. You need to be told what to do before that happens.

For a lot of the time in the book of Jeremiah, God’s message makes him sound like the judge. Over and over he declares his people as “guilty”: guilty of idolatry, guilty of unfaithfulness to him, guilty of oppressing the poor and the vulnerable. But here in chapter 10 of Jeremiah, God is actually taking the role of Judah’s lawyer. Here in chapter 10, he is giving them the most important advice on what to do when they go into exile, and he’s doing it before they go.

God knows that he is sending his people into a foreign land with foreign gods: false gods, idols. And God knows that he is sending them into that foreign land for 70 years. 70 years! That is longer than all but the harshest prison sentences. A child born halfway through the exile would be 35 years old when the exile is over, probably having children of their own! Children who would grow up entirely surrounded by a foreign culture of foreign gods, whose parents grew up entirely surrounded by a foreign culture of foreign gods; whose grandparents probably also grew up entirely surrounded by a foreign culture of foreign gods.

God knows this, so this is his message to his people in order to prepare them for the exile, “Do not learn the ways of the nations…their idols cannot speak…do not fear them.” God knows his people, and he knows that their biggest problem, even before exile, was idolatry. This is the reason that they are being punished; it is the reason they are being taken into exile. They turned their backs on their Lord Yahweh, and they prostituted themselves with foreign gods, with false gods who have no power. They trusted their armies, they trusted their diplomacy, they trusted their wealth and their prosperity, to protect them and keep them happy. Oh, Judah never forgot about God completely: in fact, they thought that because of the promises God had made to Abraham, because they lived in the promised land, because God’s temple was in Jerusalem, that they would be safe no matter what they did. They believed so much that they were safe that when God himself sent prophets to them to tell them they were not safe, they ignored God’s own warnings!

And so God will take away their promised land; he will take away their blessed riches; he will take away their freedom; he will take away their temple and their lavish sacrifices; he will take away their kings in the line of David. They will go into exile with nothing except the word of the Lord their God, because that is all they really need to be God’s people; that is where all these other things came from. And when they enter into Babylon, and they see this great empire with all its wealth, its land, its temples and its idols, here is the advice from God they should remember: idols are dumb. They are just things made of wood, covered in gold or silver: they aren’t alive, they can’t speak, they can’t even move by themselves, and they have to be nailed down in case they accidentally fall over. “They are worthless, the objects of mockery” says verse 15. And don’t listen to the dumb people who are taught by dumb idols, God says. “They are all senseless and foolish; they are taught by worthless wooden idols” says verse 8; “Everyone is senseless and without knowledge; every goldsmith is shamed by his idols” says verse 14.

So what does God mean when he says that idols are dumb, and idol worshippers are also dumb? Allow me to illustrate. This is a smart phone, a remarkable feat of technology that allows me to wirelessly contact almost anyone in the world by voice or text, to have the internet in the palm of my hand. It’s an alarm clock, it’s a picture and video camera, it plays games, it’s a calendar, a photo album, a radio and a television – I can even do my banking and send someone money with it! [remove battery from mobile phone, and hand to someone] Do you know how to work a smart phone? Can you call someone with that please? Call anyone, I don’t mind who. Call anyone. No? Do you need my password? Maybe I’m out of airtime? Maybe the internet isn’t working? Maybe the phone network is down? No? Maybe if you just shout really loud into it they will hear?

What’s the problem? The phone has no power! So it doesn’t work. That is what an idol is like: it’s an object that symbolizes the ability to do something, but actually by itself it has no power to do anything. God does not deny that idols are symbols; what he denies is that what they symbolize has any power at all. So what does an idol worshipper look like? Give me the phone. “Hello, De Wet? It’s Ben here. I’m fine, how are you? Good, good. No, it’s fine, I was just calling to say hi. Actually, I was wondering if I could have tomorrow off. I can? Great, thanks! Okay, I’ll talk to you later. Bye now.”

How many of you think I have tomorrow off? How many of you think I was talking to De Wet? He’s right over there! If I really believed I was talking to De Wet right now, you would think I was as dumb as this phone with no battery. See, if your invisible god has power then it makes sense to use their symbol: then you’re not worshipping the symbol, you’re worshipping the invisible God who empowers it. But if your invisible god is actually a false god, a non-existent god, a god as made-up as the idol you use to worship it, then when you pray and make sacrifices and shape your life around its whims you are actually just talking to a piece of dead wood; there’s nothing else to it.

And that is God’s point: idolatry is dumb because there is no power behind the idols. Those gods are man-made. Someone created those gods just as much as someone created the idols that represent them. They can do no harm, nor can they do any good. The gods are false; the idols are worthless; the idol makers are frauds; the idol worshippers are fools. Vs 10 “But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal king. When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath.” Vs 6 “No one is like you, Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power. 7 Who should not fear you, King of the nations? This is your due. Among all the wise leaders of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you.”

God’s people are about to leave everything behind and become refugees, carrying what’s left of their lives on their backs, carrying it all the way to Babylon, hundreds of kilometres away. And when they get there, this is the message they should remember: Among all the wise leaders of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is no-one like their God; there is no-one like Yahweh.

What can we learn from this today? Obviously the lesson is that we should rely on the Lord our God, and not on the power of idols. Our trust should be in God and nowhere else, in nothing else. But what does that look like? Do we need to be like Judah, and have our land, our riches, our freedom, our churches, and our godly leaders taken away from us? No! Why did God take everything away from them? Was it because there was something wrong with their land, their riches, their freedom, their temple? No. God gave them all these things! Their problem was that they put their faith in other gods to provide for them; or they put their faith in the things themselves to give them what they needed and wanted.

My phone has no battery, and so it has no power and doesn’t work. Should I just throw it away? Or should I put the battery back in? If I put the battery back in, if I connect it back to its power source, a miracle happens – the phone comes alive! It does everything a phone can do. There is nothing wrong with the phone, so long as I understand where its power comes from. In the same way, we will not make the mistake of idolatry if we recognize that the power of all things comes from the Lord our God.

Have you ever thought, “If only I had a little more money, then I would be able to truly be secure” or “If only I had this thing in my life, then I could be truly happy” or “If only I was put in charge of this, then everything would work out” and then actually gotten the money, or the thing, or the power, and then things didn’t work out? Have you ever seen that happen in life? I don’t know about you, but I have seen this happen in life more times than I can count! Rich people can become poor! Happy people can become sad! Powerful people can become weak! And why is that? Because we put our faith in the wrong things, in the things that have no power to give us what we need. Only God has the power to make us secure, to make things work out. Ecclesiastes 5:19 tells us, “when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil—this is a gift of God.” But then chapter 6 verse 2 says that sometimes, “God gives some people wealth, possessions and honor, so that they lack nothing their hearts desire, but God does not grant them the ability to enjoy them.” This story is repeated over and over in scripture. All things come from God; we should not trust false idols, we should not trust things themselves.

And the best way to remind ourselves of these lessons of the past is to give thanks to God for all the things that we have, but especially for the things that bring us power, things that bring us happiness, and things that bring us security. The things in our lives that are most likely to take us away from God are the things that we should thank him for. That way, we are constantly reminded that they come from him, and that the power they have to make us happy, to make us powerful, to make us secure, only comes from God and not from the things themselves.

So let me ask you: do you sometimes find that you put your faith in things to do what you need, instead of thanking God for what he has given you to help you? I know I do. Especially if I am feeling depressed and down, I think if I just watch some of my favourite TV shows and eat some chocolate, then I will feel better. And sometimes it works; but sometimes it doesn’t – and I should never forget that the power of these things to make me feel better comes entirely from God. Do I need to give up chocolate and TV? Not at all, provided that I thank God for them and recognize that it is because of God that I can use these things to feel better. I want to challenge you today to think about that yourself. What do you rely on, what do you fall back on, what do you put your hope in? Do you thank God for those things, or do you rely on them to do the job themselves? Next time you are in that situation, whether it’s as serious as medical attention or as simple as something that puts a smile on your face, say a prayer of thanks to God for giving you something that helps you.

But God does not send Judah into exile just to help them fix their idolatry problem. He also gives them a job to do. What is that job? Look at verse 11. “Tell them this: ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’” This verse, Jeremiah 10:11, is the only verse in the whole book of Jeremiah that is written in Aramaic instead of in the Hebrew language. Look in your Bible at the little footnote for verse 11 and you’ll see it’s true. In the whole book of Jeremiah there is one verse that is written in Aramaic. What does that mean?

Well, if I were to say this: “Elogu hîa ǀhommi tsî ǃhūbaib tsîkha dī tamagu, ǁîgu ge nîra kā ǃhūbaiba xu tsî nē ǀhommi ǃnagaba xu” – who is this message for? If I were to say “Die gode wat nie die hemel en die aarde gemaak het nie, sal van die aarde af verdwyn onder die hemel uit” – who is that message meant for? This one verse is the only verse in the whole of Jeremiah - and one of the few verses in the whole Old Testament – that is written in Aramaic. Aramaic was the language of Assyria; it was the language people spoke in the Babylonian empire. Who is this message for? This message is written for God’s people to remember, to carry with them, and to share with the people they meet while they are in exile! This verse is the first ever gospel tract!

God doesn’t just send his people into exile to punish them for their idolatry. He sends them as a broken people with a message against idolatry to the nations. He sends people who have a known idolatry problem to go and preach to the nations that idolatry is wrong. And it’s a hard message, an offensive message! ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’ Your idols are worthless, and our mighty God will wipe them all out, so ditch them now and put your faith in our God. That’s what that message means.

Maybe you already feel defeated. Maybe your church already feels like it is in exile, because we are surrounded by enemies that shout down our voice, that speak against the gospel, that have money and influence and powerful people, that seem to be taking the world’s attention and even infecting the lives of our own church members. How can we beat the message of materialism that tells people only to trust in what they can see and touch? How can we speak against scientists that tell people there is no God, only atoms and matter? How do we answer atheists, who are saying that humans have no value beyond what we give ourselves? How do we fight against corporations who are spending millions of dollars telling people they will be happy if only they have a Fortuner, or DSTV, or a swimming pool? How can we correct the false teachers who steal our people’s money with their prosperity doctrines and wow them with fake resurrections?

Maybe we need to ask this question first: do we as God’s people deserve to go into exile? Are we idolators, like our forefathers in Judah? At first it may sound crazy: surely none of us have statues of false gods in our churches, or in our homes. None of us are giving the worship that our God deserves to other things. Or are we? Remember, Judah did not just prostitute itself with foreign gods. They trusted their armies, they trusted their diplomatic relations, they trusted their wealth and their prosperity, to protect them and keep them happy. They even trusted in God’s temple and God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to keep them safe and happy. Do you remember Jeremiah chapter 7? “4 Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” 5 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. 8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.”

What do our churches look to to make them happy and feel protected? Do we think so long as we are tithing enough money to pay a pastor, we are happy? So long as we follow our denomination’s constitution and regulations, we will be safe? So long as churches are given favourable treatment by the government, we will be happy? So long as Namibia remains a Christian country, we will be safe? So long as we have a church building we will be happy? So long as we keep having communion and baptisms, we will be safe? So long as people are prophesying and driving out demons and performing miracles in our church, we will be happy?

Do you remember the words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 7? “21 Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

God wants his people to do his will: he wants us to be missional people. He wants his church to be out there sharing his message with people who need to hear it. He knows that the church is made up of broken people, and that’s exactly how he likes it! Our weakness shows his strength. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1: “27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.”

Jeremiah 10:11 represents the other half of the gospel that we don’t often share with people. We are often out there telling people that Jesus loves them, that God wants a relationship with them, that they can be saved if they will accept Christ into their lives. But there’s a reason that the gospel is called an offensive message. “Tell them this: ‘These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.’” How offended would you be if someone came to your church and said that about Jesus Christ? How would you feel, bringing this message into the land of your captors, into the capital city of the empire that has defeated you? As 1 Peter says in 2:8, “to those who do not believe, ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,’8 and, ‘A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.’”

But this message is the truth, and it is vital that we preach it alongside the warm, loving message of grace and mercy. There is no “God so loved the world that he gave his only son” without “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” Those people who are believing the lies about money and materialism are going to be disappointed by those things. If they don’t hear the truth ,they will remain in a cycle of disappointment and despair. If we fail to preach that our God is the only true God, the only real power, then who will?  And yes, we are not perfect role models, and yes, we don’t always worship the Lord our God and serve him only. We are broken people that need to hear this message just as much as the rest of the world. But isn’t that all the more reason for us to be out there sharing it? Because even if no-one listens to our message, at least we might listen to ourselves.