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Dr. Manny Arango
Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast. Powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. Let's be honest, a lot of us are still treating digital ministry like it's a backup plan from 2020. But discipleship isn't just happening on Sundays anymore. People need gospel centered connection every day of the week. And if you're stuck juggling five different platforms, one for giving, another for sermons, something else for events, it's no wonder engagement feels off. That's not ministry. That's a mess. Subsplash changes that one platform. Everything you need, media, giving, events, messaging, your app, your website built specifically for churches. No hacks, no workarounds, just clarity and simplicity. Because every day you wait, families scroll past your sermons, new guests click away from clunky sites, and real people miss real moments with Jesus. Don't waste another summer stuck in digital survival mode. Use it to get ahead, simplify, upgrade, get back to what matters. Head to subsplash.combible-dept and schedule a free no pressure demo. And let this be the summer your church gets focused and fully equipped family. Welcome to day two 17. We're in Jeremiah chapters 15, 16, 17 and 18. Today. We got a lot to go through yesterday. I really gave you a lot of context clues. I also gave you a lot of nerdy nuggets. Today's gonna be less context clues and way more nerdy nuggets. You know, the days fluctuate. If you've done the reading for today, then good job. Everything that I'm going to say is going to make perfect sense. You're going to have context for all the context clues and the nerdy nuggets and the timeless truth. If you haven't done the reading for the day, how about you stop the video, pause the audio, take a couple of moments. It won't take long. All you got to do is read Jeremiah chapter 15, 16, 17 and 18 and then come on back and we're going to study what you read. So let's jump on In Jeremiah chapter 15, one of the first things that I want to point out, okay, we talked about this yesterday, but we really want to give context for the person of Jeremiah, okay? So let's jump into context clues. And in order to do that, we're going to actually need to get into the text A little bit. So I actually want to pull up logos on my iPad. There we go. Jeremiah, chapter 15. Okay, we're going to go to Jeremiah chapter 15. And let's go to verse 10. Says this. Alas, my mother that you gave me birth, a man with whom the whole land strives and contends. I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me. Okay, not only is Jeremiah just a rather emotional, like, prophet or person, and we're gonna get into that in a minute, but he curses the day that he's born. Okay, I'll ask my mother that you gave me birth, a man with whom the whole land strives and contends. So everybody, everybody in the land of Judah strives with me, Contends with me. I've neither lent nor borrowed. I'm not even a banker. I'm not. Not a loan officer. I'm not a banker. I've not lent anything. I haven't borrowed anything, yet everyone curses me to the person that everybody would dislike would be, you know, the loan officer, the banker. Right, the tax collector. And I've neither lent nor borrowed. I haven't done any of that. Yet everyone curses me. Okay, I just wanna put this in context for us. Before we move into nerdy nuggets, let's give some context. Outside of the person of Job, Jeremiah is the only character in the Bible who curses the day of his birth, who curses the fact that he was even born, who's upset that his mother's womb didn't become his grave. Okay, that is pretty depressing and drastic and extreme language. Here's what job, chapter 10 says. Okay, so Job is the only person other than Jeremiah who would even dare speak the depth of this kind of language. This is dark, all right? But it's right here on the page of the scripture. So here's what job 10, 18, 19 say, why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eyes saw me. Verse 19. If only I had never come into being or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave. So it would have been better off for me to not die. I mean, it would have been better off for me to not live. It would have been better off for me to die as an infant than to be experiencing what I'm experiencing right now. And then Job, chapter three, verse one to three, says this. After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. He said, may the day be of my birth perish in the night. That said, a boy is conceived. Okay, so Jeremiah is saying he's making a pretty heavy statement. Like, this isn't, like, a small deal, okay? Jeremiah's statement about not wishing that he was alive, like, that's a big deal. So I just want to, like, put that into context for us. The fact that this man is kind of like, I just wish I had never been born means that his life is just. His life is just hard. Okay? So now let's get into just some nerdy nuggets. Well, maybe I'll give you a little bit more context. Jeremiah is called the Weeping Prophet. And you can write these eight verses down. Not only is this kind of extreme, but. But it is, like, warranted. I mean, Jeremiah's life is really difficult. And I want you to be able to appreciate, like, just how difficult this man's life is. That's why I wanted to put his words in the context of the book of Job for us. Secondly, Jeremiah's also an emotional communicator and he's known as the weeping prophet. And I think the more we know about Jeremiah, the more we're able to interpret his words. And let me just say this. Him being emotional or him being someone who cries a lot, weeps a lot, didn't disqualify him from a call of God on his life. So. So maybe you're someone who is a sensitive person or an emotional person. That doesn't mean that you lack emotional maturity. That just means that you have your, you know, expressive in terms of your emotions. And you still need to surrender your emotions to the lordship of Jesus. But it doesn't mean that you can't be used greatly by God. So I wanna give you these eight verses just that we could better understand Jeremiah. Jeremiah 4, 1921 says this. Oh, my anguish, my anguish. I write in pain. Oh, the agony of my heart. My heart pounds within me. I cannot keep silent, for I've heard the sound of the trumpet. I have heard the battle cry. Okay, so, anguish. I writhe in pain in the agony of my heart. Like, you hear, like, just Jeremiah's just, like, emotions. Okay, next one. Jeremiah, chapter 8, verse 18 says this. You who are my comforter in sorrow. My heart is faint within me, since my people are crushed. I'm crushed. I mourn, and horror grips me. Jeremiah 9:1. O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears. I would weep day and night for the slain of my people. Jeremiah 13:17. If you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride. My eyes will weep bitterly, overflowing tears with. Because the Lord's flock will be taken captives. Jeremiah 14:17. Speak this word to them. Let my eyes overflow with tears day and night without ceasing for the virgin daughter. My people has suffered a grievous wound, a crushing blow. Number six, that I'm about to give you. Jeremiah 15:10. Alas, my mother, that you gave me birth, a man with whom the whole land strives and contends. I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me. That's kind of the verse that got us on this whole kick in the first place. And then number seven. Jeremiah 20:14, 18. Cursed be the day I was born. May the day my mother bore me not be blessed. This is again, Jeremiah expressing the fact that he wished he wasn't even Alive. And Jeremiah 31:15. This is what the Lord says. A voice is heard in Ramah mourning and great weeping. Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they are no more. So when people refer to Jeremiah as the weeping prophet, now you've got eight verses that help you understand exactly why he's considered the weeping prophet. He's a very, very emotive prophet. He's a very, very emotional prophet, and his life is just simply very, very, very difficult. And so, with all that context, now let's get into our nerdy nuggets for the day. Okay, first thing, let's get Into Jeremiah, chapter 16. As if it's not bad enough that Jeremiah is persecuted, that Jeremiah is put in prison, that his feet are fitted in the stocks, that he's gonna be whipped, that all types of stuff's gonna happen to Jeremiah. He's gonna get kidnapped. Nobody likes him, everybody makes fun of him, everybody ridicules Jeremiah, and the persecution is just going to get worse and worse as the book keeps going. If that's not bad enough, my man's not even, like, allowed to have children. God does not allow Jeremiah to have kids. It says this Jeremiah, chapter 16. Then the word of the Lord came to me. You must not marry, so you can't get married. At least Isaiah is able to get married, have children, okay? You must not marry and have sons and daughters in this place. For this is what the Lord says about the sons and daughters born in this land and about the women who are their mothers and the men who are their fathers. They will die of deadly diseases. Yo, hey, man, you can't get married. Why? Because. Because everybody's going to die. That's why. Jeremiah. So you're not. You're not going to get married. It's like you can't save me and my wife. Like, so now I just got to be lonely. And I got no kids like this. Just, they will not be mourned or buried, but will be like dung lying on the ground. They will perish by sword and famine, and their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals. So it's funny because Jeremiah is clearly the sensitive guy, but God has the harshest things to say through him. So I could bet, like, there's just this conflict within Jeremiah's own experience of, like, oh, man. Like, I'm like, it's clear that Jeremiah is a crier. It's clear that he's just, like, emotional and emotive and expressive. And the stuff that he has to say, the stuff that Yahweh has him say is just, like, very, very harsh. All right, let's dive into just Jeremiah 16 and kind of what it means that Jeremiah is not going to have a wife or any children. He's commanded not to take a wife, which would be something unheard of for a priest. Okay, let's remember Jeremiah's a priest. That may be something that you've forgotten already. I know we said it days ago when we first started reading the book. Jeremiah's a priest. Him not having a wife or children would be absolutely ridiculous and unheard of, definitely countercultural. And so he would have no children. This would be one of the worst things imaginable for a Jewish person. Now, I know for us living in the Western world, maybe not having a wife or kids, not having children, not having sons or daughters, not that big of a deal. But we live in an individualistic society, in a communal society. Not having a wife, not having children is one of the worst things that could happen because it means that your name is just not gonna last. Okay? You have no permanence. It says this, my notes. It says this. This would be one of the worst imaginable things for the Jewish people. Children was how your name continued in Israel, to have no children is to be cut off and have no future in Israel. Yahweh also forbade Jeremiah from attending funerals, feasts, or weddings. Okay, if you keep reading, in Jeremiah, chapter 16, he can't go to any feast. He can't go to any festivals. He can't go to any weddings, no funerals. Funerals, feasts or weddings. Jeremiah would stick out even more like a sore thumb than before. He's already going to stick out like a sore thumb not having a wife or not having children as a priest. But now even more, they can't go to funerals, he can't go to weddings, he can't go to feasts. His life would be a message to the entire people of Judah. He had no children. In the same way, Judah would have no children, he would not celebrate. In the same way, they would lose all their joy in the celebration of life. Jeremiah would not grieve. They would have no time to grieve by burying their dead and lamenting. When Babylon came and took them into captivity, there was no pity, no sympathy, no joy. Yahweh's face was set. So not only does Jeremiah reflect the reality of what the people are going to have to live through, but Jeremiah is also reflecting Yahweh's stance that Yahweh is not going to give any pity, any sympathy, and that Yahweh's not going to have any joy. Yahweh has joy when our lives are full of joy, but Yahweh's not going to have any joy. Yahweh mourns. He grieves when our lives are mourning and grieving. But punishment is set, and God is going to have no pity, no sympathy. So Jeremiah 16 is not just about Jeremiah not being unable to go to funerals, go to weddings, go to feasts, get a wife, have children. It's actually a prophetic picture. Same way that he had to wear his underwear all the way to the Euphrates and come back and then go back and then find them. Well, this is also not just an illustrated sermon, but an illustrated life, that his life is the message. And you're going to see this with tons of the prophets. Okay. Hosea, same thing. Isaiah, Same thing. Okay. What he has to name his children are all reflective of the message that God has him to preach. Ezekiel, same thing. Okay, so it's not just their words are the message, but their life is the message. Okay, that should really help us with Jeremiah 16 then. Okay, so Jeremiah 15 starts with Jeremiah's complaint, man, I wish I was never born. Like, my life's just hard. Okay. We then get to Jeremiah 16, okay? And he's got his life, which is going to be a message. And then this kind of resolves itself in Jeremiah chapter 17. Okay? When we get to Jeremiah chapter 17. So Jeremiah 15, I wish I was never born. Jeremiah 16, we literally get to see why he feels that way. I can't have a wife. I can't have kids, can't go to funerals, can't go to weddings, can't go to feasts. And then now things Kind of start to find a resolve in Jeremiah chapter 17. So I kind of just want to, I want you to see the flow of the text. Jeremiah chapter 17, verse 16 says, this, this is Jeremiah talking to the Lord. I have not run away from being your shepherd, you know. I have not desired the day of despair. What passes my lips is open before you. Do not be a terror to me. You are my refuge in the day of disaster. Let my persecutors be put to shame, but keep me from shame. Let them be terrified, but keep me from terror. Bring on them the day of disaster. Destroy them with double destruction. So I know sometimes wishing that other people would, would that calamity would come on them or disaster would come on them, that's very not Christian, I would say. But I think for people who have been persecuted, I, I almost want to say, like, they get a pass. I, I, I think that for a lot of us, we don't ex, we don't know what persecution is. Jeremiah is death threats, death plots, assassination, assassination attempts, loneliness, can't get married, no children. Like, and he says, like, he renews his faithfulness to the Lord. He says, I've not run away from being your shepherd, you know that. I have not desired the day of despair. What passes my lips is open before you. Do not be a terror to me. You are my refuge in the day of disaster. I think that what I can hear in Jeremiah's words are, I have nobody else. You're my refuge. You're my refuge. And so, yeah, there's a part of me that may want to forsake you so that I could actually get some comfort in this life, but the reality is that you're all I have at this point. Last kind of nerdy nugget is actually from chapter 15. God's actually gonna give a reason. I'm gonna tell you exactly why I'm gonna punish the people of Judah, okay? I don't want there to be any confusion as to why you guys are going off into exile. So. Chapter 15, verse 3. I will send four kinds of destroyers against them. Declares the Lord. The sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, then the birds and the wild animals to devour and destroy. I will make them abhorrent to the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem. Because of Manasseh, okay? This is a man who sacrificed his children, okay? This is a man who burned his children alive. This is a man who was absolutely evil and wicked. And so God is Definitely saying, and then if you drop down in chapter 15 to verse 8, I will make their widows more numerous than the sand of the sea. I just want to remind you, what is God's promise to Abraham. I'm going to make your descendants more numeral, more numerous than the sand of the sea. And so now the people have, have not repented in their idolatry. God's going to turn blessings into curses. So the blessing of Deuteronomy was that as long as you worship me and follow me and love me and you pledge your allegiance to me, not just in your verbal pledge, but in your life, then I'll bless you with rain and crops and fertility and life. I will not interfere. I set up life to flourish for you. And that's exactly what it'll do. But what'll happen if you disobey? You'll get drought. You'll get the exact opposite. So I'm taking the blessing that's meant for you and I'm turning it on its head, saying is here, I will make their widows more numerous than the sand of the sea. Not the people, their widows. Which means their sons are gonna die and their husbands are going to die. This is just sad. This is so sad. I don't think there's a way to read this without feeling the gravity of like, of the situation, that in a couple of short years the, the army of Nebuchadnezzar is going to march in and totally, absolutely destroy everything and everybody. Okay, last little bit in chapter 15 says this. Chapter 15, verse 1. Then the Lord said to me, even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence. Let them go. And if they ask you, where shall we go? Tell them this is what the Lord says. Those destined for death, to death. Those for the sword, to the sword, Those for starvation, to starvation, those for captivity, to captivity. This is just so sad. Like God is saying, even if Moses, Samuel were to stand before me, I'm not relenting. The window of opportunity for me to change my mind has closed. That window will not reopen. Nebuchadnezzar is going to come to Jerusalem and he's going to kill all of you and he's going to take the rest of you into captivity. You're going to go to Babylon, you're going to die. Your women are going to get turned into widows. Nebuchadnezzar's army is going to come in and defile the women and rape them and there's going to be starvation. There's going to be cannibalism, because people are going to be so hungry, they're going to want to eat each other. Not one stone of this temple is gonna be standing on another. I'm gonna totally trample Jerusalem. I'm gonna pour out my wrath on the people because they've disobeyed me. Okay? That is the message that Jeremiah has to preach over and over and over and over and over. And he's finding new ways to deliver the message and new illustrations. But at the end of the day, that's the message. There is no repenting. There is no opportunity to change. There is. It does not matter what you do. The Babylonians are coming, and they are going to utterly destroy you. And so I want to highlight just this last nerdy nugget. Even if Moses or Samuel were to stand before me, nothing would change. So let's why these two men? Number one, Moses and Samuel, both known as great intercessors. So intercessors are people who stand before God. Remember, every time Israel sinned against God, Moses would like, say, no, don't destroy the people. Okay? That's what it means to be a righteous intercessor. You're praying that God would. You're praying on behalf of the people that God would relent. And this is someone that God listens to. Moreover, Moses and Samuel both stand outside of the system, almost as exceptions to the system. Why? Well, because they have to set up the system. So Moses is responsible for building the tabernacle, setting up the priesthood, like, getting the sacrifices started, which means he's not necessarily in the system. He kind of stands above the system, outside of the system. Same with Samuel. Okay? Samuel has to get the system kind of going because it had been dilapidated, like, the people had abandoned the system. So Samuel and Moses kind of stand outside of the system, almost as exceptions to the rule. I go into more detail on that, but I think you get the gist of what I mean. By the time we get to Samuel, like, the Philistines have taken the Ark of the Covenant, the tabernacle is all but lost. I mean, so he has to travel around and help people to do sacrifices all over the land of Israel, and then he has to anoint a new king. So he's setting up a system. So because Moses, Samuel are the two people that are, like, setting up some systems, they kind of get to operate in this gray area of not necessarily being held to the same standards, because they can't. Because the system's not in place. I hope you get what that means. Right. So God is saying to Jeremiah, nope, I will not have any kind of exceptional grace for these people. Nope, they're going to get law. There's, there's, there. They. Even if the exceptions to the rule were to show up, which is Moses, Samuel, I will not operate in the exception. I'm going to operate by the rule. And that rule is that I've given these people years and years and years, centuries, decades to get it together. They haven't gotten it together, so they are going into captivity. 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 comparison 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 going to 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. What is our timeless truth for the day? Jeremiah, chapter 17, verse 9 and 10 says this. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mind to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds desire. So this is actually part of God's response to Jeremiah. When Jeremiah is wishing that he had never been born, wishing that his message was not his message. When Jeremiah is despairing of life itself, God says, the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Part of the big theme of the prophets, especially Jeremiah and Ezekiel, is that the heart is wicked, the heart is deceitful. That's kind of Jeremiah's side of the coin. Here's going to be Ezekiel's side of the coin. Therefore, I have to put a heart of flesh within these people. I have to give them a new heart. So I think a timeless truth here is that the heart is deceitful. Not just wicked, but like deceitful, like our emotions will trick us. Like your heart is deceitful, Jeremiah, I know you feel like you wish you had never been born. But don't follow your heart, man. Your heart's deceitful. Don't always listen to your emotions. Your heart's deceitful, okay? I called you. I've anointed you. You're a prophet. You gotta run your race. You're not able to see the full breadth of history the same way I'm able to see it. Jeremiah, you're just but a blip on the radar. But when you look at all of eternity, man, you don't have my perspective. So don't let your heart deceive you. Deception is worse than a lie. Okay? Deception means that there's some truth mixed in with a lie. To deceive, to deceive. Right? There's this guy who. Who got banned from the Oracle arena because he pretended to be Klay Thompson. This is years ago. And in the interview, he said, I didn't lie. I never said I was Klay Thompson. And it's like, yeah, buddy, you didn't lie. You're right. You did something worse than lying. You deceived. So deception is even worse than lying. It's why Satan is a deceiver, not a liar. And so a timeless truth is that God knows the human heart, and the human heart deceives. It deceives. It's one thing to be deceived from the outside in. It's a whole nother thing to be deceived from the inside out. So my challenge to us today is the reason that we need to, like, read the Word, the reason that we need the Holy Spirit, the reason that we need to be a. A clay pot in the hand of a potter, is because we need the Lord to actually mold our hearts into hearts that don't deceive us into people who are loyal to Yahweh, into people who are not double minded in all their ways, therefore unstable in life, but people whose hearts are set on the things of God, who love the Lord, their God with all their hearts, with all their minds, with all their strength, and with all their soul. All right, Thomas. Truth for the day that the heart is deceitful. That's not just true in Jeremiah's day. That's not just true in this context. That's true. Period. And that's true for me. My heart's deceitful. My heart is deceitful. And I think that we have to start keeping track of what are the ways in which my heart's trying to deceive me. Is my heart trying to get me to be bitter or resentful or unforgiving or offended man. I don't want my heart to deceive me because my heart will deceive me and quickly make me not trust people around me, not trust God. My heart will make me bitter and angry or calloused. But I've got to keep a soft heart. I've got to trust people, got to believe the best. I gotta assume the best. I have to trust the Lord. I've gotta operate in faith. And my heart doesn't want to do that. And my heart is something that can't just be set on cruise control. My heart has to be something that's constantly being molded by the potter, constantly in the hands of God, constantly being molded and shaped, continually being softened so that it can be the thing that I need it to be, which is a wellspring of life. So that's our Thomas Ruth for the day. Tomorrow is day two. 18. We got Jeremiah chapters 19, 20, and 21 tomorrow. It's gonna be really, really good. And I can't wait to hang out with you. If you're on a streak, I'm proud of you. Even if you're not on a streak, I'm still proud of you, too. Meet me right here tomorrow as we continue our trek through the book of Jeremiah. Love you. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at the Bible and on Instagram at the Bible Department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.