Bad Situation in Israel Then - Jeremiah 9

Jeremiah 9:14 "But have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them:" See also Gal. 1:14

Israel is at a point, at this time in history, when a generation has grown up away from God and have taught their children evil ways. This chapter tries to explain the difference in the ways of evil and the way it ought to be but the prophet is in distress.

v1 "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain; of the daughter of my people! v2 Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men."

Did you ever want to just run away? I have. There have been many times that I would like to have gone to a mountain cabin someplace and lived out my life. I don't know that one could escape the evil in the world even there.

Here the prophet is telling them that they should not trust anyone:

v4 "Take ye heed every one of his neighbor, and trust ye not in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will walk with slanders."

Even now, in our country, it is getting so things are nothing like it use to be. It use to be that a neighbor felt an obligation to his neighbor. It was a given that property lines were respected and that help was always available in hard times. Now we hardly know our neighbor is in trouble.

v5 "They will deceive every one his neighbor, and will not speak the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity."

It is a time for mourning. He tells them to go get professional women to mourn for things are going to get really bad. It is time to cry.

v11 "And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant."

Gold is refined in the fire. There is no other way to get the impurities out. So, it has become in Israel. It will take much trouble to turn them in this time. After telling the things that are going on the scripture asks this question:

v9 "Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?"

Society has basically broken down. No one can trust anyone. They have forsaken the LORD and gone to idols.

Here is what you should do:

v24 "But let him that glories, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth; for in these things I delight, saith the LORD."

Loving-kindness is what the LORD would like to shed on Israel and all his people but when that fails there must be some action to turn His people back to him.
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