Jeremiah (1-31) 17:24 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

Navigator

Jeremiah (1-31) 17:24

Comments

Then there is a great promise given. It will be futile giving this promise – they are not going to obey; they are not going to respond – but this is the mind and heart of God: that even at this eleventh hour there is an opportunity for the Chaldean invasion to be avoided. How God would have done that if they had obeyed, we are not told, but the word ‘if’ covers all that follows. Perhaps God would have destroyed the Chaldeans as he destroyed the army of Sennacherib. ‘And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me’ – ‘diligently’ translates a Hebrew word which means ‘forcefully’, ‘vehemently’, ‘with great intensity’. ‘Diligently’ is perhaps a little too calm. ‘If you ‘[forcefully, intensively, vehemently] hearken unto me.’ This happens in a heart when the Spirit of God moves. When you and I sin against the Lord, and our consciences are moved, and the Spirit convicts us, then with alacrity we want to put it right. There is a certain vehemence about it. We react like this: ‘What have I done? I must come into line and mend my ways; I must redouble my efforts.’ ‘If you [vehemently] hearken unto me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden through the gates of the city on the sabbath day, but to hallow [sanctify, set apart] the sabbath day, to do no work therein, then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David.’ In other words the throne of David at this present time would be perpetuated. There would be a succession of kings one after the other. As they live out their lives and die, they will be succeeded by good kings, and good princes, and you will have tremendous blessing and prosperity, indicated by the words ‘riding in chariots and on horses.’ There will be successful rule of the people, and everybody will be for it. ‘And this city shall remain forever’, and the ‘forever’ doesn't mean for ever and ever; it means long-term. The city will remain. So that is the promise, and Jeremiah has to preach that. However, there is more. ‘And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meat offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise unto the house of the LORD.’ There would be real heartfelt worship. But it doesn't do any good at all. They wouldn’t listen.‘But if ye will not hearken unto me, to hallow [sanctify] the sabbath day,’ and you won't keep the sabbath, but you trade and earn on that day; in other words, you mingle your worship with looking after your own commercial interests; you do both; you play the hypocrite and you cheat and treat it like any other day – ‘will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof.’ The gates? Why light a fire in the gates? Because it rather indicates the invasion will come. The Chaldeans will come, and the first thing they will take, of course, is the gates, as they pillage and devour and burn the city. ‘And it shall devour [consume] the palaces of Jerusalem,’ – the king's palace, the princes’ palaces, the house of God – ‘and it shall not be quenched.’ There will not be any rescue. The city and Judah will be destroyed and the people taken into captivity into the Chaldean Empire, and the long captivity will begin.Why does it all hinge on this appeal to obey the fourth commandment? Why was Jeremiah not inspired by God to stick to idolatry, which has been his preoccupation all the way up to chapter 17? Why switch to this one commandment? There is only one explanation. It is because this commandment is the thermometer of sincerity and true faith. The breach of this commandment tells us where people stand, and how they are going to respond to all the other commandments. This is the great indicator, the litmus test. That is why it is singled out, and the same is true even to this day.

Application

Now the sabbath is different today. The Lord Jesus Christ has in a sense fulfilled all the sabbath requirements. He became the Lord of the sabbath. It is now, in the New Testament, the Lord's Day, when so far as it is possible we set aside the day for him. In secular society that is not always possible. When, for example, the apostle Paul held a gathering on the Lord's Day, not everybody could attend. A very large proportion of the people who were brought to Christ were slaves, and they served in Roman and other households, and they observed the sabbath whenever they could. So there can be things which prevent us. In Nepal where Pastor Samuel Rai ministers and all the churches connected with him, they cannot have the Sabbath Day on Sunday. The day of rest for the country is officially Saturday, so they take what they can, and their Sabbath is on Saturday. That is the day they hallow, sanctify, and set aside as the Lord's Day. So far as it lies within us we keep the Lord's Day as a day for him.

The Lord’s Day is the great thermometer of your spiritual life. If you are indifferent to the Lord's Day, and you leave so many things to be done on the Lord's Day just out of personal convenience, and you shop on the Lord's Day, and you come only, let us say, to one service, and you do all kinds of jobs you didn't find room for in the week, because you took a bit too much leisure, let's say, well that is tragic. It is a sign of weakening faith. It's a sign that already we are on the move, backsliding, even apostatising perhaps, an act of hypocrisy. We do our utmost to observe the Lord's Day.

If you suddenly discover that you are about to run out of petrol on the Lord's Day, well you may have to fill up your car with petrol in order to get to church and do your visits or do whatever it is you do. But naturally you will regret that, and you will try not to let that not happen again. If you are compelled to work sometimes on the Lord's Day, even in commercial work, and if you didn't you would lose your job, so that you wouldn’t be able to care for your family properly, then you may have to – like the slaves of old time – accept that sometimes. But so far as it lies within us, if we have the opportunity, we aim to observe the Lord's Day. If you work in a care profession, then you won't be able to keep every Lord's Day, because you are caring for people in capacity. That is quite understandable: doing good works, or even the Lord's work as a preacher. So we are not so attaching to the Lord's Day a strange mystical sacredness, whereby it has got to be that particular day in every land and nation, because there is something special about keeping that day. If legislation in this country moved the general day off to Tuesday, we would probably go with that, and that would be our Lord's Day. It is the principle of giving the Lord one day in seven that counts. That is what goes right back to the beginning of time. It's a day of thanksgiving to God, a day of worship to God, a day to proclaim the Lord, a day for study and learning the things of God, and for sanctification. If necessary it’s a day for biblical reproof. It's a day for fellowship among the Lord's people, and a day when we particularly worship God together, because that is his desire. He wants us to worship him as a family together. It's a day for all those things, and it's a vital, vital day. But it is the thermometer faith and that's why the fourth commandment is singled out as the main thing here after the general tirades against idolatry.

Questions

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Jeremiah (1-31) 17:24 Commentary and Bible Study