Jeremiah (1-31) 23:9 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Jeremiah (1-31) 23:9

Comments

You have here the great condemnation of the pastors, the prevailing teachers. This is cast in in Hebrew poetry: from verse 9, mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets, all my bones shake. ‘Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine hath overcome, because of the LORD, and because of the words of his holiness.¹⁰ For the land is full of adulterers.’ These men, the teachers of Israel, had committed a whole number of errors and omissions. It is a matter or great sorrow and pain to Jeremiah that the false prophets have had such a corrupting influence on the land. This had happened in two ways. They have failed reprove sin among the people. They were prepared to live with it. They didn't expose sin and error. But they too had contributed to the evil and their example had affected others. Neither were they holy themselves. ‘For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the LORD.’ They join in with these things themselves, and they do not just tolerate this behaviour in society in general and say nothing, they even bring it into the place of worship. God’s people must be separate from the world in the entirety of their lives, but the place where God is worshipped is the centre of religion, and must above all be kept pure. But the false prophets and the priests had polluted this also.God will therefore send them a suitable judgment. It will be something that they are not able to avoid. They will be caught on a slippery slope and when they see where it is leading and try to hold back, they will find that they cannot. God will visit them with judgment and they are powerless to resist it.

Application

We are talking about people who had no basic relationship with God. Very likely most of these pastors and prophets were nominal believers – the prophets and priests of ancient Israel. Yet it is a terrible thought that this can be applied to born again evangelical pastors in our own time. Look at the mess we are in, when the devil in about the mid-1950s could look down on British and American evangelicalism, and coolly and calmly say, ‘I am going to import the world into the churches. I am going to sow all the things which belongs to the world and worldliness, to ostentation and fashion, to modern idiom music, among them. I am going to bring it right into the churches and pollute them and smear them with it. And many pastors have just let it happen. The pastors have brought the contemporary music bands into the churches; they share their platforms with them. They approve of it. Isn't that diabolical? The words which were addressed to the unconverted priests of ancient Israel could be addressed by God to pastors, evangelical pastors, born again pastors in almost every city of this country today. ‘For the land is full of adulterers, for because of swearing the land mourn it’, this is a diatribe against the pastors who have let it happen. They are not saying anything. They are not offended by it. They have given way to it. That is the condemnation.

God’s judgment may come in the form of an influence which they have set in motion and are unable to stop. The pastors give the green light to modern trends, and this attracts more carnal people into the churches. There is now a groundswell of appreciation of these things, and any attempt to resist it is met with calls for more of the same and threats to oust anyone who stands in the way.

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Jeremiah (1-31) 23:9 Commentary and Bible Study