Sermon Tone Analysis

Before you begin your Bible study, as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, be sure you have named your sins privately to God the Father.

/If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

[Known, Unknown and Forgotten sins] /(1Jn 1:9)

 

You will then be in fellowship with God, Filled with God the Holy Spirit and ready to learn Truth from the Word of God.

 

/God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and Truth./

(John 4:24)

 

 

 

 

NATIONAL CRISIS

      

     The book of Jeremiah is one of the timeliest books in the Bible as far as our national entity is concerned.

Conditions existing in Jeremiah’s day parallel the conditions which exist in our own country today!

Spiritual desertion, national degeneration, a departure from Divine laws and institutions and the resultant self-destruction characterize both periods of time; then and NOW!

The book of Jeremiah brings out almost every Principle which leads to national degeneracy and national destruction.

The failure of the Jews, from the standpoint of their Spiritual, economic, military and social life, will make up the background for our study.

We shall see the Principles of freedom by which a national entity functions to the glory of God; also we shall see Concepts of personal freedom, Divine institutions, the importance of maintaining freedom through the military, and the Principles of scar tissue and the emotional revolt of the soul.

We begin at, (Jer 12:10) where we see that basically *no nation can survive without a remnant of those who have a Spiritual life.*

/     Many shepherds [Pastors] have ruined My vineyard, They have trampled down My field; They have made My pleasant field A desolate wilderness.

It has been made a desolation, Desolate, it mourns before Me; The whole land has been made desolate, Because no man lays it to heart.

[No Truth inside the soul] On all the bare heights in the wilderness Destroyers have come, For a sword of the LORD is devouring From one end of the land even to the other; [National and personal Divine discipline] There is no peace for anyone.

They have sown wheat [Truth] and have reaped thorns, /(Matt 13:22) /They have strained themselves to no profit.

[Religious ritual] But be ashamed of your harvest [Divine discipline] Because of the fierce anger of the LORD./

(Jer 12:10-13)

/ / 

CARNAL PASTORS

 

     The phrase, /“Many shepherds have ruined My vineyard,”/ describes one group of major contributors to the destruction of any nation.

This was even understood by Joseph Stalin when, in 1931, he declared that the United States could be conquered without firing a shot.

In the development of his concept, (A six-point plan) the first paragraph dealt with the neutralization of Truth in any form and the removal of those who declare Truth.

One of the greatest thrusts in the Communist conspiracy (Satan's) is to influence the clergy.

It has always been true that when those who are responsible for the declaration of Spiritual Truth are neutralized, Spiritual desertion moves into a nation.

The National Council of Prophets and Priests.

/“Many shepherds ”/ refers to the /“clergy”/ in the Southern Kingdom; Judah, which was composed of two organizations, the prophets and the Levitical priesthood.

The prophets generally declared the unwritten Word and became writers of Scripture, whereas the priests were responsible for the exegesis (Teaching) of the written Word.

(Neh 8:8-9) However, in this particular case, we find the /“national council of prophets and priests”/ in the opposite position of destroying the vineyard!

(Jer 6:13-14) They were false teachers and religious types, who were not only opposed to Jeremiah, but to anything which would bring about national prosperity and blessing.

It was this /“national council of prophets and priests”/ who were the plotters and the leaders of a national conspiracy, which had reached its peak under King Zedekiah.

As political leaders of the “Egyptian Party,” they were planning to advocate an alliance with Egypt.

In so doing, they were diametrically opposed to Truth, for the Scripture says,/ “Woe to them who go down to Egypt for help.”

/(Isa 31:1) They were depending upon man; yet the Bible declares, /“Cursed is the man that trusts in man.”/

(Jer 17:5)

     Jeremiah, leader of the “Chaldean Party,” reminded King Zedekiah that he had sworn an oath of allegiance to Chaldea and urged him to keep that oath.

Zedekiah, a very weak man as well as an opportunist, instead broke with Chaldea and started a revolt which led to the ultimate destruction of the nation.

This revolt brought about the Chaldean invasion and an eighteen-month siege.

The Destruction of the Vineyard.

/“Have ruined”/ (Jer 12:10) is intensified in the Hebrew and indicates that the clergy had already completed their work of destruction.

By now it was merely a matter of how the mechanics would be carried out.

The Hebrew word here means /“to overthrow or to corrupt.”/

It doesn’t mean that the prophets and priests had actually done the destroying, but that they had corrupted the nation to such an extent that destruction was inevitable.

The destruction would occur when the Chaldeans entered Jerusalem.

/     “Many shepherds have ruined my vineyard.”/

The references to the /“vine” /or the /“vineyard”/ in the Old Testament apply either to nationalism as a Principle or to the national entity of the Jews specifically.

(Isa 5:1-30) and (Jer 2:21) tell us that the vineyard in this case is the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

The product of the vineyard is the grape, which, although it is used in many ways, always depicts righteousness and joy: Spiritual maturity.

(John 15:5) As a result, the Jews, like all national entities under God’s plan, were designed to have great happiness and blessing — a condition which can exist only where Divine laws are followed!

/“They have trampled down My field”/ means that the /“national council of prophets and priests”/ had contributed immeasurably to the destruction of the people.

/“My field”/ is a phrase which means /“that which belongs to the Lord,”/ and indicates that Judah is the Lord’s designed nation.

He wants them to be blessed, but they have refused the means by which they could be blessed.

(Spiritual growth)

     Now, how did the clergy destroy that which belonged to the Lord?

Jeremiah 23, a passage which deals entirely with these pastors, describes exactly how the overthrow was accomplished.

The Hebrew word for /“shepherds”/ in (Jer 12:10) is the same word which begins: (Jer 23:1) /“Woe be unto the shepherds that destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture says the Lord.”/

/“The sheep of My pasture” /refers again to the Southern Kingdom of Judah; and those who destroyed it, as we have seen, are the false Bible teachers of that day!

 

/     Therefore, thus says the LORD God of Israel concerning the shepherds who are tending My people: [You see, they are feeding incomplete and or false Truth] You have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not attended to them: [i.e., have not GIVEN them Spiritual Thinking] behold, I am about to attend to you for the evil of your deeds, declares the LORD.

/(Jer 23:2)

 

     When, in the name of the Lord, false doctrine is proclaimed on a national scale, the result is inevitably national disintegration!

Now in verse 9, Jeremiah is speaking.

Jeremiah has a heart or right lobe full of Spiritual Thinking: God's Thinking!

(1Co 2:16)

 

/     As for the prophets: My heart is broken within me, All my bones tremble; I have become like a drunken man, Even like a man overcome with wine, Because of the LORD And because of His Holy Words.

/(Jer 23:9)

 

     The activities of the prophets (Pastors) grieved Jeremiah when he viewed them in the light of God’s plan!/ “His Holy Words” /refers to Jeremiah's capacity for appreciation of God and His Words!/ /(Thoughts; Prov 4:20-21) And the overwhelming joy of friendship and fellowship with God as a Spiritually mature believer!

(Jer 15:16)

 

/     For the land is full of adulterers; [Pornography; physical and Spiritual degeneracy and unfaithfulness] For the land mourns because of the curse.

[Divine discipline] The pastures of the wilderness have dried up.

[Economic depression and Spiritual food on the decline] Their course also is evil [Their thinking is also Satan's] And their might is not right.

[Living by the power of the old sin nature] For both prophet and priest are polluted; Even in *My house* I have found their wickedness, [*Religion*] declares the LORD.

/(Jer 23:10-11)

 

     This is true also of the United States of America today!

Over a period of years, the military has gone down, and with it our very hope for national survival and individual human freedom.

Where does this degrading and de-emphasis of the military originate?

(Satan) Who is opposed to the military today?

The National Council of Churches!

Who is opposed to the draft today?

The National Council of Churches!

What organization has provided money for men to dodge the draft and go to Canada?

The National Council of Churches!

Who is for Red China?

The National Council of Churches!

Who is for socialism?

The National Council of Churches!

http:~/~/www.ncccusa.org~/

So we are not surprised to see a parallel between the days of Jeremiah and our day.

/     For both prophet and priest are polluted; Even in *My house* I have found their wickedness, [*Religion*] declares the LORD.

Therefore their way will be like slippery paths to them, They will be driven away into the gloom and fall down in it; For I will bring calamity upon them, The year of their punishment, declares the LORD.

/(Jer 23:11-12)

 

     The year of their visitation was 586 B.C. when the Chaldeans conquered and destroyed Jerusalem and enslaved the people who survived.

/     And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria [The Northern Kingdom] I saw an offensive thing: They prophesied by Baal and led My people Israel astray.

/(Jer 23:13)

 

/     /In other words, since this very same pattern had occurred before in the Northern Kingdom, Judah should have learned something from history.

The Northern Kingdom had harbored false prophets, and it went down, destroyed under the fifth cycle of discipline in 721 B.C. Now the same thing would happen in the Southern Kingdom.

 

/     Also among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: The committing of adultery and walking in falsehood; [Carnality and religion] And they strengthen the hands of evildoers, So that no one has turned back from his wickedness.

[Satanic and human thinking] /(Isa 55:7-8) /All of them have become to Me like Sodom, And her inhabitants like Gomorrah.//

[Legitimized homosexuality]/ (Jer 23:14)

 

     This amplifies the previous verse in which the prophets prophesied by Baal, (Demonism) and refers to the phallic cult, (Pornography of Every kind) which is a double entendre including both idolatry and adultery.