MORE THAN WORDS ~ Truth or Babble? ~ A Study in Jeremiah

 

Words are important. Our words manifest what is in our hearts. Christian: How do you use your words? Are we using words to build up people or to tear them down? Words are so important that we are told in Matthew 12 we will give an account of what we say when we stand before the Lord. The most important thing we can do with our words is glorify God. Have you ever thought about the purpose of words? Words are for communication from where we get words like commune or communion. A definition of communion is the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level. In the Bible it is the same word for fellowship which has an idea of intimacy or intercourse.

Why had God chosen Israel? He chose the people of Israel to represent Him on earth. They were to tell the world the truth about God so that they might understand how important it is to follow Him. Why has He chosen you? God, like any good and loving Father, expected His children to obey Him and live holy lives, set apart in service to Him. Like all children, Israel did not always obey. God was patient with them as He lovingly corrected them through His discipline. He sent prophets to turn the people back from their sins, but they often refused to listen. As time went on, she became blatantly rebellious throwing off the yoke of His love to pursue other lovers rather than exclusively pursuing the Lover of her soul. By giving power to ancient enemy nations to defeat and enslave His children, He used them to punish His people. We know that He, in fact, used the powerful warlike Assyrians (present day Iran, Iraq, and southern Turkey) and the Babylonians to do just that on different occasions.

Isaiah, as another of God’s prophets to Judah, warned of the Assyrians coming in judgment much earlier in Judah’s history. His ministry began approximately 200 years before that of Jeremiah’s ministry. In Isaiah 28 we see a similar sort of conversation going on between God, His prophet, and His people. In verse 1 we see a woe pronounced upon the proud crown of the “drunkards of Ephraim”. Judgment had come to Ephraim, the northern kingdom of Israel. Judah was to take note of this judgment that resulted from making foreign alliances. God said Israel had been characterized by licentious living before she fell (those who are “overcome with wine”). Ephraim was as a drunkard (verses 1 and 3) and was ripe for judgment like the first-ripe fig prior to summer. Assyria is coming to devour the northern kingdom of Israel. But Judah was no better. The judgments that were given to Israel were given to Judah as a warning to her.

Right in the middle of Isaiah 28:11, God turns this proud crown of Ephraim on its head in verse 5. In that day the Lord of hosts will become a beautiful crown and a glorious diadem to the remnant of His people; a spirit of justice for him who sits in judgment, a strength to those who repel the onslaught at the gate. God always has a small, faithful remnant of people who are waiting for the Lord to execute justice. Why? Because the Lord reveals His glory in judgment. Believers are grieved by sin, not only in themselves, but in the world around them. It is not that they will rejoice in the loss of life, the destruction, and the agonies of those upon whose heads God’s hand of judgment will fall, but in the glory of God’s judgment. This is not something we often stop to think about, but God reveals His glory—who He is—in judgment. I know how important it has become to me that God is as just as He is loving. I look to that day when He will execute perfect justice. God’s love and His justice can never be weighed on different scales.

He goes on to describe the people in verse 7 as “those who also reel with wine and stagger from strong drink. The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are confused by wine, they stagger from strong drink; they reel while having visions. They totter when rendering judgment. For all the tables are full of filthy vomit, without a single clean place.” (Isaiah 28:7-8) Priest and prophet alike were reeling in their services under counterfeit inspiration. They were under the power of ‘spirits’, just not the Spirit. According to Leviticus 10:8-9, priests were prohibited from drinking wine while they were serving in the tabernacle. Was Isaiah speaking of drunkenness in a literal sense? There are so many passages that bring this accusation against Israel during this period, that it would seem best to understand this in a literal sense. They are confused, reeling, staggering, and speaking out their ‘visions’ they see while under the influence. The word for confused here is interesting. It means swallowed or destroyed. Swallowing the wine, it is really the wine that is swallowing them up! The Lord painted an unpleasant picture for us of how he sees these leaders—priest and prophet alike.

The visual took me back to the day I was sentenced to prison and taken directly to County Jail where I spent about a month of my time. Upon entering the facility, I was put into a holding cell with approximately 25 women. Immediately, one could smell the stench of vomit and other things. It was apparent this room was rarely cleaned (if ever) because it was always in use. One big cement block room with a row of phones on the wall, an open toilet and sink, women detoxing and laying all over the filthy floor and rows of benches around the room where entitled women believed they could spread out and sleep. I was there for about 8 or 9 hours. Once I found a small spot to sit on the bench, I never moved until I was called for processing. No tables (as in our verse), but there was not a single clean place.

“To whom would He teach knowledge, and to whom would He interpret the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just taken from the breast? “For He says, ‘Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line, a little here, a little there.’” (Isaiah 28:9-10) God’s prophet spoke God’s word to the priests and prophets. Scoffing and dripping with sarcasm, they ridicule God’s true prophet in their drunken idiocracy. “Who does this prophet think he is? Who does he think he is teaching? Are we mere children who have just been weaned from our mother’s milk? Does he think we do not understand? We are grown men who are priests and prophets ourselves! We don’t need his knowledge and his doctrine!” In contempt, they say, “His message never changes…it’s always order on order, line on line…” Order on order, line on line, a little here, a little there…We can’t miss this: Transliterated, the Hebrew monosyllables imitate a child’s babbling. Mocking him, they say he sounds like a child just speaking gibberish. They say it is Isaiah who is not making any sense, when in fact, it is they who have been given over to reprobate minds and speak foolishness.  

The drunkards would not listen to God. He would get their attention not with words but with action. God’s response follows in verses 11-13. Indeed, He will speak to this people through stammering lips and a foreign tongue, He who said to them, “Here is rest, give rest to the weary,” and, “Here is repose,” but they would not listen. He had told them prior to judgment that if they would come to Him, they would have rest; but they would not listen. So the word of the Lord to them will be, “Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line, a little here, a little there,” that they may go and stumble backward, be broken, snared and taken captive. They would not listen, so the Lord’s word to them would become nonsense or babble to them. It would be like a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. Why? So that they would go and stumble backwards, be broken, snared, and taken captive.

Did you ever talk to someone about God repeatedly, but they just cannot get it? Maybe you begin to speak the truth, and it is almost like they cannot get away from you fast enough. Your words grate at them like a most irritating noise. You just make no sense to them, and they do not want to hear it. This is what the Bible talks about in 2 Thessalonians 2:11 when it speaks about those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. It says: For this reason, God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness. This describes for us the point where people just cannot hear the truth. Looking around us today, it is evident that our nation is filled with people that have been given over to delusions calling good evil and evil good.

Jump back now to our passage in Jeremiah 5. The message of the false prophets was just hot air. But that is what the people wanted to hear. Consequently, the message the true prophet would speak would be like fire that would consume them. God’s Word through Jeremiah would result in their judgment. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, “Because you have spoken this word, behold, I am making My words in your mouth fire and this people wood, and it will consume them. (Jeremiah 5:14) In Jeremiah 23:29, we see: “Is not My word like fire?” declares the Lord. They love the smooth, refreshing words of the false prophets. They despise the hard words of God’s true prophet. How would they deal with the words of the enemy coming against them? Would they know, in an instant, that this was God’s judgment?

Behold, I am bringing a nation against you from afar, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord. “It is an enduring nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say.” (Jeremiah 5:15) What nation does that suggest for any astute Bible scholar? Babylon, of course. When we think of the first nation, our minds go back to Genesis 10 and 11 in the story of Babel. Babylon traced her roots all the way back to Babel. We also tie that thought into what happened there when God, in judgment, confused the languages of the people so that they could not understand one another. Often, when we see this picture of Israel being surrounded by people whose language they do not understand, we can tie it to judgment.

In Deuteronomy 28, we see the blessings of obedience versus the consequences of disobedience God had clearly laid out for the Israelites. Deuteronomy 28:49-50 says: “The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand, a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young.” Due to their disobedience, judgment was coming for Judah. Even if she were to cry for mercy when the Babylonians came, the enemy would not even understand what she said.

After the flood, God gave His commission once again to Noah and his sons saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” (Genesis 9:1) The people, under the leadership of Nimrod, with all the same language journeyed east to the land of Shinar, and they settled there. (Genesis 11) Gathered together in one place, rather than filling the earth as God had commanded them, they began to make a name for themselves, rather than making God known throughout the earth. Building a high tower was a monument to their proud reliance on self rather than seeing God as their high tower (Psalm 18:2). Their attempt to make a name for themselves was an attempt to steal God’s glory. In response, God forced them to scatter by confusing their languages (the word Babel means “confusion by mixing”). They could no longer work together in their pursuits which were disobedient to God’s purposes for them.

Now, jump forward to the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. What happened on that day? Pentecost was the beginning of the church age. Once again, Jesus’ followers and disciples were gathered together in one place. This time it is not to disobediently build a high tower to their own renown, but to obediently wait according to the Lord’s instructions in an Upper Room. Before Jesus had ascended to heaven, He gathered them together and commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised—the coming of the Holy Spirit. Chapter 2 describes what happened when the Holy Spirit came upon them. Verse 4—They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. They began to speak to one another in other known languages that they had never been taught before. Remember, there are thousands of Jews who had come from all around to the Feast of Pentecost who were a witness to what was happening. This was the beginning of the Church Age. What did that mean to the Jews? Judgment. They, as a nation, had rejected their Messiah, and God was now doing a new thing bringing Jew and Gentile together in one body.

The Jews who were gathered were amazed and astonished that these uneducated men were speaking in their own languages. How did they know? Because they could understand them speaking clearly about the mighty deeds of God. What did they say in response? They did what they had always done. They mocked those speaking the truth about God. In amazement and perplexity some were saying, “What does this mean?” But others were mocking and saying, “They are full of sweet wine.” They accused them of being drunk! And isn’t that how God described their ancestors back in Isaiah 28?

1 Corinthians 14:20-25 says: Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature. In the Law it is written, “BY MEN OF STRANGE TONGUES AND BY THE LIPS OF STRANGERS I WILL SPEAK TO THIS PEOPLE, AND EVEN SO THEY WILL NOT LISTEN TO ME,” says the Lord. So then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe but to unbelievers, but prophecy is for a sign, not to unbelievers but to those who believe. Therefore if the whole church assembles together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad? But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all; the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you. Notice this one would not fall backward in judgment but would fall on his face under conviction and in submission to God.

Judgment came time and again. The same messages were given to the Jews so that they would know it was God who was bringing judgment against them. Claiming God as their own, they were all talk but no action. They called Him ‘Lord, Lord,’ but He did not know them. He knew what was in their hearts, but He had no relationship with them. Their words were just wind.