Text: Jeremiah 23:1-2
Proposition: What is the Lord going to do with these shepherds?
Introduction
This message is mostly for the prophets. They were lying to the people. The kings were also sheep scattering shepherds. In chapter 22 Jeremiah has a message for them. In this chapter he has a message for the prophets. The prophets, priest, and kings had scattered God’s people. They had eaten from the God’s flock, but they had not taken care of his people. They had only made themselves rich at the expense of the flock.
I. What did they do?
II. Judge them
III. Replace Them
I. What did they do?
A. They did evil in the sight of the Lord
1. Shallum (Jehoahaz) did evil in the sight of the Lord. He reigned three months and Pharaoh put him in prison. Then later he took him to Egypt where he died.
2. Pharaoh made Jehoiakim, Shallum’s brother, king. He was a wicked king. He killed innocent people
a. II Kings 24:1-5
b. Jeremiah 26:20-24, He killed Uriah.
c. He didn’t pay the laborers who built his house. He wasn’t satisfied to live a simple life. He taxed the people in order to pay tribute to Pharaoh. This didn’t keep him from living luxuriously. He thought he needed a new house. He had it built and didn’t pay those who built it.
d. Jeremiah 22:13-17
e. Josiah, his father, had enough to eat and drink. He was just and righteous and didn’t oppress the people. He was willing to endure hardship right along with the people he was ruling.
f. A good leader suffers right along with the people he is leading. Just like a shepherd suffers with his sheep. He is out in the heat and cold with his sheep. He defends them from wild beasts. He is willing to endure hardship.
g. Jeremiah told Jehoiakim he was going to have the burial of a donkey. Dragged off and thrown beyond the gates of Jerusalem. He was dragged to Babylon and he died somewhere there.
3. Jeconiah, Coniah, was also a wicked king. He reigned three months and Nebuchadnezzar took him captive to Babylon and made his uncle Zedekiah king in his place.
B. They were immoral
1. Jeremiah 23:11
2. Jeremiah 23:14
3. They were like many religious leaders. They pretended to be holy and righteous, but they were wicked. They didn’t rebuke those in sin because they were in sin themselves. They just told the people that they would have peace.
4. Jeremiah 23:17
5. They were prophesying the opposite of what Jeremiah and the Lord were saying.
C. They were liars
1. Jeremiah 23:25-32
2. Many times a preacher or someone claiming to be religious will say, “The Lord told me…” How do I know the Lord told you that? Maybe the devil is talking to you and says he is the Lord. The only way I know what the Lord tells me is through his Word. Everything Jeremiah said was consistent with the Word of God. God had warned them of the calamity that was coming.
3. I Kings 9:6-9, what Jeremiah said was consistent with the Word of God. They could go back and read this in the book of I Kings. They could read Leviticus 18:24-28 and Deuteronomy 29:26-28 and see that what Jeremiah was saying was right. The other prophets were wrong.
4. That is why knowing the word of God is so important. If you know God’s Word you can listen and know if the prophet is telling the truth or he is a liar.
5. We can look at the fruit of the prophet. If he is an immoral liar don’t follow him.
II. Judge them (What was going to be done to these men?)
A. God was going to send a drought
1. Jeremiah 23:10
2. God cursed the land because of them.
3. In the beginning when Adam and Eve sinned God cursed the ground because of Adam’s sin. It would bring thorns and thistles. God
4. Leviticus 18:24-28, immorality would cause the land to be defiled.
5. The people in the land of Canaan were immoral. They were having relations with their mothers, daughters, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters etc.
6. God brought Israel in to destroy them.
7. The Amalekites were the worst.
8. Deuteronomy 25:17-19
9. They attacked Israel, unprovoked. They continued to attack Israel.
10. Judges 6:1-5
11. I Samuel 30:1-13, they kept the women and children, most likely for slaves. They left the Egyptian to die.
12. I Samuel 15:1-5, Saul was to destroy these people. They were immoral and ruthless people. When you live like they did. You end up full of disease. There are many sexually transmitted diseases today. There is no cure for AIDS. They can give you medicine to help you live longer and feel better, but there is no cure. In Saul’s day there was no cure for sexual transmitted diseases. There were no ways to test for these diseases. The Amalekites were to be exterminated. This was total sterilization. This is the only time even the animals were to be killed. Most likely the animals were full of disease also. AIDS came from monkeys. AIDS may have come from a human or humans being exposed to monkey blood from hunting or another way.
13. Leviticus 20:15-16, animals that had relations with people were to be killed along with the person.
14. Israel’s prophets were immoral. God was going to discipline them just as he had the Canaanites who were there before them
B. They were going to be poisoned
1. Jeremiah 23:15
2. God had no mercy for these false prophets.
3. James 3:1
4. If we are going to teach and lead people we have a great responsibility. God will judge us more severely than he will the people who follow us.
5. On the Day of Atonement a bull was offered for the sins of priest and his family. Two goats were offered for the sins of the people.
III. Replace them (Who did God replace them with?)
A. God was going to raise up shepherds that wouldn’t be afraid, nor terrified, nor will any be missing.
1. Jeremiah 23:4
2. After the Babylonian captivity. God was going to raise up shepherds that cared for the flock.
B. Ezra was a priest and a scribe
1. Nehemiah 8:1-18,
2. He read from the law and gave the sense to the people
3. He preached from a wooden podium.
4. This was the beginning of what we do every Sunday.
5. They celebrated the Feast of Booths.
6. They signed a document that they would keep the law of God
7. Nehemiah 9:38
8. Nehemiah 10:28-39
C. Nehemiah
1. Nehemiah 1:1-4, Nehemiah wanted to be a shepherd of his people.
2. Nehemiah 2:1-7, God made it possible for him to be a shepherd of his people.
3. Nehemiah wasn’t afraid of Sanballat and Tobiah
a. Nehemiah 2:10, 19 and 20
b. Nehemiah 4:1-3 and 7-18
4. He was just
a. Nehemiah 5:1-12
b. The Israelites were not to charge one another interest. They were not to enslave their fellow Israelite, but they were doing this anyway. Nehemiah stopped them.
c. Zedekiah allowed it.
d. Jeremiah 34:8-11
e. Everyone was to be freed in the year of jubilee, the seventh year. Zedekiah allowed his people to be enslaved by their own people. When Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. They freed their slaves. When Nebuchadnezzar left to fight against Pharaoh they took their slaves back again. (Jeremiah 34:21-22 and 37:5-11)
5. Nehemiah worked alongside the people and didn’t oppress them.
a. Nehemiah 5:14-19
b. Nehemiah wanted his flock to thrive and grow
c. He was willing to suffer hardship with the people
d. II Timothy 2:3
D. The Branch
1. Jeremiah 23:5-8
2. Jesus is the Branch. This is the root coming out of parched ground.
3. Isaiah 53:2
4. The house of David had become sheep scattering shepherds. God had written down Coniah childless and the Chaldeans killed Zedekiah’s sons. The hope of David’s descendants reigning forever didn’t look very good. But the prophecy in the next chapter gives hope that David’s son would reign again.
5. Isaiah 11:10
6. Jesus is the Son of David.
7. He didn’t have a big fancy house like Jehoiakim. Jesus said, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head.”
8. John 10:1-15, He is not afraid of the wolves (false teachers). He gives life to His sheep. He lays down his life for the sheep.
Conclusion
We have a choice. We can listen to the word of God and follow it or we can listen to false prophets and mock God’s prophet
Jeremiah 23:33-38, They were mocking Jeremiah. Oracle is also translated burden. They were saying the word of the Lord is burdensome. They were tired of Jeremiah prophesying calamity. They like the false prophets saying there would be peace and safety.
God’s word is like a hammer that breaks the hard hearts of men. It is also like a fire that consumes the chaff and purifies the dross from the silver.
If we are a leader, let us be like Ezra, Nehemiah and the Branch. Be a shepherd that cares for the flock and is not afraid of false teachers.
If we are a part of the flock don’t mock those who tell you the truth. Be like the captives who returned from Babylon. They repented at the preaching of Ezra. They listened to Nehemiah and quit oppressing their kinsmen.
We must repent of our sin or God will scatter us and remove us from the land. Like he has done with every nation that has ever existed.
Repent before it is too late. Confess your sins to the Lord and be baptize in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and listen to the voice of the good shepherd
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