This tape contains the third in a series of five teachings on the book of Jeremiah, presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia. The title of the third teaching is Symbols and Reality. I think it's probably time to offer the caveat that I give virtually every time we get into a book of Scripture and move at a rather rapid pace, giving an overview. And the caveat is simply this, please don't let me do the work for you. Because I'm not doing that.

That's not the purpose of these meditations. It would take far, far more time than we are investing in this brief series to even begin to deal adequately with the book of Jeremiah. At best, what I'm doing is giving you some handles or some pegs to be aware of and hang some study of your own on those pegs.

Please go back and read it for yourself. Read it, mark it, learn it, inwardly digest it. Let the Lord teach you and speak to you and apply his word.

One thing that is interesting noting and important to be aware of is that when you have a prophecy, and this is true of most of the prophecies that are written, but especially true, I think, of Jeremiah, sometimes the prophet speaks on his own behalf, sometimes he speaks in the name of the Lord, and sometimes he identifies with the recipients of the message. puts himself in the place of the people as a whole. For instance, Daniel.

When Daniel brings these very, very strong words from God to the people who at that point are in the exile that Jeremiah has been predicting, Daniel turns around and identifies himself with this extremely sinful people and makes confession. You take a close look at the life of Daniel and you see that in many ways he could stand over against the people. I would have to say Daniel was far and away the most righteous man of his generation and yet he identifies himself with the people and makes confession and repents and asks God for mercy and for forgiveness.

We saw an instance of Jeremiah beginning in the last lecture in chapter 9. we saw Jeremiah kind of rehearsing his own sadness of heart, beginning by speaking about his own tears and his brokenness. He says in chapter 9, verse 1, Oh, that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.

Oh, that I had in the desert a wayfarer's lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them. by the time he gets to verse 3 he is speaking in the name of the Lord it would be kind of hard to know exactly where that division comes he's beginning sharing his own broken heartedness and ends up in verse 3 they, this sinful people bend their tongue like a bow falsehood and not truth has grown strong in the land for they proceed from evil to evil and they do not know me says the Lord do you see what I'm saying there? He begins speaking on his own behalf and slides right into a word from the Lord.

If you look at chapter 14 with me, you'll see three interesting passages side by side. And you get these three different aspects, I think. Chapter 14, starting with verse 19.

I'm breaking in here, actually, you really probably ought to go back a bit, but I'm breaking in at verse 19. Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? Does thy souls loathe Zion?

Why hast thou smittenest, so that there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came. For a time of healing, but behold, terror.

We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord, and the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against thee. Do not spurn us for thy name's sake. Do not dishonor thy glorious throne.

Remember and do not break thy covenant with us. Are there any among the false gods of the nations that can bring rain or can the heavens give showers? Art thou not he, O Lord our God?

We set our hope on thee for thou doest all these things. Who's he speaking on behalf of at that point? The people.

That's all in the plural, isn't it? He's putting himself in the place of the people and in fact saying things that most of them are not saying. They ought to be saying at this point.

They're not yet coming to grips with the reality of God's judgment. But at this point, Jeremiah is putting himself in the place of the people and saying, we acknowledge our wickedness. He's putting himself in their place and confessing a corporate sin.

Why hast thou smitten us, O God? But then chapter 15, right at the beginning, it turns, it shifts, and the Lord speaks. Then the Lord said to me, and notice what he says, an incredibly strong statement, though Moses and Samuel stood before me, the law and the prophets, if you will, if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me and intercede on behalf of his people, as you have just done, yet my heart would not turn toward this people, send them out of my sight and let them go when they ask you where shall we go you shall say to them thus says the Lord those who are for pestilence to pestilence those who are for the sword to the sword those who are for famine to famine those who are for captivity to captivity and so on he goes all the way through verse 9 a very strong oracle from the Lord there's a little interjection verse 10 and 10 through 12 where Jeremiah speaks on his own behalf again and then the Lord's oracle is completed in verse 13.

Your wealth and your treasures I will give as spoil without price for all your sins throughout all your territory and I will make you serve your enemies in a land which you do not know for in my anger a fire is kindled which shall burn forever. Very strong, isn't it? So first Jeremiah has spoken in identification with the people, but because the people are not in fact at that place, the Lord pronounces this very strong word of judgment.

And then Jeremiah speaks in his own name. As I said, we skipped over it, verse 10 through 12. Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land.

I have not lent nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me. So let it be, O Lord, if I have not entreated thee for their good, if I have not pleaded with thee on behalf of the enemy in the time of trouble and in the time of distress, can one break iron, iron from the north and bronze? And then verse 15, it continues, O Lord, thou knowest, remember me and visit me and take vengeance on me for my persecutors.

Who are his persecutors? The very people that he identified with a moment ago, and more especially their leaders, and the prophets who have the privilege of the throne's endorsement behind them. Verse 17, he says, I didn't sit in the company of merrymakers, nor did I rejoice.

I sat alone. See, a moment ago he was identifying with them. Now he's saying, I was over against them.

I sat alone. Because thy hand was upon me, for thou hast filled me with indignation. Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed?

Wilt thou be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail? And so on. Just call that to your attention.

Here's another handle. Be aware of it. Sort out who is speaking through the lips of the prophet.

Is it the Lord? Is it the prophet himself? Or is he identifying with the people?

I want to call to your attention today some symbolic actions. We already saw one last time of Jeremiah wearing the linen apron or girdle which became marred and spoiled, and it was like a symbol of the people of Judah being worn by the Lord, and now Judah has spoiled. And you'll see this.

There are a lot of these running through the book of Jeremiah. Chapter 16, for instance. He's forbidden to marry.

And we know that other prophets also in their family lives have reflected something of their prophecy. Isaiah gives names that are of spiritual symbolic significance to his children. Hosea is probably the most interesting and most frightening of the example.

You know the story of Hosea, who is told by the Lord to go out and marry a prostitute and bear children by her. And the children again are named with very frightening names, not my people, no mercy, no pity. And she goes back to her prostitution again, even after having been married by Hosea.

And so through that marriage, what's being portrayed is God's marrying his people who are prostituting themselves and what the result of all that is. So here in the case of Jeremiah, the word of the Lord came to me saying, you shall not take a wife. You are to remain single.

You are not to have sons and daughters in this place. Jeremiah's singleness is to be symbolic, a symbolic background, if you will, to his persistent predictions of doom. As if to say, why raise a family?

Why father children? What's the use of having a family if only to be caught in the carnage that is about to be unleashed on the land of Judah? Even in the midst of all that, this very, very strong word from the Lord, and then this symbolic action in Jeremiah's life.

Notice in chapter 16, verses 14 and 15, even in the midst of all that, the promise of restoration. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, as the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but instead it shall be said, as the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them. For I will bring them back to their own land, which I gave to their fathers.

Extraordinary statement. It sounds as if the destruction is going to be absolute, complete, annihilation, and yet, inevitably, there's a footnote on it. There will be restoration.

There will be restoration. And if you just stop and think about what I've just read to you, that is an amazing statement. I mean, how has the Lord been known down through all of history?

The most significant thing in the holy history of the Jewish people is their deliverance from Egyptian slavery. And they identify the Lord. The Lord our God is the one who delivered us out of Egypt.

And God here says, there will come a day when I will no longer be known primarily as the one who delivered my people out of Egypt, but in even greater deliverance, I will bring them out of the north country and all the countries to which they've been scattered. Now that implies not only the Babylonian captivity, which is about to take place, but the Assyrian scattering of the Israelis into all the nations. And you say, when has that happened in history?

Well, it hasn't completely happened yet. I suppose you could say the recreation of the state of Israel in 1948 was a very significant beginning. But I believe that there is a yet greater fulfillment of these very words still to take place as the Lord draws his people, his ancient people, out of the nations into which they have fled and brings them back into the original promised land.

Symbolic actions. There are a couple of fascinating ones in the 18th and 19th chapters. Chapter 18.

The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah, Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words. So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand.

And he reworked it into another vessel as it seemed good to the potter to do. Now we looked at the words that follow in our first session. Then the word of the Lord came to me, O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done, says the Lord.

Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy, and if that nation concerning which I've spoken turns from its evil, I will repent of the evil that I intended to do to it. You remember that passage?

And then he turns it around. If I declare blessing on a nation and it departs from me, I will repent of the blessing. And I call that to your attention as a very important explanation for why it is that sometimes what sounds like a word of finality ends up being conditional.

It sounded final, but it wasn't final because the people's hearts changed. The condition changed and therefore the stance that the Lord takes in relationship to them changed. But I did not call to your attention the context in which that was spoken.

Here is a symbolic action. A potter is working at his wheel. He's got wet clay.

He's molding it, he's shaping it into a vessel. Somehow the vessel becomes marred or spoiled and he reshapes it. Notice that that's a word to Israel, to this nation which has already been dispersed.

The Lord is saying, I am reshaping it. I'm not done with Israel yet. I'm reshaping it.

I'm still at work, just as the potter reshapes the spoiled pot. Chapter 19, a similar but different word, this time addressed to Judah. Thus says the Lord, go buy a potter's earthen flask and take some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests and go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom at the entry of the potsherd gate and proclaim there the words that I tell you.

You shall say, hear the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle, because the people have forsaken me and have profaned this place by burning incense in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter.

And in this place I will make void the plans of Judah and Jerusalem, and will cause their people to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. And I will give their dead bodies for food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and I will make this city a horror, a thing to be hissed at. Everyone who passes by it will be horrified and will hiss because of all of its disasters, and I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters.

I referred to that in the first lecture. Unbelievable. Unbelievable, but it comes to pass in the days that follow.

Notice that phrase, a horror and a thing to be hissed at. It comes up repeatedly. Verse 10, then you shall break the flask in the sight of the men who go with you and shall say to them, thus says the Lord of hosts, so will I break this people in this city as one breaks a potter's vessel so that it can never be mended.

If you put those two symbolic actions side by side, sort of living parables, first one, the potter reworks the vessel, second one, he takes what is probably a very, very beautiful and costly earthenware vessel, pitcher, vase, whatever it is, and smashes it. And then you bear in mind that the first oracle is addressed to Israel and the second to Judah. It sounds as if, as terrible as is what has happened to Israel, something far worse, and again, far more final, is going to happen to Judah.

But please bear in mind, what he's really saying here is not I'm going to utterly destroy the people. I am utterly going to destroy this people's practice of idolatry and child sacrifice and the worship of false gods. And ladies and gentlemen, this punishment, this medicine was effective.

Whatever else you want to accuse Israel and the Jews of, After this time, they never again went back to that. They never went back to idolatry. They never went back to child sacrifice.

Topheth is the east end of Hinnom, and Hinnom is otherwise known as Gehenna, which is translated in the New Testament as hell. This valley, just outside the city wall, becomes a symbol of hell. Literally, it means the garbage dump, the burning place.

And it was previously the place of child sacrifice. Right there in Jerusalem, right in the city. The city of our God.

Child sacrifice going on. The blood of the innocents. And that became such a horror and a hissing that it was the symbol of Gehenna, the symbol of hell.

Interestingly enough, if you go and visit today, it's one of the most beautiful parts of the whole land. It has been cleansed. It has been cleansed.

Chapter 24. Two baskets of figs. After Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had taken into exile from Jerusalem, Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, together with the princes of Judah, the craftsmen, the smiths, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me this vision.

Now this is much later in the story, isn't it? Behold, two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the Lord. One basket had very good figs, like first ripe figs, but the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they couldn't be eaten.

And the Lord said to me, What do you see, Jeremiah? I said, Figs. The good figs, very good, and the bad figs, very bad.

And when they are bad, they are horrid. So bad that they cannot be eaten. And the word of the Lord came to me, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans or the Babylonians.

I will set my eyes upon them for good and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down. I will plant them and not uproot them.

Remember at the very beginning of the story how he gives the call and he says the negative things will be first to pluck up, to tear down, to destroy, and then to plant. and to build. And this is near the end of Jeremiah's story, and the Lord is saying, the people who have been sent off to exile are like the good figs.

I'm not done with them. See? The punishment is not total annihilation.

And this is part and parcel of that fifth point that I summarized where Jeremiah is saying, if you will yield willingly to Babylon as an instrument of chastisement from the Lord, it will be well with you. Okay? That is not to say, and we'll see this clearly two weeks from today, that is not to say that the Lord is tickled pink with Babylon.

It is not to say that. But he is using Babylon as an instrument of disciplining his people. And those who will willingly accept that and submit to it are like the good figs.

I'll set my eyes upon them for good. But, verse 8, Thus says the Lord, Like the bad figs, which are so bad that they cannot be eaten, so I will treat Zedekiah, the king of Judah, his princes, the remnant of Jerusalem, who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt, I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them. And I will send sword, famine, pestilence upon them until those should be utterly destroyed from the land which I gave to them and their fathers.

The bad figs are those who resist the punishment from the Lord through the Babylonians. Notice in the next chapter the very, very specific word that this exile will be 70 years in duration. Chapter 25, verse 11.

This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years. That's the passage Daniel was reading. And suddenly he realized, wow, it's been 70 years.

Time for us to be heading back. And that occasions his prayer that I referred to a moment ago. After 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, says the Lord.

I'm using them now as an instrument of discipline, chastisement, punishment, correction, reform of my people. But that doesn't mean I'm pleased with them. After I've used them for my own purposes, I'll deal with them.

Chapter 29, a repetition of the same thing in verse 10. For thus says the Lord, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and I will bring you back to this place for I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you. into exile.

So in terms of that word of remolding and reshaping the flask, it begins, I suppose you could say, at the end of the Babylonian exile. But basically, that concerns only the inhabitants of Judah. To apply that to all the land of Israel, we have to have a much bigger picture.

One more interesting word in chapter 32. I'm not going to read this I'll just call it to your attention the Lord this is right on the eve of the exile beginning this is the year before Jerusalem falls this is a dated message and we know it was in 587 BC and Jerusalem fell the next year and on the eve of all of these prophecies beginning to come true the Lord commands Jeremiah to go out and buy a field in a public ceremony and to put away the deed for safekeeping. What does that mean?

What does that suggest? Exactly. There will be a day when people come back and live here again.

There will be a day in which fields are bought and sold and houses are built and crops are planted. And so here again, Jeremiah lives out in symbolic action a piece of his message. Security, sure.

There is fearful punishment coming, but it will not be annihilation. See the hand of the Lord in the circumstances, even the hand of the Lord among our enemies as they are used for his purpose in bringing discipline upon us. But I have a future for you, a future and a hope, And there will be a people that comes back and again lives in this land.

Let's stand and pray together. Lord, I thank you for this picture which is becoming increasingly clear to us. how much you hate sin and compromise, how much you love sinners.

Thank you, Lord, that when you must deal severely with your people, it is always to bring them to repentance and to restoration. Lord, it may be that you need to deal severely with the United States. It may be that you need to deal severely with the Episcopal Church.

It may be that you need to deal severely with us personally. Yet in the midst of that, we would learn from this ancient history that your purposes are good, and that you have for us a future and a hope, and that you are a God of restoration. We worship you this day.

Hallelujah to you, Lord. Bless your name. We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen.