“Repent!”
Jeremiah 26:8-15
3/7/07 - Mid Week Lenten Service
It wasn’t a nice message that Jeremiah was given to bring to the
people of Judah around the 6th century B.C. Judah had become
rebellious. They were a hard hearted and stiff-necked people. They
had turned from fearing, loving, and trusting God above all things to
trusting in themselves and their own righteousness. They worshipped
idols while at the same time they falsely trusted in the temple of God
in Jerusalem, relying upon it as one would rely on a good-luck charm.
They believed nothing bad could happen to them because they were God’s
people and they had all the outward signs of religious observance.
Rightly had the Lord spoken through Isaiah, “These people honor me with
their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
God had sent
them many prophets, threatening judgment on account of their sin, while
promising grace and every blessing if they would but repent. But the
people didn’t listen to the Lord’s prophets. Some they beat, some they
killed. Nobody wants to be told he’s a sinner. Nobody wants to be
told that if he continues in his unrepentance that he will be
punished. Repentance is a very unpopular word. But it was the message
that Jeremiah had to preach to God’s people in the O.T., it is the
message that John the Baptist and Jesus Himself preached, and it is the
message that you too must hear today.
Why does God send His
people such a harsh word? If He loves me, why does He threaten to
punish me? We ask these questions, because we don’t understand what
love is. It is precisely because God loves you that He threatens to
punish you when He sees you continue in unrepentance. It is because He
loved His people Israel that He sent His prophets after them, warning
them that if they did not turn from their sinful behavior and return to
Him in faith, they would be destroyed. God is a jealous God. He wants
you all to Himself. He will not share you with any other gods. He
will not let you be your own god. He knows that apart from Him there
is only weeping and gnashing of teeth in the eternal death and darkness
of hell. Because He loves you, He wants to keep you from that. So, He
sets up warnings to turn you from danger.
Our Catechism states
that “God threatens to punish all who transgress [His] commandments.
Therefore, we should fear His wrath and not act contrary to them. But
He promises grace and every blessing to all who keep these
commandments. Therefore we should also love and trust in Him and
willingly act according to His Commandments.” God threatens to punish
you for breaking His commandments. And yes, you have been and still
are at times just as stubborn and rebellious as God’s people were in
the O.T. For this you justly deserve to hear the same message that
Jeremiah was given to proclaim to God’s people, that judgment is
coming; therefore, repent. God wants you to confess your sins and turn
from them, and instead listen to His Word, believe it, and do it.
But, God doesn’t want obedience from you that is driven by His Law and
His threats. He wants your willing obedience, an obedience that comes
from a heart which loves and trusts in Him. But how do you come to
love and trust in a God who is always threatening you with punishment?
The Israelites should have realized that God’s threats and punishments
were not abolished by their animal sacrifices. Why did they have to
continually offer them, if their sins had been put away once and for
all? Those animal sacrifices never did take away sins themselves, but
pointed to another sacrifice, the perfect sacrifice of the innocent and
unblemished Lamb of God. Only by way of His perfect obedience to God’s
Law and His sacrificial death on the cross was God’s wrath appeased and
the sins of His people forgiven. Only by His sacrifice for you are
your sins answered for and God’s wrath is turned away from you. For
Christ’s sake alone and through faith in His Name God are you
justified, declared righteous, and made holy. Only as the Word,
Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper have their way in your lives, delivering
Jesus and His gifts to you, can you truly fear, love, and trust in God
above all things. It is God’s love for you in Jesus Christ that moves
you to repentance, not His wrath over sin. As the Apostle Paul writes,
“...the kindness of God leads you to repentance.” No one can love God
when all he feels is God’s wrath upon him for his sins. You might try
all you want to become a better person, a better Christian, but then
you are only trying to avoid punishment. You are only obeying God
because you are afraid of Him. You are not being obedient out of love
for Him.
Yes, God does threaten punishment for breaking His
commandments, just as He threatened His people through Jeremiah that
Jerusalem would be destroyed if they did not repent. But repentance is
the key. God wants for Himself a people who confess their sins, who
realize that on account of their sins they deserve nothing but
punishment, but who also realize that God is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness for the sake of His Son,
Jesus Christ. God preaches His Law to you, in order that you might
turn to Christ in faith and live, so that you might not be destroyed in
His judgment. He doesn’t want you to be lost. He wants you to come to
repentance and believe the Gospel.
When you hear the threats of
God’s Law, there is only one person who can help you, and that’s Jesus
Christ. You cannot depend on your own righteousness. You cannot
depend on your obedience to God’s commandments. You cannot depend on
your religiosity, as the people in Jeremiah’s day did. They supposed
that because they had all the outward marks that they were God’s people
that they truly were God’s people. They made the temple, the
sacrifices, the feasts, and the sign of circumcision into works they
did for God, instead of seeing them as gifts of God to them. You can
do that too with Baptism, the hearing of God’s Word, and the Lord’s
Supper, making them into works you do for God, rather than receiving
them as God’s gifts to you. God’s testament is not kept in this way;
it is kept by faith. Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him
as righteousness. A testament is a promise. A promise can only be
received by faith. God has given you His testament in Christ. You
receive that testament through His Word, through Baptism, and through
His body and blood, the blood of the new testament which was shed for
you for the forgiveness of your sins. This testament is the promise
that God has reconciled you to Himself through the life, death, and
resurrection of His Son. The death that He threatened you was given to
Christ. On the cross Jesus experienced the punishment that was yours.
On the cross He drank the cup of God’s wrath for you. On the cross He
was forsaken by God in your place. There is now no condemnation for
you who are in Christ Jesus. The Gospel has set you free from the
threats, punishment, and coercion of the Law.
You hear God’s Law
properly when you are convicted on account of your sin and confess that
you have sinned against God in your thoughts, words, and deeds. This
is the first part of repentance. But let’s not forget the second part
of repentance, and that is that you hear the Gospel that God has put
away your sin; He has removed it far from you, because Jesus has taken
it away. Amendment of your life should follow, because this is the
fruit of repentance. But this amendment of your life is not a return
to life under the Law. It is life under the Gospel, life under a Lord
who does not motivate you by threat of punishment, but who moves you by
His love. It is by His mercies towards you in Jesus (not His threats)
that you are urged to present your body as a living and holy sacrifice,
acceptable to God in Jesus. You have been born from above by water and
the Spirit. Now you are enabled to walk in God’s ways to the glory of
His holy Name.
Repentance is not a popular word, because most of
the time we take it to mean simply admitting that we are wrong,
admitting that we have sinned and that we deserve to be punished. Who
wants to admit that? But the Lord preaches His Law to you not in order
to condemn you to hell, but to move you to repentance and faith in
Jesus Christ that you might be saved. The Lord takes no pleasure in
the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way
and live. Hear, then, these words of comfort for yourself, that your
sin, guilt, and punishment have been taken away by your Savior, Jesus
Christ. For His sake, you are at peace with God. Amen.