Jeremiah 51: Two Ideas: Hope and Punishment

"For the LORD is a God of recompense; he will surely repay." Jeremiah 51:56c

Many of you know of a great man by the name of John Piper. If you've read any of his books or heard any of his sermons, you know that he is all about the joy that can be found in Christ. In everything he does, he desires that the people around him find joy in Christ. "Joy" is John Piper's thing. He can't get away from it, in his life, his ministry, and even his daily living. But, I don't like to copycat. If I'm going to be a pastor someday, I need my own thing, and I've determined what that thing is going to be this morning: HOPE.

I am truly convinced and will argue this until I die, that if one reads the Bible rightly, he will see hope (for those in Christ) on every single page. From the opening pages of scripture, we find God creating the world: an eternally wise, infinitely powerful, gracious, and loving God creates and thus is sovereign. What more hope could be found than in a gracious God who creates man in his own image and places him in a Garden to enjoy? Furthermore, even after man sins, we find God offering hope in the "seed of the woman" who would eventually crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). Many other examples could be given, but what we find on every page of scripture is this: for those who are in Christ, there is hope in every situation.

This morning in Jeremiah 51, we find nothing different. Throughout this entire chapter, we find Jeremiah prophesying about the destruction of Babylon. It may seem odd, perhaps, that Jeremiah spends 64 verses (and much more than this, actually, if we take the preceding chapters into account) speaking of the destruction of a pagan nation. Nevertheless, if we look at these words in context, we will find Jeremiah's point.

Do you remember what the majority of the book of Jeremiah was about? Israel had sinned, and Jeremiah was calling out to the people, warning them of God's wrath to come upon them because of their iniquity. God's wrath eventually came in the form of an army of Babylonians who took them captive and burned down their city (read Jeremiah 52, or my other blog post on the destruction of Jerusalem). When we looked at Judah's destruction in our devotional, we considered that a God who destroys his people doesn't seem very "loving," and it feels as if God had forsaken his promises. Yet in Jeremiah 51, we find the opposite of this to be true. Read these words from verse 5 of the chapter:

"For Israel and Judah have not been forsaken by their God, the LORD of Hosts, but the land of the Chaldeans [Babylonians] is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel."

What's going on in this verse? Well first, we find that God had not forsaken his covenant people. Although he punished them for their iniquity, he has not forsaken to give them a "hope and a future" (Jer. 29:11), nor has he completely abandoned them. How can we know this for sure? Because the very people who have overtaken them are soon to fall because of their "full guilt against" the LORD. In other words, what Jeremiah is saying to Israel in this chapter is this: although you have been completely destroyed by a ravenous nation, that nation will not get away with what they have done. Why? Because "the LORD is a God of recompense; he will surely repay" (v. 56c).

Are these ideas not just like the truths we saw in the book of Habakkuk? Although God's infinitely wise and sovereign hand decreed that Babylon overtake Judah, he knew exactly what he was doing. And although Babylon would have its time to triumph, it surely would not last forever. There was a hope for Israel in that the nation that destroyed it would be utterly destroyed as well. Thus, we find that although Judah was exiled away from their home, they could have hope in remembering "the LORD from far away" (v. 50). He had not forsaken them, nor would he. For he had covenantally bound himself to them. Though they were overtaken, God had in store for them a hope and a future.

Yet before we move any further, let us point one thing out: the LORD was still punishing his nation Israel. Was it fully and totally true that the LORD had provided an eternal opportunity of hope for those in Israel who would live by faith? Yes. Yet, let us point out that they were still being punished for their iniquity. The point is this: although there is always hope for the children of God, we cannot presume on that hope and indulge in our sins. For to do so is to walk contrary to the Gospel. Our LORD Jesus Christ has died for our sins, enabling us to have hope forevermore. Why would we go back to the very sins which he saved us and given us hope to overcome? Children of God, let us take to heart both the punishment and hope of our God today!