Jeremiah 2:4-8

The Divine Lawsuit: Trading Glory for Vapor Text: Jeremiah 2:4-8

Introduction: God in the Dock

We live in an age that loves to put God on trial. Modern man, puffed up with his technological trinkets and his fleeting philosophies, fancies himself a judge. He summons the Almighty to the witness stand and cross-examines Him. He demands that God account for the suffering in the world, for the difficult passages of Scripture, for the exclusive claims of Christ. He finds God guilty of being God and not a more manageable, domesticated version of himself.

But in our text today, the roles are properly reversed. This is a courtroom scene, but God is not the one in the dock. He is the plaintiff, the prosecuting attorney, and the judge. He summons His covenant people, the house of Israel, to answer for their breach of contract. The charge is spiritual adultery, cosmic treason, and the most profound ingratitude. And as we listen to God's case against Israel, we must have the ears to hear His case against us. For the sins of ancient Israel are not museum pieces. They are the same sins we dress up in modern clothes. The Baal of the Canaanites is the same spirit that animates the idols of our own day, whether they be found in the halls of government, the groves of academia, or, God forbid, the pulpits of our churches.

Jeremiah's task was to prosecute a lawsuit on God's behalf against a people who had forgotten who they were because they had forgotten who He was. They had traded the fountain of living waters for broken cisterns that could hold no water. They had exchanged their glory for something worthless. And God begins His case not with a thunderous condemnation, but with a question of staggering pathos. It is a question that ought to break our hearts before it convicts our consciences.


The Text

Hear the word of Yahweh, O house of Jacob and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says Yahweh, "What injustice did your fathers find in Me, That they went far from Me And walked after vanity and became vain? They did not say, 'Where is Yahweh Who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, Who led us through the wilderness, Through a land of deserts and of pits, Through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, Through a land that no one crossed And where no man inhabited?' I brought you into the fruitful land To eat its fruit and its good things. But you came and defiled My land, And My inheritance you made an abomination. The priests did not say, 'Where is Yahweh?' And those who handle the law did not know Me; The shepherds also transgressed against Me, And the prophets prophesied by Baal And walked after things that did not profit."
(Jeremiah 2:4-8 LSB)

The Groundless Divorce (v. 4-5)

The court is called to session, and God presents His opening argument.

"Hear the word of Yahweh, O house of Jacob and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says Yahweh, 'What injustice did your fathers find in Me, That they went far from Me And walked after vanity and became vain?'" (Jeremiah 2:4-5)

Notice who is being addressed. It is the entire covenant community, "all the families of the house of Israel." This is not a matter for a select few. Covenant rebellion is a corporate affair. When a nation goes astray, it does so family by family.

And then comes the question. It is one of the most astonishing questions in all of Scripture. God, the sovereign Creator, asks His creatures to justify their apostasy. "What injustice did you find in Me?" In the language of a divorce court, God is asking, "On what grounds are you leaving me? What fault, what wrong, what unrighteousness did you discover in My character or My conduct that made you go whoring after other gods?"

The question is, of course, devastatingly rhetorical. The answer is nothing. There was no injustice. God had been nothing but faithful. He had kept every promise. His every action was righteous and good. Their departure from Him was utterly groundless, a pure act of spiritual insanity. They left the God of infinite goodness, beauty, and truth for no reason at all.

And what did they pursue instead? They "walked after vanity and became vain." The word for vanity here is hebel. It's the key word of Ecclesiastes. It means vapor, smoke, a puff of wind, nothingness. They chased after idols, which are nothing, and in the process, they themselves became nothing. This is the fundamental law of worship: you become what you behold. Worship the living God, and you become more alive. Worship dead idols, and you become dead. Worship hebel, and you become hebel. They exchanged the solid rock of Yahweh for smoke, and their national life, their character, and their souls evaporated.


Covenant Amnesia (v. 6)

The root cause of their treason was a catastrophic failure of memory. They forgot their own story.

"They did not say, 'Where is Yahweh Who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, Who led us through the wilderness, Through a land of deserts and of pits, Through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, Through a land that no one crossed And where no man inhabited?'" (Jeremiah 2:6)

They stopped asking the most important question: "Where is Yahweh?" This question is the heartbeat of a living faith. But for them, God had become irrelevant. He was a distant historical figure, not a present reality. They suffered from covenantal amnesia. They forgot the central, defining act of their salvation: the Exodus. God had rescued them from slavery, led them through an impossible, terrifying wilderness, a place of death and desolation, and brought them to safety. Their entire existence as a people was a testimony to His miraculous grace.

To forget the Exodus was to forget everything. It was to forget their identity, their purpose, and their God. This is why God commanded them to constantly rehearse this story, to teach it to their children, to bind it on their hands and foreheads. Christian, this is why we come to the Lord's Table week after week. We are a forgetful people. We need to be reminded constantly that we have been brought out of the Egypt of our sin, led through the wilderness of this world, by a God who is with us. When we forget the cross, we begin to ask, "What injustice did I find in God?" and we start chasing after hebel.


Desecrating the Gift (v. 7)

Their forgetting led directly to defilement. Ingratitude always pollutes.

"I brought you into the fruitful land To eat its fruit and its good things. But you came and defiled My land, And My inheritance you made an abomination." (Jeremiah 2:7)

God's grace was extravagant. He didn't just bring them out of the wilderness; He brought them into a "fruitful land." The Hebrew is literally a garden land, a karmel. It was His land, His inheritance, which He gave to them as a gift. He invited them to come and enjoy the bounty, to eat its fruit and good things. This is a picture of God's generous, life-giving nature. He is not a stingy deity. He loves to give good gifts to His children.

And how did they respond to this lavish generosity? "You came and defiled My land." They treated God's garden like a garbage dump. They filled it with the filth of their idolatry, their sexual immorality, and their social injustice. They took the very place that was meant to be a showcase for God's goodness and turned it into an abomination, a thing that is ritually and morally disgusting to God. This is what sin does. It takes the good things of God's creation, His gifts of land, food, family, and sexuality, and it twists and pollutes them, making them instruments of rebellion rather than worship.


The Rot at the Top (v. 8)

This kind of corporate corruption does not happen in a vacuum. It is enabled and led by a compromised leadership. The fish rots from the head down.

"The priests did not say, 'Where is Yahweh?' And those who handle the law did not know Me; The shepherds also transgressed against Me, And the prophets prophesied by Baal And walked after things that did not profit." (Jeremiah 2:8)

Jeremiah indicts every branch of Israel's leadership. The failure was systemic and total.

When the priests are prayerless, the scholars are godless, the rulers are lawless, and the prophets are faithless, the nation is finished. This was the state of Israel, and it is a sobering warning to the church in our own time.


The Gospel Answer

This passage is a grim diagnosis of our condition. We, like Israel, have found no fault in God, and yet we have wandered. We have chased after hebel and have become hebel. We have forgotten our salvation and defiled God's good gifts. Our leaders have, in many cases, failed us spectacularly.

So where is the hope? The hope is in a true Israelite who never forgot His Father. The hope is in Jesus Christ. He is the one who could stand before God and in whom God could find no fault. He is the one who was led into the wilderness and, unlike Israel, did not grumble or fall into idolatry, but trusted the Word of God.

The corrupt leadership of Israel in Jeremiah's day found its ultimate expression in the leadership that conspired to crucify Jesus. The priests, the teachers of the law, and the rulers all transgressed against the Son of God. They did not know Him. And yet, it was through their very act of transgression that God provided the remedy for our own.

On the cross, Jesus took all our defilement, all our abominations, upon Himself. He became vain, hebel, for us. He who knew no sin became sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. He is the true Priest who not only asks "Where is Yahweh?" but is Yahweh. He is the true Teacher of the Law who not only knows God but is God. He is the good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep. He is the ultimate Prophet whose every word is truth and life.

Because of Christ, God brings us into the fruitful land of His kingdom. And He gives us His Spirit so that we will not forget. He writes His law on our hearts so that we will not depart from Him. The charge against us in Adam and in our own sin is answered completely in Christ. Therefore, let us stop putting God in the dock. Let us repent of our foolish exchanges, our chasing after vapor. Let us remember our great salvation and walk as grateful citizens of the fruitful land He has given us, to His glory and for our everlasting good.