The Intoxicating Madness of Sin Text: Jeremiah 2:23-25
Introduction: The Addict's Defense
We live in an age that prides itself on its honesty, its transparency, and its authenticity. "Live your truth" is the mantra of the day. And yet, for all our talk of being real, we are a culture that has perfected the art of self-deception. We are like an alcoholic who insists, with slurred speech and a bottle in his hand, that he can quit any time he wants. We are like an adulterer who rebrands his sin as "finding his soulmate" and expects a round of applause. We have become experts at calling evil good and good evil, at putting darkness for light and light for darkness.
This is not a new problem. This is the ancient problem of the human heart, which the Scriptures tell us is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And nowhere is this self-deceit more vividly and brutally exposed than in the prophetic ministry of Jeremiah. God sends Jeremiah to a people who are covenantally married to Him, but who are chasing after every pagan idol they can find. They are engaged in rampant spiritual adultery. And when God confronts them, through His prophet, their response is not repentance. It is denial. It is indignation. "How dare you accuse me?"
In our text today, God responds to this denial with a series of devastating images. He does not argue with them in the abstract. He paints a picture of their behavior that is so visceral, so raw, that it is impossible to ignore. He holds up a mirror to their souls, and the reflection is that of a wild animal in heat, driven by instinct, deaf to reason, and utterly enslaved to its lusts. This is not polite language, and it is not meant to be. This is divine surgery, cutting through the calloused layers of self-justification to expose the diseased heart beneath.
We must understand that this passage is not just a historical record of Judah's apostasy. It is a timeless diagnosis of the sinful heart. It is a description of what happens to any person, any church, or any nation that turns its back on the living God to chase after the dead idols of this world. It is a warning to us, lest we find ourselves making the same pathetic excuses, running the same frantic, godless errands, and ending in the same hopeless despair.
The Text
"How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not walked after the Baals’? Look at your way in the valley! Know what you have done! You are a swift young camel entangling her ways, A wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness, That sniffs the wind in her passion. In the time of her heat who can turn her away? All who seek her will not become weary; In her month they will find her. Keep your feet from being barefoot And your throat from thirst; But you said, ‘It is hopeless! No! For I have loved strangers, And after them I will walk.’"
(Jeremiah 2:23-25 LSB)
Brazen Denial and Inescapable Evidence (v. 23)
The confrontation begins with God quoting Judah's own self-righteous defense.
"How can you say, ‘I am not defiled; I have not walked after the Baals’? Look at your way in the valley! Know what you have done! You are a swift young camel entangling her ways," (Jeremiah 2:23)
Here is the sinner's first line of defense: outright denial. "I am not defiled." This is the language of someone whose conscience has been seared. They have sinned so much and for so long that they have become blind to their own filth. They are covered in mud from head to toe, yet they insist they are clean. They have "not walked after the Baals." This is a lie, and a brazen one at that. The worship of the Baals, the Canaanite fertility gods, was everywhere. It was the state-sponsored, culturally-celebrated religion of the day. To deny this was like denying that the sun rises in the east.
God's response is to point to the evidence. "Look at your way in the valley!" This is likely a reference to the Valley of Hinnom, just outside Jerusalem. This was a place of grotesque idolatry, where the people of Judah, following the example of their wicked kings, had set up altars to Molech and had even sacrificed their own children in the fire. God says, "Don't tell me you're clean. Just look. Go down to the valley. The evidence is right there. The ashes of your children are still warm. Know what you have done!" God commands them to stop rationalizing and start acknowledging. True repentance begins not with excuses, but with knowledge of the facts.
Then God gives the first of His searing images: "You are a swift young camel entangling her ways." A young camel, particularly when it is in heat, is a picture of frantic, uncontrolled, and erratic energy. It doesn't run in a straight line. It dashes here and there, back and forth, with no discernible purpose or direction. This is a perfect picture of the idolater. The worship of the one true God brings order, purpose, and straight paths for our feet. But idolatry, the chasing after many false gods, leads to a chaotic, tangled, and frantic existence. One day you are chasing the god of money, the next the god of pleasure, the next the god of political power. Your ways become a tangled mess. You are busy, you are exhausted, but you are going nowhere.
The Uncontrollable Urge (v. 24)
The imagery intensifies in the next verse, moving from erratic to utterly feral.
"A wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness, That sniffs the wind in her passion. In the time of her heat who can turn her away? All who seek her will not become weary; In her month they will find her." (Jeremiah 2:24 LSB)
If the young camel was a picture of erratic energy, the wild donkey in heat is a picture of raw, untamable lust. This is not a domesticated animal. This is a creature of the wilderness, governed entirely by its appetites. She "sniffs the wind in her passion," searching for a mate. Her desire is so all-consuming that it has become her entire world. She is not thinking; she is reacting. She is driven.
God asks a rhetorical question: "In the time of her heat who can turn her away?" The answer, of course, is no one. Her lust is her master. You cannot reason with her, you cannot command her, you cannot restrain her. This is a terrifying picture of what sin does to the human soul. It dehumanizes us. It strips away our reason and our self-control and reduces us to the level of an animal driven by instinct. The addict knows this. The man enslaved to pornography knows this. There comes a point where the desire is so overwhelming that all sense of shame, all fear of consequence, is swept away in the flood of passion.
And notice the chilling conclusion: "All who seek her will not become weary; in her month they will find her." The male donkeys don't have to work hard to find her. She makes it easy. In her desperation, she throws herself at them. This is the degradation of idolatry. Israel, the covenant bride of Yahweh, was supposed to be a treasure, holy and set apart. But in her lust for foreign gods, she has made herself cheap. She has made herself common. She has thrown herself at Egypt and Assyria, begging for their gods and their military alliances. She has lost all dignity, all self-respect. This is the end result of spiritual adultery: utter degradation.
The Deliberate Choice for Despair (v. 25)
In the final verse, God makes a tender, last-ditch appeal, which is met with a shocking and final rejection.
"Keep your feet from being barefoot And your throat from thirst; But you said, ‘It is hopeless! No! For I have loved strangers, And after them I will walk.’" (Jeremiah 2:25 LSB)
God's command is a call to sanity and self-preservation. "Keep your feet from being barefoot and your throat from thirst." Running barefoot over the rocky terrain of the wilderness in pursuit of idols would lead to bruised and bloody feet. It was a picture of self-inflicted pain. Running frantically in the desert heat would lead to a parched throat, a picture of a soul that has forsaken the fountain of living waters for broken cisterns that can hold no water. God is saying, "Stop! Stop hurting yourself. Stop this mad, self-destructive chase. I am your provision. I am your protection. I am the water of life. Come back to me."
But look at their response. First, "It is hopeless!" This is the language of the addict who has given up the fight. It is a statement of despair, but it is a chosen despair. They are not saying, "It is hopeless, please help me." They are saying, "It is hopeless, so leave me alone." They have embraced their slavery. They have made a covenant with their sin.
And then comes the final, defiant declaration: "No! For I have loved strangers, and after them I will walk." This is the heart of the matter. This is not a problem of ignorance; it is a problem of affection. They have set their love on other gods. Their hearts have been captured. The word "strangers" here means foreign gods. They are admitting their spiritual adultery. And they are not just admitting it; they are defending it. They are declaring their allegiance. "I have loved them, and I will continue to follow them." This is the sinner shaking his fist in the face of God and declaring his right to be damned.
This is the ultimate irrationality of sin. They have chosen bloody feet over protected paths. They have chosen a parched throat over living water. They have chosen the degradation of a wild animal over the dignity of being the bride of God. They have chosen hopelessness over hope. Why? Because they loved their sin more than they loved their God.
The Gospel for Wild Donkeys
This is a bleak and terrible passage. It shows us the human heart in its raw, unregenerate state: self-deceived, enslaved to passion, and defiantly in love with its own destruction. If this were the final word, we would all be without hope. We are all, by nature, swift camels and wild donkeys. We have all, in our own way, said to God, "It is hopeless! No! I have loved strangers, and after them I will walk."
But praise be to God, this is not the final word. The God who diagnoses the disease is also the God who provides the cure. The entire story of the Bible is about how God takes wild, rebellious, adulterous creatures and transforms them into a pure and spotless bride for His Son.
How does He do it? He does it by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, into the wilderness of our sin. Jesus is the one who can approach the wild donkey in its heat and not be consumed. He is the one who can tame the untamable. On the cross, He took upon Himself the filth of our defilement so that we could be clothed in His perfect cleanliness. He endured the ultimate thirst, crying out "I thirst," so that we could drink freely from the fountain of the water of life.
He did not just die for us; He gives us a new heart. He breaks the power of our addiction to "strangers" by giving us a new, supreme love for Himself. The only way to drive out a sinful love is with a greater, more powerful love. Through the Holy Spirit, God shines into our hearts "to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). When we see Him for who He is, the idols lose their appeal. The strangers lose their charm.
The Christian life is the process of God taming the wild donkey. It is the process of our tangled, chaotic ways being made straight. It is learning to stop saying "It is hopeless!" and starting to say "With God, all things are possible." It is the daily choice to turn from the strangers we once loved and to walk after the one true Husband of our souls, who loved us and gave Himself for us.