The Indelible Indictment Text: Jeremiah 17:1-4
Introduction: The Treason Within
Our modern therapeutic age has one central, guiding dogma: follow your heart. We are told from every quarter, from animated children's movies to the highest echelons of academia, that the truest guide we have is the voice within. To be authentic, to be true to yourself, is the highest virtue. The heart, we are told, is a reservoir of pristine goodness, a compass that will always point you true north if you just have the courage to listen to it.
The prophet Jeremiah, speaking for the living God, would look at this central assumption of our culture, this high and holy altar of self, and he would call it what it is: a damnable lie. The Bible's diagnosis of the human condition is not that we are good people who sometimes do bad things, but rather that we are constitutionally bent, broken, and rebellious from the center of our being. The problem is not with our environment, our upbringing, or our circumstances, though they all play their part. The problem is the human heart.
This passage in Jeremiah is not a gentle suggestion. It is a divine indictment, a formal legal charge brought by the Creator against His covenant people. It is God performing open heart surgery with a diamond-tipped scalpel, showing us not what we think is in there, but what He knows is in there. And what He finds is not a compass pointing to Him, but a stone tablet engraved with high treason. This is not just Judah's problem in the sixth century B.C. This is our problem. This is the universal human problem. And unless we accept God's diagnosis, we will never seek God's cure.
The Text
The sin of Judah is written down with an iron stylus; With a diamond point it is engraved upon the tablet of their heart And on the horns of their altars,
As they remember their children, So they remember their altars and their Asherim By green trees on the high hills.
O mountain of Mine in the countryside, I will give over your wealth and all your treasures for plunder, Your high places for sin throughout your borders.
And you will, even of yourself, let go of your inheritance That I gave you; And I will make you serve your enemies In the land which you do not know, For you have kindled a fire in My anger Which will burn forever.
(Jeremiah 17:1-4 LSB)
The Permanent Record (v. 1)
We begin with the charge, stated in the most permanent terms imaginable.
"The sin of Judah is written down with an iron stylus; With a diamond point it is engraved upon the tablet of their heart And on the horns of their altars," (Jeremiah 17:1)
God does not say their sin is written in chalk on a sidewalk, to be washed away by the next rain. It is written with an iron stylus. It is engraved with a diamond point. This is the language of permanence, of deep, intentional inscription. This is a record that cannot be expunged by good intentions or a few resolutions. The rebellion is not a surface-level mistake; it is etched into the very core of their being.
And where is it engraved? First, "upon the tablet of their heart." This is a devastating parody of the New Covenant promise that God would one day write His law upon their hearts (Jer. 31:33). Before God can write His law there, He must first deal with what is already written there. The heart is not a blank slate. By nature, it is a tablet already filled, not with the law of God, but with the law of sin. The operating system is corrupt. The heart, which was designed to be a sanctuary for God's Word, has become a monument to our rebellion.
Second, the sin is engraved "on the horns of their altars." The internal corruption of the heart always, without fail, manifests in the external corruption of worship. The horns of the altar were the place of atonement. This was where the blood of the sacrifice was applied to cover sin (Lev. 4:7). For Judah, the very place of forgiveness had become a billboard for their sin. Their worship was not just flawed; it was idolatrous. They were coming to the altar not for cleansing from sin, but to express their sin. Their religion had become part of the disease, not the cure. When the heart is wrong, all worship becomes an abomination.
The Generational Infection (v. 2)
The sin engraved on the heart is not a private matter. It is a contagious, generational plague.
"As they remember their children, So they remember their altars and their Asherim By green trees on the high hills." (Jeremiah 17:2 LSB)
This is a terrifying comparison. God says that the natural, deep affection they have for their own children is the same kind of affection they have for their idols. Their love for their false gods is as passionate, as tender, and as constant as their love for their sons and daughters. This reveals the true nature of idolatry. It is not a cold, intellectual error. It is a love affair. It is a matter of the affections. We are not just rebels; we are adulterers.
And because this idolatry is a matter of love, it is passed down from one generation to the next. They are catechizing their children in rebellion. The family, which God designed to be the central nursery of faith, becomes the primary vehicle for transmitting idolatry. The "green trees on the high hills" were the locations of their pagan fertility cults. They were sensual, earthy, and appealing to the fallen nature. They were teaching their children to worship the creation rather than the Creator, and they were doing it with all the passion a parent has for a child.
The Divine Judgment (v. 3)
Because the sin is deep and the idolatry is passionate, the judgment must be severe and total.
"O mountain of Mine in the countryside, I will give over your wealth and all your treasures for plunder, Your high places for sin throughout your borders." (Jeremiah 17:3 LSB)
God addresses them as "mountain of Mine." He is speaking of Zion, of Jerusalem, the place He chose to put His name. He reminds them of their covenant privilege. "You belong to Me." This is not the language of a distant, uncaring deity. This is the language of a husband whose wife has been unfaithful. The judgment that is coming flows from a broken heart of covenant love.
And the judgment fits the crime. Because they worshipped the stuff of creation, God will give their stuff over to be plundered. Because they prized their wealth and treasures, He will strip them bare. The very "high places" where they committed their spiritual adultery will be the reason for their ruin. God's logic is perfect. If you will not have God as your treasure, then you will not have any treasure at all. He will not be mocked. He will not tolerate rivals.
The Inevitable Exile (v. 4)
The chapter of judgment concludes with the ultimate covenant curse: dispossession and exile.
"And you will, even of yourself, let go of your inheritance That I gave you; And I will make you serve your enemies In the land which you do not know, For you have kindled a fire in My anger Which will burn forever." (Jeremiah 17:4 LSB)
Notice the phrase, "even of yourself, let go." This is profound. God is not just yanking the inheritance away from them. Their own sin has rotted their hands so that they can no longer hold on to it. Sin makes you weak. Idolatry makes you foolish. Their own internal corruption leads to their external collapse. They are self-dispossessing. They are letting go of the good gifts of God because they have embraced the poison of their idols.
The consequence is a perfect reversal of the Exodus. God brought them out of slavery in a land they knew (Egypt) into freedom in the land He gave them. Now, because of their sin, He will send them out of their own land into slavery in a land they do not know. If you will not serve God in freedom, you will serve your enemies in bondage. This is the unbending logic of the covenant.
And the reason is given. "For you have kindled a fire in My anger Which will burn forever." This is not the petty, fleeting anger of a man. This is the holy, settled, righteous opposition of an infinite God to all that is unholy. It is a fire that, once kindled by our sin, cannot be put out by our efforts. This is a terrifying, final word. Left here, there is no hope.
The Divine Engraver
This passage is a black velvet backdrop for the diamond of the gospel. If our sin is engraved on our hearts with a diamond point, we are utterly without hope. We cannot erase it. We cannot write over it. We cannot perform surgery on our own hearts. We are doomed by the permanent record of our own treason.
But this is why the Son of God came. The fire of God's anger that burns forever was taken by Jesus Christ at the cross. He stepped into the furnace of that holy wrath and absorbed it completely for His people. He took the full force of the covenant curse that we deserved.
And more than that, God accomplishes what Jeremiah 17 says is impossible for us. In the New Covenant, sealed by the blood of Christ, God does the impossible. He takes out the heart of stone, the tablet engraved with sin, and He gives us a heart of flesh. The Holy Spirit becomes the new, divine engraver. He takes His own diamond point and He writes the law of God upon our new hearts. He writes the name of Jesus Christ over the top of our rebellion.
The blood of Jesus, applied to the horns of the true altar at Calvary, does not just cover our sin; it cleanses it entirely. It deals with the sin engraved on our hearts and on our altars.
Therefore, the Christian life is not a matter of trying harder to be good. It is not a matter of "following your heart." It is a matter of daily pleading with God to continue His supernatural work of divine engraving. It is looking away from the treason that is written on our natural hearts and looking to the cross where that treason was punished. It is trusting in the power of the Spirit to write a new story, a story of grace, on the tablet of our hearts. Our hope is not in our own sincerity, but in the skill of the Divine Engraver.