Jeremiah 28:14
For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: 'I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations to make them serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they will serve him. I have even given him control of the beasts of the field.'"
Sermons
A False Prophet and His FateD. Young Jeremiah 28:1-17
How to Answer Those Who Oppose the TruthA.F. Muir Jeremiah 28:1-17














The meekness of Jeremiah's reply emboldened the false prophet, and he forthwith proceeded from words to actions. The symbol appointed by God was publicly removed from the shoulders of Jeremiah and destroyed. Opposition to the spirit and will of God could scarcely go further. The interpretation given to the action reveals how false and dangerous the position assumed.

I. THE SERVANTS OF GOD ARE FREQUENTLY AT APPARENT DISADVANTAGE AS COMPARED WITH THE SERVANTS OF SATAN. The action was so sudden and unexpected that Jeremiah had but little to say, and eventually went his way, sad but silent. Everything seemed to favor his opponent. The "patriotic party" was enthusiastic, and not to be restrained. The wisdom of this world is prompt and versatile because it is unprincipled; and it is bold because it is profane and unbelieving. Yet this is the condition under which the followers of the truth are to contend.

II. THE SERVANTS OF SATAN ARE THEREBY ENCOURAGED TO MORE PRONOUNCED BEHAVIOR, AND COMMIT THEMSELVES BEYOND RECALL. Hananiah's case illustrates this in two ways, viz.:

1. Sacrilegious action. Touching the person of the prophet. Deliberately destroying the yoke which he must have known was of Divine appointment.

2. Its definitive interpretation. He not only rebelled against the Lord, but committed himself to a prediction with a fixed date, and one that must soon arrive. The necessity of the position he had assumed was upon him. Woe to the prophet of lies who ventures upon definite and verifiable prophecies! There is no halting-place to those who begin systematically to oppose God's truth. They must ere long be caught in their own snares. With the sense of reverence the fear of consequences is forgotten and caution is discarded.

III. BY SO DOING THEY HASTEN THEIR OWN JUDGMENT. The triumph is brilliant but short-lived, and purchased at terrible cost. Let sinners pause when their crimes are made easy for them and excess follows upon excess. The motion of the rapid may but precede the fall (Jude 1:8-13). When human resources and precautions are exhausted, it may be a sign that God will undertake his own cause. His servants are justified at such a time in looking for and invoking his help, which is likely to be of a very signal and determining kind. - M.

Thou hast broken the yokes of wood; but thou shalt make for them yokes of iron.
To throw off legitimate authority is to bind on a worse tyranny. Some kind of yoke every one of us must bend our necks to, and if we slip them out we do not thereby become independent, but simply bring upon ourselves a heavier pressure of a harder bondage.

I. WE HAVE THE CHOICE BETWEEN THE YOKE OF LAW AND THE IRON YOKE OF LAWLESSNESS. Even a band of brigands, or a crew of pirates, must have some code. I have read somewhere that the cells in a honeycomb are circles squeezed by the pressure of the adjacent cells into the hexagonal shape which admits of contiguity. If they continued circles, there would be space and material lest, and no complete continuity. So, in like manner, you cannot keep five men together without some mutual limitations which are shaped into a law. Now, as long as a man keeps inside it he does not feel its pressure. A great many of us, for instance, who are in the main law-abiding people, do not ever remember that there is such a thing as restrictions upon our licence, or the obligation to perform certain duties; for we never think either of taking the licence or of shirking the duties. The yoke that is accepted ceases to press. Once let a man step outside, and what then? Why, then, he is an outlaw; and the rough side of the fence is turned outwards, and all possible terrors, which people within the boundary have nothing to do with, gather themselves together and frown down upon him. I need not remind you of how this same thesis — that we have to choose between the yoke of law and the iron yoke of lawlessness — is illustrated in the story of almost all violent revolutions. They run the same course. First the rising up of a nation against intolerable oppression, then revolution devours its own children, and the scum rises to the top of the boiling pot. Then comes, in the language of the picturesque historian of the French Revolution, the type of them all — then comes at the end "the whiff of grapeshot" and the despot. First the government of a mob, and then the tyranny of an emperor comes to the people that shake off the yoke of reasonable law.

II. WE HAVE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN THE YOKE OF VIRTUE AND THE IRON YOKE OF VICE. We are under a far more spiritual and searching law than that written in any statute-book, or administered by any Court. Every man carries within his own heart two things, and two persons; the court, the tribunal, the culprit, and the judge. And here, too, if law be not obeyed, the result is not liberty, but the slavery of lawlessness. A great philosopher once said that the two sublimest things in the universe were the moral law and the starry heavens. And that law "I ought" bends over us like the starry heavens with which he associated it. No man can escape from the pressure of duty, and on every man is laid, by his very make, the twofold obligation, first to look upwards and catch the behests of that solemn law of duty, and then to turn his eyes and his strength inwards and coerce or spur, as the case may be, the powers of his nature, and rule the kingdom within himself. Now, as long as a man lets the ruling parts of his nature guide the lower faculties, he feels comparatively no pressure from the yoke. But if he once allows beggars to ride on horseback whilst princes walk — sense and appetite and desire, and more or less refined forms of inclination to take the place which belongs only to conscience interpreting duty — then he has exchanged the easy yoke for one that is heavy indeed. What does a man do when, instead of loyally accepting the conditions of his nature, and bowing himself to serve the all-embracing law of duty, he sets up inclination of any sort in its place? What does he do? I will tell you. He unships the helm; he pitches compass and sextant overboard; he fires up the furnaces, and screws down the safety-valve, and says, "Go ahead!" And what will be the end of that, think you! Either an explosion or a crash upon a reef! and you may take your choice of which is the better kind of death — to be blown up or to go down.

III. WE HAVE THE CHOICE BETWEEN THE YOKE OF CHRIST AND THE IRON YOKE OF GODLESSNESS. If you do not take Christ for your Teacher you are handed over either to the uncertainty of your own doubts or to pinning your faith to some man and enrolling yourself as a disciple who is prepared to swallow down whole whatsoever the rabbi may say, giving to him what you will not give to Jesus; or else you will sink back into utter indolence and carelessness about the whole matter; or else you will go and put your belief and your soul into the hands of a priest; or shut your eyes and open your mouth and take whatever" tradition may choose to send you. The one refuge from all these, as I believe, is to go to Him and learn of Him, and take His yoke upon your shoulders. But, let me say further, it is better to obey Christ's commandments than to set ourselves against them. For if we will take His will for our law, and meekly assume the yoke of loyal and loving obedience to Him, the door into an earthly paradise is thrown open to us. His yoke is easy, not because its prescriptions and provisions lower the standard of righteousness and morality, but because love becomes the motive, and it is always blessed to do that which the Beloved desires. When "I will" and "I ought" cover exactly the same ground, then there is no kind of pressure from the yoke. Christ's yoke is easy because, too, He gives the power to obey His commandments.

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

I. MEN MUST WEAR SOME YOKE. In every stage of life — childhood, youth, manhood; and in every station of life — servants, masters, &c.

1. God has made and sustains us, and asks that we submit to His will

2. With our passions and propensities, if we break the yoke it is meet we should wear, and do not serve God, we at once bend our necks to another yoke and serve slavishly our own selves.

II. CHRIST'S YOKE IS AN EASY ONE TO WEAR.

1. The yoke of Christ is a right one. Serve Jesus Christ, and it is found that the Christian law is perfection itself.

2. The yoke of Christ is framed in our interest. To believe in Christ is the highest wisdom; to repent of sin is the most delightful necessity; to follow after holiness is the most blissful pursuit; to become a servant of Christ is to be made a king and priest unto God.

3. Christ s yoke is not exacting. He, in His grace, always gives us of His bounty when He asks of us our duty.

4. It is an easy yoke. Never did a man wear it but he always loved to wear it.

5. The bright example of Christ makes the yoke pleasant to bear. He Himself has carried the very yoke we bear, and we have blessed fellowship with Him in this.

6. All who have borne Christ's yoke have had grace given equal to the weight of the burden. Wolsey regretted that he had not "served God with half the zeal he had served his king," but none has ever bewailed the zeal with which he followed Christ!

7. Christians who have borne this yoke always desire to get their children into it. Often men say, "I do not want my sons to follow my trade, it is wearying, its pay is small," &c.

III. THOSE WHO REFUSE CHRIST'S EASY YOKE WILL HAVE TO WEAR A WORSE ONE.

1. Turning from the right road, from the cry of rectitude, because it threatens shame or loss, will entail vaster after-losses.

2. Backsliders, by putting off the yoke of Christianity, have not improved their condition.

3. They who refuse the Bible and follow tradition, Do these perverts of the true Christian religion get an easier yoke? No.; there are penances and mortifications, &c,

4. The self-righteous who attempt to work their own way to heaven. Self-righteousness is an iron yoke indeed.

5. Unbelievers, who will not believe the simple revelation of God, presently find themselves committed to systematic misbeliefs, which distract reason, oppress the heart, and trammel the conscience.

6. Lovers of pleasure. Pleasure often means lust, and gaiety means crime; and self-indulgence brings beggary and degradation, In the last tremendous day of Christ's coming to judgment, the Christian's yoke will be as a chain of gold about his neck; but sin, pleasure, will be as an iron yoke, a burden of enslaving woe.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

People
Azur, Azzur, Gibeon, Hananiah, Jeconiah, Jehoiachin, Jehoiakim, Jeremiah, Nebuchadnezzar, Zedekiah
Places
Babylon, Gibeon
Topics
Addition, Animals, Armies, Babylon, Beast, Beasts, Control, Field, Hosts, Iron, Making, Nations, Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnez'zar, Neck, Necks, Says, Servants, Serve, Served, Servitude, Thus, Wild, Yoke
Outline
1. Hananiah prophesies falsely the return of the vessels, and of Jeconiah
3. and there continue until the day of visitation.
5. Jeremiah, wishing it to be true, shows that the event will declare the true prophets.
10. Hananiah breaks Jeremiah's yoke.
12. Jeremiah tells of an iron yoke;
15. and foretells Hananiah's death.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Jeremiah 28:8-17

     1424   predictions

Jeremiah 28:10-14

     4696   yoke

Jeremiah 28:13-14

     4336   iron

Library
Yokes of Wood and Iron
'Go and tell Hananiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord; Thou hast broken the yokes of wood; but thou shalt make for them yokes of iron.'--JER. xxviii. 13. I suppose that I had better begin by a word of explanation as to the occasion of this saying. One king of Judah had already been carried off to Babylon, and the throne refilled by his brother, a puppet of the conquerors. This shadow of a king, with the bulk of the nation, was eager for revolt. Jeremiah had almost single-handed to stem the tide of
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Two Yokes
With this, by way of preliminary observation, we will now come to the text, and endeavor to make some use of it for ourselves. Hananiah took off the symbolic yoke, the wooden yoke, from Jeremiah's neck and broke it. Jeremiah comes again, and says, "You have broken the yoke of wood, but God has commanded that ye shall now wear yokes of iron." They were not benefited, therefore, by the change, but the reverse. This is suggestive of a broad principle. From the symbol, which was applicable in one case,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 18: 1872

Meditations of the Misery of a Man not Reconciled to God in Christ.
O wretched Man! where shall I begin to describe thine endless misery, who art condemned as soon as conceived; and adjudged to eternal death, before thou wast born to a temporal life? A beginning indeed, I find, but no end of thy miseries. For when Adam and Eve, being created after God's own image, and placed in Paradise, that they and their posterity might live in a blessed state of life immortal, having dominion over all earthly creatures, and only restrained from the fruit of one tree, as a sign
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Jeremiah
The interest of the book of Jeremiah is unique. On the one hand, it is our most reliable and elaborate source for the long period of history which it covers; on the other, it presents us with prophecy in its most intensely human phase, manifesting itself through a strangely attractive personality that was subject to like doubts and passions with ourselves. At his call, in 626 B.C., he was young and inexperienced, i. 6, so that he cannot have been born earlier than 650. The political and religious
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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