“1 After Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah and the officials, the craftsmen and the artisans of Judah were carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the Lord. 2 One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early; the other basket had very poor figs, so bad they could not be eaten.
3 Then the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” “Figs,” I answered. “The good ones are very good, but the poor ones are so bad they cannot be eaten.”
4 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 5 “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians. 6 My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. 7 I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.
8 ‘“But like the poor figs, which are so bad they cannot be eaten,” says the Lord, ‘so will I deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials and the survivors from Jerusalem, whether they remain in this land or live in Egypt. 9 I will make them abhorrent and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword, an object of ridicule and cursing, wherever I banish them. 10 I will send the sword, famine and plague against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their fathers.”’”
Growing up I assumed that everyone whom I loved, loved God. As I got older, I realized that this wasn’t the case.
Growing up I assumed that a man was a Christian provided he didn’t actively reject Jesus. As I read the Bible, it became clear to me that not actively rejecting Jesus is not the same as following him.
Growing up I assumed that everyone with any connection to church was saved. When I spoke with someone on an airplane or bus and they told me they were part of a church, I breathed a sigh of relief. As I read the Bible, it became clear that it is very possible to be part of God’s visible people without having a new heart. You saw that if you read Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
It was painful to correct each of those assumptions because with each correction I realized that the number of the saved was smaller than I had thought. When I assumed that everyone whom I loved was a Christian, I didn’t have the sorrow that’s familiar to so many of us. When I assumed that everyone who hadn’t actively rejected Jesus was a follower of Jesus, I could believe that this was a Christian nation. When I assumed that everyone who was connected with church was born again, all that was needed was to get people into the church.
These assumptions were corrected by the continual divisions among people in Scripture. There is a division shortly after the beginning between the sons of Seth and the sons of Cain. The sons of Seth called upon the Lord. The sons of Cain didn’t. There is a division between the children of Abraham—Ishmael and Isaac. There is a division between the children of Isaac—Jacob and Esau. Not all children of the flesh are children of the promise. There is division within the visible people of God between the faithful and the faithless during the wilderness wanderings, between the covenant-keepers and the covenant-breakers during the united and divided monarchy, and between the born again in Israel and the dead in their sins in Israel during the ministry of Jesus.
We are going to be thinking of one such division in Scripture this evening. It has to do with the exile. All these divisions show us that not all of God’s people are God’s people. The call to each of us to make sure that we genuinely part of God’s people. That’s the claim of this sermon: not all of God’s people are God’s people. Make sure you are a real one.
We will study this in three points. First: the vision. Second: the good figs. Third: the bad figs. We see the vision in verses 1-3, the good figs in verses 4-7, and the bad figs in verses 8-10.
First: the vision. This vision came after a tremendous humiliation. It came, as verse 1 puts it, “After Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah and the officials, the craftsmen and the artisans of Judah were carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.”
It’s hard to overstate how devastating this would have been. This would be like seeing the Chinese flag fly over every flagpole in our nation’s capital. Babylon took the officials essentially cutting the head off Judah’s government. They took the craftsmen and artisans, essentially cutting the head off business and industry. The Babylonians took the people who were useful to them, and these were, of course, the people who were most useful to Judah.
The people who remained were obviously concerned. The temple prophets predicted a quick return for these exiles. We won’t study this but Jeremiah 28 is about Hananiah prophesying that everything and everyone would return from Babylon within two years.
That just shows how badly everyone wanted everything to return to normal.
Everything would not return to normal. Nothing would return to normal. The Lord’s word on what would happen because of the exile takes up most of the rest of the book of Jeremiah. Our study this evening is just one of those messages and has to do with a division among the people. The Lord gave this message to Jeremiah by means of figs; verse 1, “the Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the Lord.”
We don’t know if this was only a vision or if Jeremiah was just walking and saw two baskets of figs at the temple and the Lord spoke to him about what he saw. The people did leave baskets of produce on the temple steps. These were their first-fruit offerings which were presented at Pentecost. The priest would examine these offerings to see if which were acceptable. Many people would bring their best to the Lord, but some would bring what they would never eat. You see this in Malachi when the people brought the lame and diseased animals as offerings. “We can’t use them; just give them to God.” That still happens in many forms today too.
This distinction between acceptable offerings and unacceptable offerings is the point of these figs; verse 2, “One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early; the other basket had very poor figs, so bad they could not be eaten.” Figs that ripen early were considered a delicacy. This evening for the potluck we brought some Fig Newtons in case you want to try figs in some form. They are sweet; they would have seemed much sweeter to the Israelites who didn’t have cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup. The second basket was full of figs that were so bad that they couldn’t be eaten. God would accept one of the baskets. He wouldn’t accept the other. That’s the point of these figs.
We see the figs He would accept in our second point: the good figs. Now while the exiles to Babylon were many of the most productive members of society, it’s easy to see how society would have labeled them as rejected by God. They, after all, had been sent away into exile.
It’s natural that those who remained wanted to find some fault with the exiles to explain their suffering. They probably thought that the elites finally received what was coming to them.
It’s natural that many who were left in Judah hoped that God’s wrath was uniquely on those exiles because that would mean that this was the end of the trouble. Now that the rot was cut out, the whole could heal, so to speak.
God’s word on the matter was completely different. He didn’t consider either group—the exiles or those who remained—to be morally superior. He knew that both groups wanted nothing to do with Him. His declaration of the exiles as good figs had nothing to do with them. It had to do with His gracious choosing. That’s election.
God chose the exiles; verse 5, “Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians.” The Lord chose them rather than those who remained in Judah just as He chose Jacob rather than Esau. God didn’t choose Jacob because Jacob was better than Esau. He chose Jacob because He chose Jacob.
That’s how it works with election. People aren’t chosen because they are good. They are chosen because God chose them. That’s Deuteronomy 9:6, “it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.” That’s Ephesians 2:8-9, “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
The message of God choosing the exiles doesn’t tell you much about the exiles. It tells you something about God. It tells you that God is merciful. Rather than rejecting everyone who had rejected Him, He chose to continue to be show His favor to some of those who had rejected Him. That is the way you must think of election. God has never rejected anyone who wanted to obey Him. Rather the only people who want to obey Him are those who have been chosen to do so. This isn’t about God casting living souls into hell against their will. This is about God putting the will to live into some dead souls.
God’s expression of favor to the exiles makes a distinction. Just as I realized there was a distinction among my loved ones, among those who knew about Jesus, and within the church, so here we see a distinction between these good figs and the bad figs. God’s favor was on the exiles. It was not on those who remained.
This favor was expressed in different ways. It was expressed in terms of God’s presence; verse 6, “My eyes will watch over them for their good.” God hadn’t abandoned the exiles. He would go with them. This is pictured in Ezekiel in terms of the glory cloud leaving the temple and heading to Babylon.
This favor is expressed in terms of return; verse 6, “I will bring them back to this land.” Geopolitical realities didn’t determine what would happen to this vulnerable group of exiles. The Lord would determine what would happen, and He would bring them back to the promised land just as He had promised to do in Deuteronomy. This is about God keeping His promises. That is the only hope any of sinners have. Our hope has nothing to do with us and everything to do with Him.
This favor is expressed in terms of building up and tearing down; verse 6, “I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them.” As we’ve seen, this is a major theme of the book of Jeremiah. The prophet was appointed to announce the building up and tearing down of nations, the planting and uprooting of nations. The exiles would be built up even though it looked that they had been torn down. They would be planted even though it looked like they were uprooted. It was the Lord who would determine what happened to these people. The question before us is always, “what is the Lord doing?” even though that’s often the last question we ask.
This favor is expressed in terms of the heart; verse 7, “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord.” As we’ve seen in this study of Jeremiah, the problem with the people is that they didn’t have circumcised hearts. That’s why they kept the externals without any real obedience. They wouldn’t obey God because they didn’t want to obey God.
Jeremiah had hoped that the people would come to obey the Lord and avoid exile. Here God says that new hearts comes with exile. To put it formulaically, Jeremiah wanted to people to receive A in order to avoid B—receive new hearts in order to avoid the exile. God makes clear that B is part of the way to A. The exile is part of the way to a new heart. God’s ways were not like Jeremiah’s ways. Sometimes the way the Lord takes people to what they truly need is by roads we would never want for them.
The Lord’s favor on the exiles is expressed in terms of covenant; verse 7, “They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.” This is classic covenant language. The message to these exiles was that the exile was not the end of their relationship with God.
The exile was not a sign that the Lord had given up on His people. These most unlikely of people—those He had sent away—were the very ones with whom the relationship would continue. The Bible is a very surprising book. God’s choices of people are very surprising, which is another way of saying that grace is very surprising.
This is all about God’s choice. That’s how it works throughout all Scripture. That’s what you see with Jesus. He never tells his disciples, “Thanks for taking a risk on me guys. You are pretty special people for choosing to follow me.” He says, “you didn’t choose me. I chose you.” It’s a wonderful thing to be chosen by God but being chosen doesn’t say anything wonderful about us.
That’s those who were chosen. Now we consider those who weren’t chosen. That’s our second point: the bad figs. The good figs were those who went into exile. The bad figs were those who remained in Jerusalem; verse 8, ‘“But like the poor figs, which are so bad they cannot be eaten,” says the Lord, “so will I deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials and the survivors from Jerusalem, whether they remain in this land or live in Egypt.”
The message here is not that these people become bad figs. The message is that they remained bad figs. Don’t imagine these bad figs were covenant keepers who were suddenly cursed.
The people who remained demonstrated that they were bad figs. As Jack Lundbom put it, “Those who remain in Jerusalem were, almost without exception, hostile to Jeremiah.” If you think Jeremiah’s ministry has been difficult to this point, prepare for it to get much worse. “If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses?” as the Lord put it to Jeremiah. They weren’t simply fated to be bad figs. They chose it and God chose it. That’s how it works.
What’s interesting is that these people who remained seemed to have it easier in the short run. They didn’t have to go into exile. However, in the long run, they had it much worse; verse 9, “I will make them abhorrent and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword, an object of ridicule and cursing, wherever I banish them.”
This is the opposite of the promise to Abraham that he would be a blessing and that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through him. This was a way of saying that these people were no longer God’s people, and they were no longer God’s people because they weren’t really God’s people. They didn’t have a heart to know Him.
This rejection is explained in terms of the covenant in verse 10, “I will send the sword, famine and plague against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their fathers.”’ Sword, famine, and plague are shorthand for covenant curses. Being destroyed from the land is about being cut off from the covenant.
Those who were forced to leave the Lord’s land in exile returned to both the Lord and the land. Those who weren’t forced to leave the land never returned to the Lord and so were cut off from the land.
The Lord made a distinction among His people. That is the story here. That’s part of the story of the people of God. As Paul put it reflecting upon the people of God, “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” Paul wrote those words explaining why so few of the people who said they were waiting for the Messiah recognized Jesus as the Messiah. Paul recognized that he had only recognized Jesus as the Messiah because of God’s grace. That’s election and true inclusion in God’s people. That’s how it works.
When you read this story about the figs, you are to recognize that, “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” When you listen to Jesus’ parables, you are to recognize that “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” The point of Jesus’ parables was to get descendants of Israel to ask themselves if they really were Israel. That’s the point of a fair bit of preaching and teaching today. The question is, do you truly belong to God?
The point of sermons like this is to get God’s visible people to ask themselves if they would, in the language of Jeremiah 24, be good figs or bad figs. The way you know that you are among the good figs is a recognition of grace. You realize that you are part of God’s people not because of anything that has to do with you or your upbringing or your temperament. You realize that you are part of God’s people because God chose you. You recognize that you are only part of God’s people because of grace. That’s the only explanation for the good figs. That’s the only explanation for God’s people period. Amen.