Men’s Bible Study – Jeremiah 6

A Tester of Metals

Gone with the pretense of pleading with His people for repentance, God is headed all-out for destruction of Jerusalem. The faithful–ones who hear Jeremiah’s message–are asked to flee from the city and sound the alarm (v. 1). (“Raise the signal over Beth Hakkerem!” Beth Hakkerem, according to the Archeological Study Bible, is identified as Ramat Rahel, “a fire-signal point 2 miles south of Jerusalem” (p. 1195). This calls up the image of the signal fires near the end of the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King where a sequence of fires is used for communication across great distances.)

Jeremiah laments over the fact that his warning will fall on deaf ears. “The word of the LORD is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it,” (v. 10). Oh, that times would have changed. Today, the words of the Lord are just as offensive to most people in America. Public prayer and Bible education are all but eradicated today, and the very people who accuse Christians of being “intolerant” refuse to tolerate a prayer or a lesson from the Bible. Paul encountered this very atmosphere when establishing the church in Corinth. He writes to them, “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,” (1 Corinthians 1:22-23). The “gentiles” of the modern era equally see the power of a crucified savior as foolishness, and are setting the stage for the fall of a modern-day Jerusalem.

God compares his people to silver ore and calls Jeremiah to be a “tester of metals,” (v. 27). The silver ore, He says, has been corrupted with bronze and iron, which do not slough off when put through the fire. Because you cannot get rid of the imperfections in the ore, the silver is then rejected; for no matter how many times you try to refine it, the corruption can not be “purged” (v. 30). The people of this time were most likely very familiar with the process of refining silver, as the Chaldeans are attributed with developing the first sophisticated refining process of extracting silver from silver-lead ores (The Silver Institute). The area between the Tigris and Euphrates is apparently very rich in silver ores; these Chaldeans (also known as the Neo-Babylonian empire) are the very people that God is describing as descending from the North to destroy Jerusalem.

Key Verse: Jeremiah 6:27 – “I have made you a tester of metals and my people the ore, that you may observe and test their ways.” (NIV)

Application for Men: Our job is far easier than that of Jeremiah. While he was charged with testing the metal of all of God’s people in Jerusalem, we have but one metal to test–our own. Our faith, refined by the fire of our trials and temptations, must be presented to God without blemish. But how do we do that, when we just learned that these imperfections remain in the ore even through subsequent refining? We must add a purifying compound. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can remove the imperfections from our faith, so that we may be wholly blameless in God’s eyes. All Christians, therefore, must be put through the fires of life to test that metal. These trials, according to the author of 1 Peter, “have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed,” (1 Peter 1:7).

Discussion Questions:

1. Describe the difference between “testing the metal” of others and testing your own. Which is easier and why?
2. What discourse do we have today with those whose “ears are closed so they cannot hear”? How is that different from the Jerusalem of Jeremiah’s time?
3. What are the imperfections in your faith? How can you address those imperfections to ensure they are covered by the grace of Christ?

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Tags: Faith