When God had a message for the people, He spoke to them through prophets: men moved by the Holy Spirit to speak God’s words. Jeremiah is the second of the Major Prophets. To build and to plant.” -God, to Jeremiah ( Je 1:10) “See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, But if they disobey, God will bring the Babylonians against the Egyptians, and the Jews will perish when Egypt is conquered. They will live in peace under Babylonian rule, and God Himself will have compassion on them. They ask Jeremiah what the Lord would have them do, and He promises them that if they stay in the land of Israel they will flourish. A neighboring nation assassinates the governor, and the Jews are left with two options: They also release Jeremiah from prison and tell him to live a happy life.īut it doesn’t end there. The Babylonians set up a new governor over the area and go back to their land. Jeremiah endures mockery, imprisonment, kidnapping, and death threats from the people he desperately tries to help.īut God’s word comes true: Nebuchadnezzar defeats the Jews, and carries off the royal family. The false prophets tell everyone that God is with His people Jeremiah tells everyone that God is on the enemy’s side. You can imagine which message is more popular. That’s especially difficult for Jeremiah, because while the false prophets preach peace, safety, and victory over Babylon, Jeremiah insists that the Babylonians will destroy everything. He is, for the most part, the only prophet of God in the land: everyone else who claims to have a word from the Lord is a fake. Jeremiah ministers to the Jews for about 40 years, and his career is a sad one. Click the image to learn more about the authors of the Bible. That prophet is a young man named Jeremiah.Ī portrait of Jeremiah. The Babylonians will destroy the city, raze the holy temple, and carry the Jews away.īut even as the Lord plans Jerusalem’s destruction, He sends his people a prophet to warn, challenge, and comfort them. God promised to exile His people from their land if they turned from Him, and now Jerusalem’s time has come. Once in a while, a king, a descendant of David, would turn the people back to God, but the other kings led the people into all kinds of disobedience. They worshiped other gods, perverted justice in the land, and ignored His laws. The nation was known by God’s name: the surrounding nations had heard of the wonders Israel’s God had worked for them in Egypt, in the wilderness, and in their own land. Israel’s God was a great God, and His throne was in Jerusalem. The temple of the Lord had stood in Jerusalem for more than 300 years. In that great day, says Paul, "all Israel shall be saved" ( Romans 11:26).The icon representing the book of Jeremiah. the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him" ( Zechariah 12:10). At that time, He says: "I will pour upon. Zechariah 12 also shows that it will indeed be solved "in that day"-the day when Christ returns. The problem of Israel and Jerusalem is apparently intractable to the other nations of the world and so must be resolved by God. The city of Jerusalem itself, just since the time of Christ, has been controlled at various times by the Romans, Syrians, Arabs, Crusaders, Egyptians, Persians, and Turks but never again by the Jews until our own generation. In accord with biblical prophecy, she had "become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee" ( Deuteronomy 28:37). For 1,800 years, "the wandering Jew" had no true home, yet survived. The whole Muslim world insists that Israel be destroyed as a nation, but Israel is determined to maintain her present boundaries. Israel has indeed become a unique burden to the nations. It has, as God prophesied, become a "burdensome stone for all people." Most of the contemporary nations at the time-Elam, Chaldea, the Hittite empire, and others-have long been extinct as nations, but Israel is alive and well, and is in fact the very hub of international concern. It began almost 4,000 years ago with the family of Jacob (or Israel) and his twelve sons. The tiny land of Israel is an amazing phenomenon, explainable only in biblical terms. "And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it." ( Zechariah 12:3)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |