Jeremiah 26
They siezed Jeremiah. The priest and prophets said to the officials and the people, “This man deserves the death sentence because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears. They planned to do to Jeremiah as they would do to Jesus.
Jeremiah said, “correct your ways and deeds, and obey the Lord your God so that he might relent” They did not!
Jesus the chief cornerstone – the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.
Matthew 21:43-44 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit. 44 Whoever falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will shatter him.
Jeremiah 27-28
Prophets had been prophesying against what God had said. The Lord said, “I have placed all these lands under the authority of King Nebuchadnezzar.” These false prophets were saying that the King of Babylon would be broken, do not submit to this King and the invading army. But Jeremiah again says, So you should not listen to your prophets, diviners, dreamers, fortune-tellers, or sorcerers who say to you, ‘Don’t serve the king of Babylon!’ 10 They are prophesying a lie to you so that you will be removed from your land. I will banish you, and you will perish. 11 But as for the nation that will put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will leave it in its own land, and that nation will cultivate it and reside in it. This is the Lord’s declaration.”
Why would God tell them to submit? Because if they do not they will be completely destroyed. If they submit and agree to serve the invading King they will live and the people will stay in their homelands, and some (leaders and the royal house) ‘They will be taken to Babylon and will remain there until I attend to them again.’ This is the Lord’s declaration. ‘Then I will bring them up and restore them to this place.’” The Lord will protect and restore!!
Too often we think we know what is best.
We think we know what is happening.
Do not listen to that prophet’s words or to that dreamer. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. 4 You must follow the Lord your God and fear him. You must keep his commands and listen to him; you must worship him and remain faithful to him.
Deuteronomy 13:3-4
Jeremiah 29
10 For this is what the Lord says: “When seventy years for Babylon are complete, I will attend to you and will confirm my promise concerning you to restore you to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. 12 You will call to me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and places where I banished you”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “I will restore you to the place from which I deported you.”
Jeremiah 30-31
We’ve finally made a turn around in Jeremiah.
God declares that He will “break his yoke from your neck
and tear off your chains,
and strangers will never again enslave him.
9 They will serve the Lord their God
and David their king,
whom I will raise up for them.”
…without fail I will save you out of a distant place,
your descendants, from the land of their captivity!
God will not leave them exiles but will gather them home.
Here we also see that the Lord declares the problem:
“Your injury is incurable;
your wound most severe.
13 You have no defender for your case.
There is no remedy for your sores,
and no healing for you.
14 All your lovers have forgotten you;
they no longer look for you,
for I have struck you as an enemy would,
with the discipline of someone cruel,
because of your enormous guilt
and your innumerable sins.”
And the Lord pronouces the cure:
“Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt—my covenant that they broke even though I am their master”—the Lord’s declaration. 33 “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them”—this is the Lord’s declaration.
“For I will forgive their iniquity and
never again remember their sin.
Jeremiah 31:34b
Jeremiah prophesies of the coming of Jesus.
Thank you Lord!
Jeremiah 32
It is the 18th year of King Nebuchadnezzar.
He is beseiging Jerusalem.
Jeremiah is imprisioned when the Lord speaks to him about his cousin coming and saying, “Buy my field.” Then his cousin shows up where he is and asks him, “Buy my field.” So he did for 17 peices of silver. He put the scrolls of the purchase agreement in a jar and gave it to Baruch for keeping.
This was a prophetic picture of how they would be taken away into captivity but God would bring them back to buy land and plant. Jeremiah prays saying, “Oh, Lord God! You yourself made the heavens and earth by your great power and with your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for you! You show faithful love to thousands but lay the fathers’ iniquity on their sons’ laps after them, great and mighty God whose name is the Lord of Armies, the one great in counsel and powerful in action. Your eyes are on all the ways of the children of men in order to reward each person according to his ways and as the result of his actions.
Then the Lord said, “Look, I am the Lord, the God over every creature. Is anything too difficult for me?” The Lord speak of how the people “have turned their backs to me and not their faces. Though I taught them time and time again, they do not listen and receive discipline.” How they have “built the high places of Baal in Ben Hinnom Valley to sacrifice their sons and daughters in the fire to Molech—something I had not commanded them. I had never entertained the thought that they do this detestable act causing Judah to sin!
They would be punish for this but He says, “I will certainly gather them from all the lands where I have banished them in my anger, fury, and intense wrath, and I will return them to this place and make them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them integrity of heart and action so that they will fear me always, for their good and for the good of their descendants after them.
The Old Covenant promised blessings for obedience and curses (and eventually exile) for disobedience but God would prepare a New Covenant for them. Those who are in Christ have been blessed with every spiritual blessings and adopted into God’s family. Though God disciplines His people when necessary, there is now no condemation. #PraisetheLord
Thanks for listening,
Starla
Sunday2Monday 