Tag Archives: Self Worship

Day 79: God’s People and God’s Land

Jeremiah 16:14-21

“Therefore behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that it will no more be said, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;’ but, ‘As Yahweh lives, who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had driven them.’ I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers.

“Behold, I will send for many fishermen,” says Yahweh, “and they will fish them up. Afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, from every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face. Their iniquity isn’t concealed from my eyes. First I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable things, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”

Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold,
and my refuge in the day of affliction,
the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth,
and will say,
“Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies,
vanity and things in which there is no profit.
Should a man make to himself gods
which yet are no gods?”

“Therefore behold, I will cause them to know,
this once I will cause them to know my hand and my might.
Then they will know that my name is Yahweh.”

As we have seen in other warnings against the Israel, God tells Jeremiah that someday in the future, God will gather Israel back into their land. We know that this happened after the Babylonian captivity because we read about it in Ezra and Nehemiah, but was this really what is being predicted here?

Remember that the return to Israel and Jerusalem back in Nehemiah’s time was only a partial return. Not all of the people were there. In fact, there were many who were still living in Babylon. This passage says that a time is coming when they will come from all over and return. It mentions fishermen who will “fish them up.” In other words, there will be those who purposefully seek out the Jews to bring them back to their land from all over the world. There isn’t any evidence that this happened in Ezra’s time.

If we fast-forward to today, I think we have the same problem. There are many Jews that have gone back to Israel recently from all over the world and I understand that this time there are officials in Israel that are trying to find them around the world, but is this the fulfillment of this prophesy? I don’t think so.

There are still many Jews that are spread out across the world. What we see today may be a shadow of what is to come, but, as in the days of Ezra, I don’t think it is complete. Notice that the last part of this passage mentions the comments of “nations” that come to God. I believe that this is the critical missing piece of the prophesy. God expects the nations of the earth to promote Israel in that day and I believe that the Bible is teaching us that they will be involved in finding the Jews and putting them back in Israel. At that point, I believe it will be known across the world, that the Jewish people were brought out of all the nations by God just as they were brought out from Egypt in the past. The whole earth is to go through great trouble and plagues just like Egypt and after that is over, all will agree that the Jews and their land belong to God alone.

Day 78
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Day 80

Day 78: Having It Their Own Way

Jeremiah 16:8-13

“You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and to drink.” For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. It will happen, when you tell this people all these words, and they ask you, ‘Why has Yahweh pronounced all this great evil against us?’ or ‘What is our iniquity? or ‘What is our sin that we have committed against Yahweh our God?’ then you shall tell them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me,’ says Yahweh, ‘and have walked after other gods, have served them, have worshiped them, have forsaken me, and have not kept my law. You have done evil more than your fathers, for behold, you each walk after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that you don’t listen to me. Therefore I will cast you out of this land into the land that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

Here we read that Jeremiah was not only to avoid funerals, he wasn’t allowed to attend parties and weddings. Once again, God was using the physical behavior of His prophet to illustrate the reality of His words. Jeremiah was to tell them that this is because this generation of people would witness the end of parties and weddings in their culture.

God anticipated that the people would ask: “Why?” God tells them that it’s not only because their fathers worshiped gods, but that they have made it worse by walking after the stubbornness of their own evil hearts and refusing to listen. This shows us something about mankind. These people were stubbornly doing whatever they wanted to do against God while calling God: “Yahweh our God.” They thought that if they just called themselves people of God, then that is what they were. Isn’t that what we have today as well. People call themselves “Christians” even though they stubbornly refuse to obey what the Bible says about Christians. Instead they walk after their own evil hearts without listening.

When mankind is stubborn and refuses to listen to God’s way, He gives them over to their own. This is a very clear pattern in the Bible and it is emphasized in the New Testament. In this case, God was going to send Israel into captivity in Babylon and they were going to have their full of gods there, but the one true God was going to leave them. I want to make it clear that this is a general statement. We know from the book of Daniel that it wasn’t an exhaustive statement. There were at least four Israelis that refused to follow the Babylonian ways while in captivity and were protected by God.

This same thing is happening to cultures today. It appears to be happening to the United States even now. Here’s what it says in Romans one:

Romans 1:21-26

Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and traded the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, four-footed animals, and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves; who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature.

Day 77
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Day 79