For years I have read through the Bible during my devotional time. I usually read aloud, creating new pronunciations for people and places as I go. This year, the beauty of prophetic prose moved me as never before—Isaiah, then Jeremiah, then Lamentations. I noticed the great benefit the reader can derive when he reads from Genesis to Revelation: he is able to see the panorama of God's work first with Israel, and later with the church. In the Old Testament, He issues a simple directive: obey. Later in the Old Testament, the Jewish state split into northern Israel and southern Judah. After many years, Israel is destroyed, leaving only Judah. When Judah's last good king, Josiah, dies, the destruction of the independent Jewish state was inevitable.
Yet here is the beauty of the prophets. Through Isaiah and Jeremiah, Jehovah repeatedly called the people simply to obey. God’s patience here is almost exhausting; herein He manifested vast mercy, but it would temporarily expire. Babylon would surround Jerusalem for nearly two years (Jeremiah 52:4-5), starving the city to the point of cannibalism (Jeremiah 19:9). When the city was taken, the houses were burned and the walls leveled (Jeremiah 52:13,14), and the temple that David's son built was destroyed.
Jeremiah, moved by the Holy Spirit, writes the book of Lamentations in response. In chapter three I rediscovered some of the more beautiful, hopeful language in all of Scripture. The verses were familiar and comfortable. Then I read verse 31, “For the Lord will not forsake forever,” and my warm spiritual complacency was immediately pierced by that double-edged Sword of Swords. In the days following, the Holy Spirit prompted my mind and heart with these grateful conclusions concerning those words.
"For the Lord”
Jehovah had allowed the destruction of Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians had not exacted this punishment of their own will and power. At no moment had God ceded control of the situation. He was not one of the gods of the other nations. He has eyes and sees, He has a mouth and speaks, though His people were not wont to listen and obey. Though the destruction of Jerusalem and deportation of the Jews brought Jeremiah anguish, he knew for certain that all things were under the control of the same merciful, patient, eternal God. Beneath the hands of the cruel foreigners were the hands of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
"Will Not”
Jeremiah understood the nature and character of God. His promises were true. Everything He had said would occur had happened. Despite Jeremiah’s soul-crushing despair, he knew that God had not fully left His people. The Babylonian army was large and powerful, but no power on earth could reverse or prevent God's assurance that one day Israel would return to the land.
“Cast off”
However, God had indeed cast off Israel and Jerusalem for a time. Satan tries to persuade us that we will never be called to account for our sin, or that we will not see the consequences personally, as Hezekiah contemplated in Isaiah 39:8. Many in Judah believed that God would not destroy Jerusalem because the temple was there. In the end, though, just as God destroyed the wicked Canaanites before Joshua, so He destroyed Israel, Judah, Jerusalem, the temple, and the throne because of the wickedness of His people. Years later, Paul echoed this sentiment as he exhorted the church, "For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee" (Romans 11:21). The Lord God is seeking obedient people. Be assured: if He did not spare Israel, He will not spare America.
“Forever"
Jeremiah prophesied that the people would return to the land after seventy years. Despite that, there would be no independent Jewish nation for more than two millennia. Yet, as the patience of God was temporary, His punishment was also temporary. Indeed, some of the exiled Jews lived through all 70 years, having seen both Solomon's temple and the second temple built by the returners (Ezra 3:12). Despite Israel’s past and yet future sin, the omniscient God poured out His mercy upon His people, restoring them for a time. He could see that the Word would become flesh and dwell among them, and that they would hang Him on the tree. Yet He could also see, as prophesied by Zechariah, that moment at the end of the Great Tribulation:
"Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of the mountain shall remove toward the south" (Zechariah 14:3-4).
"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon 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, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn" (Zechariah 12:10).
"And so all Israel shall be saved, as it is written, ‘There shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins’" (Romans 11:26-27).
The Jewish people never received the full punishment of their sins. But neither have we. As Jeremiah viewed the utterly devastated City of David, could he have imagined that hundreds of years later another Son of David, Jesus the Messiah, would die for the sins not only of his people but also of the whole world? That outside the city where Solomon's temple once stood, Christ the High Priest would rend that curtain separating the Holy Place and most Holy Place?
"For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope" (Romans 15:4).
The above article was written by Ben Reed. He is member of NorthStone Baptist Church in Pensacola, FL. To offer him your feedback, comment below or email us at strengthforlife461@gmail.com.
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