Here is the “recap” I sent out today

Ok, the Jews were given the Promise Land hundreds of years ago and they have totally defiled it!  ALL the Jews are worshipping FALSE gods and wooden idols instead of the One True God.  Sooooo he raised up PROPHETS for 300 years telling them TURN BACK TO ME…REPENT! And they did not.  There was even a king names Josiah and his priest found a copy of the Scriptures in the Temple (the temple has been abandoned for years) So Josiah starts a reform! (It was Jeremiah’s father that found the Scriptures for him).  Well the reform did not last too long and now Zedekiah is King.  God basically said “Enough is Enough! I brought you into this Land…I can take you out of it!” And He does!  First  the Assyrians (bad people) will capture the Jews and take them out of the Promise Land,  then the Babylonians (really really bad people) will take them out.  This is called THE CAPTIVITY.  I call it “being deported!  But note that God does this out of LOVE to show them “I am the One True God”…so they will know Him.

 So we have 3 cool characters

1.       Jeremiah.  He is a prophet who will prophesize AND witness the captivity but was never captured himself.

2.      Ezekiel.  A young man in the line of the priesthood that will be captured. He will be given a vision while in captivity to the Babylonians,

3.      Daniel.  Sweet sweet Daniel!  He also is in captivity in Babylon…we will read his version of the captivity in September.

Lamentations is a book of Jeremiah CRYING as he watches the captivity.  Tomorrow we read Ezekiel…the CRAZY good book.  ASK me any questions.  ANY!

 Does that make sense?

Where is the Ark of the Covenant?

So a woman just emailed me “Where is the Ark of the Covenant?” Hmmmm good question isn’t it!  Even Indiana Jones wants to know.  The last we will hear of it till Revelation is in Jeremiah 3.  Scholars believe that when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem in the captivity (586 BC) and plundered the temple, the Ark was either taken by Nebuchadnezzar and destroyed (ohh the thought!) or hidden by the Levites. (I think the latter)  To this day we have no idea and honestly my opinion is IT NEVER WILL.    I think that God has chosen to hide a great many of “evidences” of His existence like the Noah’s Ark, Moses Bones, and the Ark of the Covenant SO THAT we believe by FAITH. 

Anyway, Jeremiah 3:16 says:

“Return, faithless people,” declares the LORD, “for I am your husband. I will choose you—one from a town and two from a clan—and bring you to Zion.  Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding.  In those days, when your numbers have increased greatly in the land,” declares the LORD, “men will no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD.’ It will never enter their minds or be remembered; it will not be missed, nor will another one be made.  At that time they will call Jerusalem The Throne of the LORD, and all nations will gather in Jerusalem to honor the name of the LORD. No longer will they follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts.  In those days the house of Judah will join the house of Israel, and together they will come from a northern land to the land I gave your forefathers as an inheritance.

Do yoiu miss the Ark?  Do you miss the Temple?  Noooooo the presence of the Lord now resides in His Chosen Temple called YOU!

Trivia Sunday

I want YOU to come!!  This week I am playing.  Here is how it is going to go…

• 3:00 Social and Snacks
• 3:30-4:15 Trivia on Jeremiah and a few  other questions
• 4:15-5:00 Trivia on Ezekiel chapter 1-12 only (Penny Baga will be hosting these questions so I can play on a team)

 

It is just a great time of Laughs and fellowship and God gets all the Glory so come!! Bring a friend even just to watch!

Let me know if you care coming!

This Sunday!

Jeremiah 51-52

 Chapter 51: The end of Jeremiah, tempting to skim it off?  Don’t.  You need to underline a few things 🙂  Before Jeremiah tells of the Fall of Jerusalem from his vantage point (we have heard it several times already) he will Prophesize the Fall of Babylon in DETAIL…even to WHO they will fall to.  First, underline   51:7-8.  Jeremiah is warning the people to Leave Babylon when they are released.  Then underline vs.22, the Medes.  The Medes will destroy Babylon in 539 B.C. just as said.  Finally 17-23….Ummm WOW.

Chapter 52: Its’s not redundant, it is IMPORTANT.   THe details of the fall of Jeremiah from another vantage point.  Read it one last time from the “outside” because we are going to start this week reading the Captivity from the “Inside”.   Jeremiah tells of the Captivity from never being captured, Ezekiel and Daniel will tell us what the captivity looks like from the Inside.

In Chapter 52 Underline Verse 6: By the Ninth day of the fourth month the famine in the city…   This is the day on the calendar  in the synagogues that  the book of Lamentations today by the Hebrews.  A reminder of the result of sin in our lives.  A reminder of their captivity.  This marks the day of destruction.

Verse 13 made my heart drop..picturing all the beauty of the temple.  All that David has planned and Solomon had built.  Josiah, a great king, had it restored, and now just as it predicted, it is destroyed by Babylon.

Verse 16…very important.  The remnant people, the ones that Jeremiah chose to stay with and finally Verse 27:

So Judah went into captivity away from her land.

Jeremiah 49-50

How do I read Chapters like this?  I am not going to lie; they are not the most fascinating chapters(for me).  What I do is:  as I read them I circle all the stuff I “get” not that I would never have “gotten” had I not started back from Genesis.  I make a note as to why I understand it because as sharp as my memory is now on remembering: who, what, where, when, and why… I know I will forget!

So here is an example of what I did:

Ch 49 I circled Ammon, and noted they are the birth cousins from Lot to Moab (Gen 19).

Edom (VS 7), from the Esau, Jacob’s brother.  Teman was a city known for its Wisdom and Philosophy, which makes sense since Job’s friend Eliphaz was from there.

Vs 16, the scripture referred to Edom as eagle’s nests, remember from Obadiah the picture of the city built on the side of a red mountain.

Anyway, this is how I creatively get through the not so interesting chapters AND know that when all this escapes my brain, and it will, my homework is done.

Chapter 50 by the way is really important and if you go back and read it in a month it will make a lot more sense.  50:3..A nation from the North will attack Babylon (Medo-Persia WILL attack and conquer Babylon), also when you read these chapters always look for the Remnant spared 🙂

Day 233 Jeremiah 46-48

The last few chapters of Jeremiah are regarding the judgment of other nations.  At this point they think they are completely free from judgment but like Habakkuk said

Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity
       to come on the nation invading us. (Hab 3:16)

The other day we spent a few Chapters of the Fall of Jerusalem.  All that anticipation for a one day read.  It really made me think (I know, dangerous).  The Bible, although known to any who have never read (that was me) it is a book of judgment and wrath, but now that we have read it we see that the Lord spent 99% of the old testament saving his people from the enemy, providing for them, encouraging them, and warning them, I feel he minimized the actual discipline in the Bible because it is not what we should think about when it comes to the Lord.

On the other hand the next 7 chapters are written about God’s judgment on evil people, who have persecuted His people, plundered them, and taught them their pagan and idol worshipping ways.  This leaves us knowing He is our Defender, our Conqueror.  He is a God of Justice.  No one escapes His Perfect Judgment.

Ch 46 Egypt, this goes back to when Egypt fell at the battle of Carchemish in 605 and then was invaded by Nebuchadnezzar in the middle of Jeremiah’s life.  (If you are skimming go back and read 46:27-28)

Ch 47 Philistines (I always think of veggie tales) A foretelling of the destruction of the Philistines to the Babylonian.  This prophecy is noted in many books including Isaiah, Amos, Ezekiel, Zephaniah and Zechariah.

Ch 48 Moab (think back to Genesis 19, Lot having sex with his daughters…started the Moabites)   The Moabites helped Babylon take Judah.   Did they think the Lord would let that slide?

Did the last verse make you think??

Jeremiah 41-45

I found this read to be so good.  I actually read half of it and couldn’t recall what I had read so I put it down, came back to it and the whole thing wowed me.  What we are reading here is about 2 things (for me anyway) Political chaos and continued disobedience. 

First let me point out in case it slipped by you that Jeremiah was FREED.  He also had a decision to make.  He could live in Babylon, and live a very comfortable life, or he could return to the Judeans, who hated him,  and live in misery.  Jeremiah was a vessel for God to speak through to His people.  Jeremiah chose to live among the very people that hated him.  But this would prove that he was not a traitor. 

Gedaliah was appointed governor of the remnant that was left behind.  Well, he was assassinated and this Ishmael guy was clearly mad at everyone.  Ishmael came from the line of David and maybe he felt like he should be in charge.   Without a king and loyalty to God there is anarchy (relate that to a modern application…cool huh) Anyway, 80 men were headed to worship in Jerusalem when Ishmael had them robbed and killed.

Jeremiah 42 is in my top ten favorite chapters.  It really really spoke to me.  (By the way, be thankful none of you are my accountability partner on reads like this…I bug her ALL day breaking these versus down word by word…I drive her nuts)  Anyway first I read verse 3

Pray that the LORD your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do.

and I was like Ohhhh yeah!  I PRAY THAT ALL THE TIME.  Ummmm then the same people who asked for direction and guidance from the Lord, went to Egypt anyway!  It was just soooo much easier.  God was so angry.  Here is the deal: Don’t ask the Lord for answers, guidance or direction in life or circumstances, if you are going to do what you want to do anyway.  Cleary God does not like this.

Finally God never leaves us guessing or scratching our head.  IN Chapter 44 AGAIN, the Lord describes the sins of his people, the countless warnings, the punishment they occurred and then again how He is ignored.  It is like He is saying:  What else can I do?? I love you, I free you, I give you all you need, I forgive you, I warn you, I bring you back each time you call out….and you never Honor me, you worship everything else around you.  What else can I do to make you see I love you! 

Was letting his Son die on the Cross enough Love for you?

Jeremiah 38-40; Psalm 74/79

This is not a skimmer.  So if you skimmed you have to go back and read it over again. ALSO you will read this account from 2 other book writers tomorrow.  We will read the FALL of JERUSALEM in 2 Kings and 2 Chrons tomorrow.

 What you are reading is the Fall of Jerusalem to Babylon exactly as it has been prophesized.  Don’t worry about the names, I just want you to understand the 5 W’s of the Captivity.  SO ask yourself the Who WHat Where When and WHy (and How). And of you cannot answer one of them…SPEAK UP!  Months and Months of Prophecy of the Captivity and the Remnant (underline the remnant in your Bible) all coming true.

Here is a little recap (you can close out for the day if you the read was clear for you but for me….I need a recap)

Jeremiah was thrown into the cistern.  We could sit and talk about the symbolism and application of this imagery all day…I won’t but make sure you have people in your life willing to pull you ou

See Jeremiah was telling the Hebrews, to surrender to the Babylonians…or die.  Zedekiah was king and he was just so spineless.  He wanted to be on Jeremiah’s side but he the officials were too much peer pressure for him.  However, one official went against the grain for sure.  Ebed-Melech.  He risked his job as well as his life rescuing Jeremiah from the cistern. (A man we need to model).

 

Then we read the fall of Jerusalem.  Sad wasn’t it.  Zedekiah rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, who captured him, killed his sons in front of him, blinded him and then took him back to Babylon where he died (Didn’t Jeremiah say that would happen if he made that choice)

 

In chapter 40 Jeremiah was freed,just like the Lord said would happen in the first chapter.  Take a minute to read this part of the first chapter.  This prophecy.  Incredible how detailed and true it all is.

But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.   

  

……..  “Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them.  Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land.  They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.

 

Psalm 74. I related deeply to the psalmist on this one.  I may acknowledge all who God is”It was you” but yet I still ask WHY to things the Lord does (I am glad Habakkuk is coming up) and I don’t understand when things are in His time and timing.

 

Psalm 79.  I know many of you are psalmist at heart (Hi Helen) but what an eye opening experience reading them in the context in which they were written.  I will not read the Bible the same after this, I will never take a scripture solo and not know the scenario it was referring to.  How cool is that.

Jeremiah 35-37

OK.  I just read 35. Ummmm WOW.  The Recabites were nomads with a commitment.  Their forefathers told them  200 years ago not drink wine, never build a home, and never plant a vineyard.  They must live in tents.  And they listened.  Are you getting this? A man told them….and they listened.  God tells us…we ignore.    Their forefather told them once, God has told the Israelites constantly.  The Recabites are going to be rewarded, the Israelites are going to be punished.

Soo many lessons here of obedience and faithfulness here but the idea of God’s children being shamed by Nomads was so sad.  I think of all the false religions in the world that people FAITHFULLY OBEY and we, we have the power of the Holy Spirit to discern right from wrong, that voice inside that makes us rationalize our behavior and we disobey the Lord.  What do they have? John Smith? Muhammad? Oprah? Benedict (Joseph Ratzinger) And yet these people are more dedicated to them than we are for the Lord.  By the way are you aware that in a lot of countries, me even writing that could have me persecuted or killed.  Ever think about that? Sorry…quite the bunny trail there!

Chapter 35 is an amazing Chapter.  It may have spoken to you on so many levels.  Being obedient to “deeds” does not make you faithful to the Lord.  Don’t be fooled by someones actions.  Just because all is right with the Lord on the outside might still mean they are a wandering nomad on the inside.  The Lord does not ask us for Deeds to make us a Christian, we do deeds BECAUSE we are a Christian.

Chapter 36 and 37.  If I were a Pastor I would totally preach on these 2 chapters.  Can you picture Jeremiah is prison, his scribe writes down what the Lord tells Jeremiah to write.  It is then read at the temple, then read to the officials, and then read to the King.  The King has the scroll burned verse by verse, as if that could stifle the Word of the Lord?  Let me put it this way, if people want to take the 10 commandments out of the court architecture, that does not erase God’s commandments for how we are to live.  And then to top it off in Chapter 37, the very people that ignored Jeremiah and aided in burning the scroll are the very ones that say “does the Lord have advice for us right now, because we are under attack”.  Ohhhhhhh you want to ignore the Word of God but you want it in times of trouble, you want the blessing from the Lord? ohhhhhhhh.  (Ouch)

Jeremiah 32-34

The reading seemed long so I will keep this super short today.  Does anyone have any questions?

Jeremiah buys a field, because the Lord told him too.  Seeming ridiculous to all, including himself, but he does it.  IF I had more time today I would get into the whole land law that we learned in Leviticus, but unfortunately I am swamped today.  But know this,

‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants.  Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land. (Lev 25:23-24)

The land is redeemed just like we are redeemed in Christ.  Everything is owned by the Lord, and everything is given an opportunity to come back to him.  This land purchase is a promise that  He will bring His people back, and rebuild and restore His people, just as promised. It may seem impossible to everyone,  the captives, the soldiers, even to Jeremiah, but in verse 26 it ways “Is anything too hard for me?” and in verse 37 is says “I will bring them back to this place and let them live in Safety.  They will be my people and I will be their God”.

Chapter 33.  Awesome chapter.  There HAD to be scriptures that just stood out to you.  Had to be.  I love reading about all the prophecies of the Messiah and what is cool is that I think we can all pick them out now without question.  SO I am sure we all saw this in verse 15 and 16 (go underline them and Write JESUS next to them)

 but the scripture that I just fell on for what I needed today was

“This is what the LORD says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it—the LORD is his name:  ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’

I like this in older version because they say Jehovah “The One True God, The Existing One”  instead of typing Lord.

Chapter 34, this chapter has many many layers to it.  We could be cross referencing this one for days from Genesis to Revelations but for today’s purpose I will just stick with history.  This chapter describes the fulfilment of many of Jeremiah’s predictions.  Babylon had laid siege on Jerusalem and the city is about to fall.  Zedekiah panics and as a last resort decides to appease God, so he frees the slaves which we know from Deuteronomy and Leviticus that these laws were established by God and ignored for a long time now.   So after that, the siege was lifted (as God faithfully does) but the people got back to their old ways (people are we looking in the mirror or do you need to tell this story to someone you love…do it).  The people would go to the Temple and make promises to the Lord and then get back to their land live the way they want. (sounds like any given Sunday here at my church).

34 ends with the setting free of the Slaves.  God’s Word says once you are set free you are not to be slaves again, you are free indeed!

Gotta run.  Love you guys.  Pray for me. (uhhhh was that short?)