Fear No Fear

(All scripture from Lexham English Bible, Copyright 2012 Logos Bible Software)

God is serious about His children being given the proper instruction. The Lord told Jeremiah that He was so angry and disappointed in the false prophets teaching and proclaiming lies to His children, that He was going to take matters into His own hands. He was going to raise up for His children a RIGHTEOUS BRANCH (Jesus) to reign as king, deal wisely, execute justice and righteousness in the Earth, and to save His children. This branch would be called The Lord Our Righteousness (Jesus). It would be so noticed by the world that the God would no longer be known as the Lord who brought them up out of Egypt, but the Lord who returned them to Israel and restored them.

The Lord’s heart was broken by these false prophets. They did not even keep themselves pure, but were liars and adulterers. They did the same things as Sodom and Gomorrah, oppressing and being horrible. Therefore they would be forced to drink bitterness. They would dine on the profaneness that they had unleashed into the land. God exhorted the people not to listen to their lies. Not to listen to what they said and promised. God had NOT promised it. God had NOT said it to them. God had NOT sent them. They were speaking from their own minds and going where they themselves wanted. They were in NO WAY God’s agents or speaking God’s heart or mind. If only, the Lord lamented, they had spoken His truth. Then the people would have repented and not tried to hide their evil deeds – which is ridiculous, because Yahweh is not a God far off but one who fills all of heaven and all of the Earth. God is against false prophets and teachers. He would bring everlasting shame and reproach on them for choosing not to speak His truth – which is THE truth.

The Lord showed Jeremiah a vision of figs. A basket of good figs and a basket of rotten figs so rotten they could not be consumed. The good figs represented the Judeans taken into captivity to Babylon. They would be given a heart to know God. They would be built up, and not pulled down. God’s eyes would be set upon them and He would be their God. But those Judeans who stayed in Judea – King Zedekiah and his officials and the people of Jerusalem who did not accept God’s offer (Jeremiah 21:8-10) – they would be a horror and a taunt and a curse and destroyed and driven out from the land completely.

“The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, which Jeremiah the prophet spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying” (Jeremiah 25:1-2)

This chapter (25) shows that the book of Jeremiah is arranged by theme, and NOT chronologically. Some of the previous chapters (like 24, for example) took place during the reign of Zedekiah, which was AFTER Jehoiakim. This chapter starts in the twenty-third year of Jeremiah’s ministry. This is a prophecy about captivity was given in the first year of captivity. Josiah had been a good king, a godly king, but Jerusalem was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar after his death. His son, Jehoiakim was king for three years under Nebuchadnezzar but rebelled. He was conquered (again) and removed. His son, Jehoiachin, was left in charge. This prophecy came BEFORE Jehoiakim was removed, but the same year that it happened.

The Lord characterized the entire twenty-three year period of Jeremiah’s ministry (since Josiah was twenty-one and five years before he started a national revival) as a slow rejection of the Lord’s words. Yes, Josiah led them in cleaning up their act and turning to the Lord, but here the Lord was revealing it was a return in DEED but not in HEART. The people never really embraced the Lord. And Jeremiah had not been the only voice. Other prophets had spoken up and spoken clearly as well (Ezekiel, Zephaniah, and Habakkuk for example). The people had NO excuse.

The Lord had never wanted this judgment to come to pass. He was provoked by the idolatry of His children. The rejection of Himself by them. Because they had refused to hear His Words, He was rejecting them. Nebuchadnezzar was the judgment tool God was using – it did not make the Babylonian king a good or a godly person or the kingdom of Babylon an acceptable one. But God would use them as an appropriate tool to remove joy from Judah. They would be removed for seventy years (this was the prophesy Daniel was seeking revelation about in Daniel 9). They would serve the Babylonians for that time and then they would be able to return because God would punish Babylon for their sins at that time. The Babylonians were getting a respite in order that the Judeans suffer banishment. They were not being given a pass for all they had done (and would do for the next seventy years).

In fact, God would judge ALL the nations. They would drink from the cup of His wrath they were filling with their behaviour. Jerusalem and Judah first. Then Egypt, the kings of Uz, Philistia, Ashkelon, Azzah, Ekron, and Ashdod. Then Edom, Moab, and Ammon. Then Tyrus, Zidon, and the isles. Then Dedan, Tema, and Buz. Then the kings of Arabia and the desert. Then Zimri, Elam, and the Medes. And then the kings of the north (Babylon and beyond). And finally the kings of the world. Whether the nations would take the cup willingly or whether they would refuse it, the judgment would come to pass. The Lord deals with individuals, but He also deals with nations. If He was willing to bring judgment on HIS children for rejecting Him, it is a certainty that He would bring judgments on the other nations for the same reason.

The prophecy against the nations and its descriptions get into what seems to be End Times language. It is very similar to passages in Ezekiel and the Revelation to John. I don’t know if it is still future judgment or not, but it sure seems like not everything the Lord is speaking of at the end of this chapter (25) has been fully fulfilled. When the Lord prophesies, His Word ALWAYS comes to pass IN FULL.

Summary

Key Players: God, Jesus, Jeremiah

Key Verse(s): Jeremiah 23:1-6, 17-22; 24:4-10; 25:1-11, 17-29