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10/10/2020 – Day 146 – Jeremiah 42-46 – A remnant imperative: “dump every vestige of the ‘prosperity gospel. Now, before it is too late! “

Suffering for God’s Glory

“Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceedingly joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified. “ 1 Peter 4: 12-14

Little did I know starting our Saturday Jeremiah study two+ months ago when I asked: “Can we put ourselves in Jeremiah’s shoe.” It’s a major wake-up call, before it is too late. And no, it is not about the messenger!

My plan here is to summarize first, then to put light on some of the scriptural passages for a historical and on the ground perspective for the time. So, I would advise if you haven’t read chapters 42 through 46, read first and then come back to this blog post.

So, the “remnant” leadership in Jerusalem blazenly ignores the Lord’s dire warnings for death and destruction if the people move to Egypt. And they take Jeremiah with them. They go back on their promise,after asking Jeremiah to pray and speak to them from the Lord. They call Jeremiah a “liar”. After 40 years of ministry to that point, Jeremiah loved his people, in spite of their persecution. It was a natural flow down from His love and obediance to His Lord. He had forsaken the easy route of becoming a priest as a youth. He had relayed God’s message (prophecy) that Jerusalem would fall to the Babyonians and Nebuchadnezzar (did I spell it right, lol – no spell check here)).

So, the remnant, led by Johanan, was calling God a liar. There was clear and repeated trail of evidence that if they didn’t believe what they say they professed to believe, they were on a very short fuse for reversing course 180 degrees , before it was too late. So , what was up with that beyond an obvious validation of “original sin”. Here again, I am thankful for my “Be Decisive” Jeremiah commentary book for shedding historical perspective.

As is the case with our country today, turning their back on God was not a sudden event that happened overnight, it was a degradation process that occured over many generations. So, I need to give this historical context. The people worshipped pagan gods. In particular here, the women vowed allegiance to the ancient Middle East goddess Astarte, the goddess of war and sexual love. She is called “the queen of heaven” by the men trying to rationalize this idol worship abomination to Jeremiah. They rationalized it by claiming that life was good before Josiah’s “idol ban” forty years ago, and since that time, they had experienced only hard times. Recall, amidst all this idol worship, the people of Israel felt impregnable since , after all, they were God’s covenant people, and the children of Abraham. And on top of that , Jerusalem was physically impregnable, the “world’s” security.

Warren Wiersbe, author of “Be Decisive” has a premise that the remnant had already decided that they were going to exile to Egypt. So, they asked Jeremiah to pray and get back to them with God’s answer, hoping their decision would be confirmed. We must admit that is frequently evidenced today, amongst loved ones, if not reknowed prophets. The people would have been naturally resigned by this decision to move on. Johanan , their leader, would have rightly felt the impending heat if he were to fall in the hands of the Babylonians, given that Nebuchadnezzar’s hand picked governor, Gedaliah was viciously murdered by Ishmael. Johanan showed some courage initially to go after Ishmael, but he escaped over to the Ammonites, his employing sponsors.

Pharaoh Hophra and Egypt was the closest thing in the world at that time to a world power competitor, albeit still no match. And the people already knew of the result of Hophra’s promise to protect King Zedekiah of Judah, as Zedekiah was captured, blinded and carted off to Babylon. Hophra would be executed by his own people before Babylon arrived on the scene. So, in their walk, the remnant was exhibiting their total lack of faith in God , as in -0-.

So, the remnant went back to worshipping their idol, the goddess Astarte. Wiersbe notes that this idol worship was particularly popular with Jewish women. And he points to the husband’s neglect with Numbers 30, The law concerning vows. Let’s look at this, verses 6-8: “If indeed she takes a husband, while bound by her vows (to “Astarte”) or by a rash utterance from her lips by which she bound herself, and her husband holds his peace, then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement with which she had bound herself shall stand. But if her husband overrules her on the day that he hears it, he shall make void her vow which she took and what she uttered with her lips, by which she bound herself, and the Lord will release her.” Sins of omission, the failure to act, can carry grievous ramifications for generations. Indeed, mortal sins can go outside of sins of commission. And it should be noted that Solomon took wives that were idol worshippers.

Chapter 45 – Assurance to Baruch – I would like to share a footnote #9 – location 3955 : “Baruch may have had royal blood in his veins since his brother Seraiah was a staff officer in the king’s service (Jer 51:59 NIV) and such officers were usually princes. The fact that Seraiah went to Babylon with the king shows how important a man he was in the eyes of the Babylonians. The family of Neriah may have thought that Baruch gave up a bright future in order to serve with Jeremiah, but they were wrong. (Jimmy: He could be viewed by the world, after all, as nothing more than a “layman secretary to a crazed gloom and doom prophet.”) Many of the royal officers perished, but God protected Jeremiah and Baruch and provided for them (see Jer 45) No doubt Baruch was an encouragment to the prophet , who was usually friendless and forsaken. (Jimmy: recall early on that God commanded Jeremiah not to marry as well)

“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” Mark 8:35-36