The second half of Jeremiah 16 describes the amazing promise of God towards His people:
"Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt." (16:14)
In other words, that miracle, as great as it was, will be eclipsed by what the Lord is going to do next as the Deliverer of those who trust in Him! Here is what He promises He will do, prefaced by that which the people will proclaim as His new and greater miracle:
"The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from all the land of the north, and form all the lands whither He had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers." (16:15)
This is the ultimate and final return of God's chosen people, Israel, back to the land that He gave to their ancestors beginning with Abraham. This is the miracle that has brought about the establishment of the State of Israel, but that is not all that the miracle entails. There is so much more.
"Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes." (16:16)
This is the miracle that we have witnessed in our own times: that of a nation of people returning home from all the ends of the earth to which they had been scattered (aka the "diaspora"), as the scripture says, by the hand of God. The same hand of a holy and righteous God that drove them away from His presence, is the same hand that loves them enough and is compassionate enough, to bring them home again, and thus glorify His Name and declare to the whole earth just who He is! We are all to see and understand that the very existence of the State of Israel is no coincidence; this is the orchestration of a mighty and sovereign God who will fulfill ALL of His promises to His people, to all those who trust in Him!
Who are these "fishers" but their own brethren, the disciples of Jesus Christ and all who follow Him? The ones that Christ declared He would make "fishers of men"? First to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles. Paul even says that the Lord will cast aside the Jews for a certain length of time, and will instead draw Gentiles unto Him, in order to make the Jews jealous:
"O Lord, my strength and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our father have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there in no profit. Shall a man make gods unto himself and they are no gods? Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might: and they shall know that my name is THE LORD." (16:19-21)
Then who are the "hunters"? Could there be 144,000 of them perhaps? God has further plans for this people who have turned from Him, most of which have still not returned to Him, even though they have returned to their homelands given to them by this gracious God. His plan requires that they be in Israel, for it is from Israel, under great duress, that they will as a nation once again turn towards God and call out to their Messiah for deliverance! All of which will be enabled by the prior faithful testimony of 144,000 witnesses that are to come 12,000 each from the 12 tribes of Judah! The Word declares that these witnesses will preach to the nation of Israel so that they will know that their Messiah was the one they rejected more than two thousand years ago. They will know Jesus, the Messiah, or as they will call Him in their native tongue, Yeshua HaMashiach! They will cry out to Him, and He will answer! What a miraculous thing, after two thousand years of determined rejection, to now recognize Jesus as their Messiah!
The second part of the seventh sermon of Jeremiah to the people of Judah is in effect a declaration or a detailing of their sins, so that there can be no doubt, to future generations at least, the reasons why Judah was punished:
- worshipping at the altars (pagan shrines) in the groves of green trees upon the high hills (17:2)
- departing from the Lord and trusting in man instead (17:5)
- not keeping holy the Sabbath day (17:21-27)
It is in fact, their refusal to observe the Sabbath, especially the Sabbath year, known as the Shemitah, rebelling against the very command of God written and preserved in scripture, that determined the length of Judah's captivity for those who were not killed but taken captive into Babylon. This people determined to not take God's Word at face value, and to instead, do what they thought best, most likely following upon unquestioned traditions of their fathers and the fathers before them. Much as we Christians do still today. Here is why I say that.
I have a comment regarding the Sabbath, and it is one that I have preached for many years on my blogs: the Sabbath is a day that GOD has declared HOLY. It is THE day that God has called HIS holy day for on it He rested from His work of creation. It is the day which, if we observe it, is our witness to the world around us of the fact of our Creator God's very existence, and that our sovereign God did in fact create the universe and all that is in it in SIX days and rested on the SEVENTH. It is NOT and never has been a JEWISH holy day. It is a GOD holy day.
We, the people of this great and awesome God, turned away from Sabbath observance in the third century A.D. It was done by order of Constantine, the Roman emperor who thought he could worship the one true God, while continuing to worship other gods, such as the "sun" god, and thus he, Constantine, changed the Sabbath from Saturday worship to "sun"-day worship. Even though the Sabbath (seventh day) is declared in God's word to be HIS HOLY DAY, we treat Sunday as His holy day instead. And thus, because of our own unquestioning continuance of our forefathers traditions, we have lost the power of the 7th day/Sabbath witness of God as Creator of heaven and earth.
I can't help but wonder how much the loss of this powerful statement of faith has contributed to the now common place belief in evolution that the world has chosen over the belief in a Creator God who made the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh?
"Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt." (16:14)
In other words, that miracle, as great as it was, will be eclipsed by what the Lord is going to do next as the Deliverer of those who trust in Him! Here is what He promises He will do, prefaced by that which the people will proclaim as His new and greater miracle:
"The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from all the land of the north, and form all the lands whither He had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers." (16:15)
This is the ultimate and final return of God's chosen people, Israel, back to the land that He gave to their ancestors beginning with Abraham. This is the miracle that has brought about the establishment of the State of Israel, but that is not all that the miracle entails. There is so much more.
"Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes." (16:16)
This is the miracle that we have witnessed in our own times: that of a nation of people returning home from all the ends of the earth to which they had been scattered (aka the "diaspora"), as the scripture says, by the hand of God. The same hand of a holy and righteous God that drove them away from His presence, is the same hand that loves them enough and is compassionate enough, to bring them home again, and thus glorify His Name and declare to the whole earth just who He is! We are all to see and understand that the very existence of the State of Israel is no coincidence; this is the orchestration of a mighty and sovereign God who will fulfill ALL of His promises to His people, to all those who trust in Him!
Who are these "fishers" but their own brethren, the disciples of Jesus Christ and all who follow Him? The ones that Christ declared He would make "fishers of men"? First to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles. Paul even says that the Lord will cast aside the Jews for a certain length of time, and will instead draw Gentiles unto Him, in order to make the Jews jealous:
"O Lord, my strength and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our father have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there in no profit. Shall a man make gods unto himself and they are no gods? Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might: and they shall know that my name is THE LORD." (16:19-21)
Then who are the "hunters"? Could there be 144,000 of them perhaps? God has further plans for this people who have turned from Him, most of which have still not returned to Him, even though they have returned to their homelands given to them by this gracious God. His plan requires that they be in Israel, for it is from Israel, under great duress, that they will as a nation once again turn towards God and call out to their Messiah for deliverance! All of which will be enabled by the prior faithful testimony of 144,000 witnesses that are to come 12,000 each from the 12 tribes of Judah! The Word declares that these witnesses will preach to the nation of Israel so that they will know that their Messiah was the one they rejected more than two thousand years ago. They will know Jesus, the Messiah, or as they will call Him in their native tongue, Yeshua HaMashiach! They will cry out to Him, and He will answer! What a miraculous thing, after two thousand years of determined rejection, to now recognize Jesus as their Messiah!
The second part of the seventh sermon of Jeremiah to the people of Judah is in effect a declaration or a detailing of their sins, so that there can be no doubt, to future generations at least, the reasons why Judah was punished:
- worshipping at the altars (pagan shrines) in the groves of green trees upon the high hills (17:2)
- departing from the Lord and trusting in man instead (17:5)
- not keeping holy the Sabbath day (17:21-27)
It is in fact, their refusal to observe the Sabbath, especially the Sabbath year, known as the Shemitah, rebelling against the very command of God written and preserved in scripture, that determined the length of Judah's captivity for those who were not killed but taken captive into Babylon. This people determined to not take God's Word at face value, and to instead, do what they thought best, most likely following upon unquestioned traditions of their fathers and the fathers before them. Much as we Christians do still today. Here is why I say that.
I have a comment regarding the Sabbath, and it is one that I have preached for many years on my blogs: the Sabbath is a day that GOD has declared HOLY. It is THE day that God has called HIS holy day for on it He rested from His work of creation. It is the day which, if we observe it, is our witness to the world around us of the fact of our Creator God's very existence, and that our sovereign God did in fact create the universe and all that is in it in SIX days and rested on the SEVENTH. It is NOT and never has been a JEWISH holy day. It is a GOD holy day.
We, the people of this great and awesome God, turned away from Sabbath observance in the third century A.D. It was done by order of Constantine, the Roman emperor who thought he could worship the one true God, while continuing to worship other gods, such as the "sun" god, and thus he, Constantine, changed the Sabbath from Saturday worship to "sun"-day worship. Even though the Sabbath (seventh day) is declared in God's word to be HIS HOLY DAY, we treat Sunday as His holy day instead. And thus, because of our own unquestioning continuance of our forefathers traditions, we have lost the power of the 7th day/Sabbath witness of God as Creator of heaven and earth.
I can't help but wonder how much the loss of this powerful statement of faith has contributed to the now common place belief in evolution that the world has chosen over the belief in a Creator God who made the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh?
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