Day 219 (Jeremiah 1-3) - Year 4
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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Today we started hanging out with the major prophet Jeremiah. He comes from a long line of priests but gets a call from God to be a prophet. So he hires a scribe named Baruch to write down his prophecies which span roughly 40 years and five kings of Judah. In addition to Jeremiah's prophecies, Baruch writes down some of the stories from Jeremiah's life as well. And it's not an easy one.

Jeremiah is referred to as the weeping prophet because he carries some deep grief over the state of the people of Judah. It's easy to imagine prophets as these self-righteous people who just go around telling everybody else what they're doing wrong. But more often, what we actually see is that God has a way of putting them in tough circumstances so they can feel the pain of the people. It helps them stay humble, and it also has a way of increasing the potency of their message.

When God first calls Jeremiah, he refuses to prophesy. But then God rebukes him, confirms him, and encourages him with the reminder, I am with you. Then God gives him three assignments, to pluck up and break down, to destroy and overthrow, and to build and plant. Just reading that, doesn't it remind you of all the other prophetic books we've read so far? There will be destruction, but there will be restoration. God gives Jeremiah two visions, then tells him what he's about to do.

He's going to send a conqueror from the north, and we already know this refers to Babylon, and they're going to destroy Jerusalem. This is a judgment on the people of Judah who have turned their backs on God. Then God tells Jeremiah that he shouldn't be afraid, because while God does promise a battle, he also promises a victory. In chapter 2, God tells Jeremiah to walk through the streets of Jerusalem and recount the story of God's relationship with Israel out loud.

which is, they used to love him, but over time they gradually forgot all he had done for them. God describes their sin against him with a really helpful metaphor. He says they're like people in the desert who are thirsty, and he's a spring of living water right behind them. But instead of turning to him, they try to make their own cisterns, but they keep cracking and breaking. I'm thirsty just thinking about it. It sounds exhausting and frustrating.

That's what it's like to try to find joy and fulfillment in things that aren't God. They always disappoint, and they exhaust us in the meantime. God recalls the ways he set them free, but they use their freedom to rebel against him. He compares them to camels who wander in the desert. Apparently, it's common for adult camels to change direction every three steps. They are aimless without guidance.

Then he compares them to wild donkeys who follow every lust and desire. They can't be contained. This does sound like them. Not only has Judah worshipped the false gods of the pagan nations around them, but they've also sought help from those pagan nations instead of from God, looking for temporary fulfillment wherever they can find it.

And after all that, the people of Judah still claim they didn't do anything wrong. They don't expect God to judge them for their actions, but he promises them that judgment is coming. In chapter 3, God portrays Judah and Israel as his unfaithful bride. Judah had the chance to learn from Israel's mistakes, but didn't. She just kept committing adultery. The image he sets up for us is one that makes it look like the husband would never want the wife back because of all she's done.

But God is set apart here. While he's acknowledging Judah's adultery and his angry response to it, all that is happening in the midst of his plea for Judah to return to him. He's not in the business of divorcing his bride. He's in the business of forgiving and staying. He's having Jeremiah plead with them in verse 12. Return, faithless Israel, and I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful. Who does that?

God begs them to confess and repent. He wants to give them a home in Zion. And in verses 16 through 17, we hit an interesting promise. God says the people will no more say the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed. It shall not be made again. At that time, Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem.

Okay, let's break down a few things from this passage. As a refresher, the Ark of the Covenant is a piece of temple furniture that contains the Ten Commandments, a jar of manna from the wilderness, and the budding staff of Aaron, the first priest. It was kept in the Holy of Holies. Only the high priest could enter that room, and only once a year. The Ark kind of serves as the earthly throne where the especially dense presence of God came to dwell in the midst of his people.

At some point, and we don't know when or how or why, the Ark goes missing. It probably happens during one of the exiles. Or some people think a prophet, maybe even Jeremiah himself, hid the Ark in preparation for the exile so that nothing would happen to it. Apparently, the people either currently are or will be distraught that it's gone missing. But then Jeremiah says they're going to get over it because they're going to have something much better. The whole city of Jerusalem will serve as God's throne.

His manifest presence won't be in a room most of us can never access. At this point in the story, we are still in the first version of the temple. It will eventually be destroyed when Babylon comes through. Then it will get rebuilt and re-destroyed. It currently doesn't exist in the form of a building, but we don't need it to. Because in 1 Corinthians 3.16, God says that we are his temple. His especially dense presence dwells in us now.

People, Christians and otherwise, take this verse out of context all the time. They say, my body is a temple, like it's some kind of art exhibit. That's not what this means. First of all, it's not just a temple. It's the temple of God. It's what's in the temple that matters. Second of all, not everyone's body is the temple. According to Romans 8, 9 through 10, God only puts his spirit in those who are his kids, which brings me to the final important point.

If we are now the place where God dwells, then guess what? We have no need for a building to be rebuilt. And as cool as it would be to find it, we don't need the Ark of the Covenant. We are Temple 3.0. Jeremiah's prophecy was fulfilled by the death and resurrection of God the Son and the indwelling of God the Spirit.

My God shot came just five verses into today's reading. In 1-5, God tells Jeremiah that he not only created him in the womb like a potter shapes clay, but he also knew him and set him apart before he was created. We've talked a lot about the fact that God is outside of time. A lot of the verses that point to that are ones that pertain to the future, but this is a verse that points to the past that still manages to drive that truth home.

It also shows us God's sovereignty. He had already planned Jeremiah's future way back then. Is this kind of thing specific to major prophets but not the rest of us? If we follow the thread of scripture, we see that this theme is actually running through the whole book. Not a single one of us is an afterthought to God.

He has a plan for each of us to use us for His glory and our joy. And He's where the joy is. One of the themes we see in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation is the theme of idolatry and how it distracts our heart from engaging with God at a deeper level. Idolatry doesn't just refer to statues; Ezekiel 14 tells us we can take idols into our hearts.

So we built out a PDF with more info on how to identify idolatry in your own heart, and we'd love to share that with you. If you want to get this PDF for free, all you have to do is go to thebiblerecap.com forward slash idols and submit your email address. That's thebiblerecap.com forward slash idols. The Bible Recap is brought to you by DGroup, discipleship and Bible study groups that meet in homes and churches around the world each week.