Day 225 (Jeremiah 23-25) - Year 4
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Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. Jeremiah opens today with God's rebuke of the leaders of Judah, and in his rebuke, he seems to contradict himself. In verse 2, he says, You have scattered my flock and have driven them away. Then, as he talks about how he's going to respond to the evil actions of these leaders, he says in verse 3, I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them.

So who did the scattering and driving away? The leaders of Judah or God? Yes, the leaders were the active agent, but as we know, God is using their wicked actions within his good and righteous overarching plan. I'm so glad I serve a God who redeems the wicked things done to his kids. God promises to bring his sheep back to the land and says, they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing.

Fearlessness is a trait of God's sheep because he has proven himself to be our good shepherd. God promises a day when he'll raise up a righteous king from among the line of David. And of course, this is a prophecy of Christ. And God says when that new king reigns on earth, his people will have new things to praise him for that will wildly surpass what they used to praise him for.

In the meantime, though, God is judging Judah. And he says the sins of Judah and its capital, Jerusalem, are worse than the sins of Israel and its capital, Samaria. Why is that? Because Samaria, Israel, was prophesying by Baal, but the people of Jerusalem were pretending to prophesy by Yahweh and were lying, all the while worshiping false gods and oppressing the poor. The people of Judah had access to the temple and to the Levites and to the scrolls, and they still disobeyed.

They have a higher level of accountability and responsibility because of what they know and have access to. The false prophets speak only good news. They proclaim to have God-given dreams, but it's all made up. He says his word is more powerful than a dream anyway. And if their dreams don't align with his word, then their dreams are false. But they don't listen to God's word, so how could they speak it? How could they even know if their dreams do align?

They're leading God's people astray, and God says, you may think I'm far away, but I'm everywhere, and I see everything you're doing. Then there's a section that's kind of confusing in 23, 33 through 40, because it's a play on words in Hebrew. Here's the inside scoop. The Hebrew word masa has two meanings, message and burden.

So Jeremiah is basically saying, if anyone asks you what the Masa message of God is, you can tell them that you are the Masa burden. It's kind of a highbrow insult. And at that point, Jeremiah is so frustrated with their lies that he forbids the use of the word Masa. He says, I will punish anyone who says they have the Masa message. The only thing you're allowed to say is, what has God already said about this?

Jeremiah tears it down to the studs and basically says, if you really want to know what God is saying, pay attention to what God has already said. In modern days, I heard one pastor put it like this. If you want to hear God speak, read your Bible out loud. That way there's no question about God's message.

In chapters 24 and 25, we scooch back a little bit in history. We've already talked about how Zedekiah is the last king of Judah, and that's easy to remember because his name starts with a Z, the last letter of the English alphabet. But here we see info about some of the next-to-last kings. Bear with these flashbacks and try not to be frustrated over the way Baruch the scribe recorded Jeremiah's timeline.

Chapter 24 tells us that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, let's call him King Nebi, has taken Judah's prince and a bunch of their other leaders into captivity. So this tells us that Babylon is already getting a foothold in Judah and we're nearing the end of their kingdom.

After that, when King Zedekiah becomes king, God gives Jeremiah a vision of two baskets of figs in front of the temple. One very good and the other very bad. God says the good figs represent the remnant that he will return to the land someday, even after they've gone into exile in the land of the Chaldeans. By the way, this is important. The words Chaldean and Babylonian are often used interchangeably. You're going to see that a lot throughout this book, so don't let that confuse you.

And for the good figs, God says, I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord and they shall be my people and I will be their God. I love that God is capable of giving people new hearts. It's clear that we can't do it on our own. We're hopeless without him. But he gives new hearts as a part of the adoption process into his family. And as for the bad figs, these are the wicked leaders of Judah and he will send judgment on them. Sword, famine, and pestilence.

In chapter 25, Jeremiah lays it out for the people. I've been begging you to repent for 23 years, but nothing has changed. And I'm not the only one God has sent to warn you, but you haven't listened to any of us. Because of this, God is about to drop the hammer. And the hammer's name is King Nebi. And he's going to be your least favorite person for the next 70 years, because that's how long you'll be in captivity in Babylon if you survive. Then, after 70 years, God's going to punish Babylon too.

God goes on to say that he's about to pour out wrath across all the nations of the earth for their sins. God's wrath is depicted like a cup of wine, and he lists out a bunch of his enemies that will drink it. God is entering into judgment with them all. What was your God shot today? If it's something about how he punishes sin, I won't be surprised. For me, it was in the first few verses of today's reading where God is talking about the new king he'll raise up someday from the line of David.

God says that king's name will be, the Lord is our righteousness. In Hebrew, that's Jehovah Sidkenu. And this is a huge promise. The people of Judah certainly aren't righteous on their own. Neither are we. We need someone else to be righteousness for us. And that's Jesus. He's the Lord, God the Son, and he grants us his righteousness before God the Father.

If you want to see where scripture claims that Jesus is God, write this down. It's not just in the New Testament. It's here even in the Old Testament. Jeremiah 23, 5-6. The Lord is our righteousness. We have no righteousness of our own. But our God, King, Savior came down and gave us His. He shares. And He's where the joy is.

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