PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

I have to admit that I entered this reading not fully remembering the tone or the words of Lamentations, but with the assumption that it was filled only with, well, laments. I guess I was partially right, although not fully. Being a person who is a glass half full kind of guy, I did find something that surprised me and that had to be shared. Look at 3:22-24. These words should sound familiar, and yet they seem to be a bit like a fish out of water. The entire book is filled with laments about how, justifiably, God has turned His back on is people because of their disobedience. But the descriptions we find are complete. When God turns His back, well, it seems like there is no coming back from that.

But 3:22-24 tells us a completely different story. This promise that God’s love never fails, that God will return and reward is echoed over the next few verses, then it transitions back to the laments. But how easy it is to miss this promise in the midst of the laments. It reminds me of how easy it is to miss the promises of God in the midst of our laments, in the midst of our own self-satisfying complaints. God’s faithfulness is great and it is new every morning. Think upon that more frequently.

While we have focused on how disappointed the Lord is with Judah and Israel, these chapters contain promises of restoration and revenge. We see that God is going to move against the primary enemies of the people of God. Definitely we read of Babylone eventually being defeated and torn down and her cities and her livestock and her produce decimated. I assume there was some joy in this prophecy, becase as we read at the end of this book, Babylon in the present was anything but emaciated. They were coming after Judah and they successfully took over all of the land that had been given to the people of Israle by God so many generations earlier. A promise of restoration is nice, but for how long, Lord?

Now he just sounds angry! Jeremiah once again speaks against the people of Judah. He begins by speaking out against the foreign wives who have led the men of Judah away from the Lord and toward sacrifices to gods and idols that are anathema to the Lord. But the response of the wives is: do you think we are doing this without the knowledge and suppport of our husbands? This is a pretty good argument. How much are we leading our spouses towards the Lord or away from the Lord? How much are we leading our families towards the Lord or away from the Lord? How much are we leading our neighbors toward the Lord or away from the Lord? While Jeremiah emphasizes the impact of apostasy, we need to be reminded of the impact of faithfulness.

The story of Jeremiah continues. I hope you are following what has just happened. So the king of Babylon is on the threshold of Jerusalem and is about to take over the land. God has told Jeremiah, who in turn has told the king, not to try to escape, but rather to allow the Babylonians to take over the land which will result in the king going into exile. But he says, that’s okay, this is going to happen, allow yourself to go into exile and make yourself a home once you are in exile. If you try to escape, or if you try to fight, then God will bring about certain calamity. So the king doesn’t listen and he takes his people with him and they try to escape to Egypt. As a result the Babylonians catch up with them before they make it and kill the kings children in front of him and then gouge out his eyes and take him to Babylon. It was going to happen, but it didn’t have to happen that way.

The king of Babylon allows the poorest of the poor to stay in the land of Judah and establishes a puppet ruler over them. Well, there is one Judean who is unhappy with the proceedings and conspires to overthrow this puppet ruler. This Ishmael goes and kills the puppet ruler but then flees once the Babylonians come to put things back in order. The people who remained in the land are concerned because when this Ishmael killed the puppet ruler he also killed a number of Babylonians who had been protecting him. They come to Jeremiah and ask him if they should stay or if they should flee and would he ask God what their next step should be.

Jeremiah commands them to stay because they will be allowed to stay and farm the land, but we get a feeling that they are not going to listen to Jeremiah and are going to flee. Jeremiah warns them that if they flee then God will pursue them to Egypt, where they were planning on fleeing, and there in Egypt both famine and sword would find them. I would think one would listen to God if those were your options.

Jeremiah continues his ministry with his sidekick Baruch who writes down the words of impending exile to Babylon. But the king isn’t buying it. As soon as the prophecy is read which was written down, and spoken by Jeremiah, it is cut out and burned in the fire. This is supposed to be the king who is one of the Lord’s people and yet is refusing to hear the word of the Lord even when it is brough to him in person. As a result Jeremiah is forced to dictate another scroll and the king has his progeny taken from him. It is a theme for Jeremiah where he speaks the Word of the Lord to those who are in power and those in power refuse to listen and would much rather hear words of encouragement, even if they are false.

There are a couple of Scriptures in these passages that bear drawing our attention. They are Scriptures that we use universally to describe what the Lord has in store for us today and in the future. Actually, before we get to that we do see that an opponent to Jeremiah, a prophet who spoke a prophesy which contradicted that of Jeremiah, dies because of the wrong prophesy. The false prophet, Hannaniah, broke the yoke which Jeremiah had made, one made of wood, in order to show that in two years Judah would be restored. That did not happen, and Jeremiah says that a yoke of metal, of steel, will be placed upon the people of God and it will not be broken for more than 70 years.

The memory passages are found in Jeremiah 29:11-14 and 31:33-34. The first describes the plans that the Lord has for us which are plans for our welfare, and not for our harm. Now this has to be a long range view into the future, because the present sure is crummy for the people of Judah. Exile is not good, exile feels terrible and tragic, and it is. But God promises that the future will be one of redemption and restoration. It is similar to Romans 8:38 where we read that surely all things work together for good for those who trust in the Lord. Stay tuned because on youth Sunday Gavin will be preaching on this Jeremiah Scripture.

The second Scripture is the promise of a new covenant that will not be written as a law, but on our hearts. This is the new covenant that we find in Jesus Christ. Now, Jeremiah was probably talking about a new covenant that would be in place when the people of God would be restored, but the new covenant in Jesus fulfills the prophesy of Jeremiah perfectly. This takes us to a place where we are assured that our future will be one which is good and that future will be sealed with a new covenant in Jesus Christ which is a covenant of grace, and not of law.

Jeremiah provides a number of metaphors to describe the current state of affairs to the rulers of Judah. We see the image of good figs and bad figs which are placed before the temple. The Lord is telling the people that they need to go into exile in Babylon. The good figs are those who willingly go into exile. The bad figs are those who fight going into exile. This is directed to the people of Judah, which is why the temple is a part of this metaphor. We see the metaphor of the yoke which Jeremiah puts on himself. This is again an image of the ruler of Babylon taking over all of the land and having it in his posession for three generations, and then he will be under the yoke himself after those three generations pass.

There is an interesting dialogue that takes place between the rulers and the priests and Judah and Jeremiah. They condemn him to death because he describes the destruction of Jerusalem, but then they argue among themselves that in the past prophets had described the destruction of Jerusalem and it had changed the hearts of the rulers and spared the land as a result of the prophecy. They do not put Jeremiah to death but you do catch a glimpse of the debate as to whether he should be put to death or not because of him saying the words that the Lord has put upon his heart.

Our reading in Jeremiah begins today with probably some of the more familiar images that we get in Jeremiah, and certainly some of the most applicable. We find ourselves with the potter and the clay, and the statement whic applies to all of us in vs.6 where God says to Israel, actually to us, just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you to me. God decides how to shape and how to handle it in ways that are pleasing and make sense only to God. We are not able to dictate how God handles the clay that is in his hands. Remember, we were made from the dust, read clay, of the earth. This is a good reminder for us when we would complain and moan our fate.

There is a whole lot of destruction going on and a very unhappy God who is speaking to us. The bottom line is that Israel has been unfaithful and continues to be unfaithful. As a result God will abandon Israel to its own doings and will not support them when they are in need. It is a clear case of a conditional covenant where God agrees to protect and defend Israel if, and only if, they would obey the Lord. But since they do not obey…, well then they are going to end up going into exile and God will not protect them from going into exile.

Eventually God will bring them back to the land, but not until their nakedness is exposed. That’s the terminology that is used. A woman whose skirts are lifted over their head. The shame of Israel is a result of her disobedience.

There are a actually a few places in all of these chapters that I wanted to highlight, both in Jeremiah and in the Psalms that we read. I am always amazed when I read Scriptures such as 7:6 the discussion that is present in our country around immigration. The Bible says very clearly that we are not to oppress the immigrant, it says very clearly that we are to treat the immigrant as if they were one of the people of God, and yet that does not seem to be the case. We seem to be more concerned about the impact of the immigrant on our economy or on our safety than obeying the Word of God. I hope this doesn’t sound political, it is meant to be an interpretation of Scripture that to me is pretty evident but we choose to avoid.

Chapter 9 of Jeremiah is one of the reasons why he is called the weeping prophet. He states in the very beginning of the chapter that he wishes that his eyes were fountain of tears so that he could weep for his people day and night. The weeping prophet desires to mourn for his people because his people, the people of God, have turned their back continually on God.

Psalm 100 is one that many of us know by heart. Make a joyful noise to the Lord. When my dad was a pastor he got those words mixed up one Easter morning and he said: Make a noyseful joise to the Lord. People weren’t really sure what to make of it. Psalm 103:12 is a classic assurance of pardon which reminds us of the love that God has for us and that God forgives us to infinity and beyond.