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Post by tlsitd on Jun 9, 2018 4:57:09 GMT -5
The book of Jeremiah---the last prophet God sent to warn His rebellious people before He finally brought down the judgment He had been declaring to His people through His prophets that He was going to bring upon them for their rebellion against Him---is a spiritual parallel to our time and the time soon to come. For that reason, I highly recommend re-reading this book.
May the Lord open your spiritual eyes to see and your spiritual ears to hear whatever He wants you to see and hear from it, and use it for your benefit.
For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God... (1 Peter 4:17)
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Post by justinadams on Jun 10, 2018 6:54:54 GMT -5
Just reading this now. Jeremiah 23 is like an antithesis to psalm 23.
It is so sad to see the Lord constantly remonstrating with a people that are adepts at following by lip-service but not from the heart. I see the Lord as a Father deeply concerned over his children that He does not want to totally forget about but at the same time, provide justice, encouragement and chastisement.
He is adamant that in the future He will use Israel and and Judah combined to bring all the nations back to Him. The great regathering that is a part of Yeshua's Earthly Mission.
I began reading from the 'front of the book' in order to better understand the 'back of the book'. A very necessary endeavor and I highly recommend it.
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Post by John on Jun 10, 2018 11:28:12 GMT -5
Jeremiah would continue to warn the people, but they would not listen. They were self-willed, and had their own ideas about what they felt like the Lord wanted them to do. They would promise to follow the Lord, and when Jeremiah would tell them what God said, they wouldn't believe him and would go their own way, to their destruction. All the time, Jeremiah was not bitter, but interceded for them. Jeremiah was a great man of God, and an example to us all.
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PG4Him
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Post by PG4Him on Jun 10, 2018 11:56:28 GMT -5
I have always believed that Israel's plight in the physical preceded the church's destiny in spirit.
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Post by John on Jun 10, 2018 12:24:03 GMT -5
I have always believed that Israel's plight in the physical preceded the church's destiny in spirit. Can you expand on that?
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Post by PG4Him on Jun 10, 2018 12:44:21 GMT -5
Israel's was God's bride, the apple of His eye, His chosen people, the elect of the earth, and pretty much every other description of the church now.
Israel's relationship with God (sacrifice, atonement, priesthood, inheritance, prophesy, going forth to conquer, etc) were physical symbols of Christ and the church.
Israel was promised to have God's blessing forever if they obeyed. I do not believe God offered that promise with no intention of keeping it since He 'knew' they'd rebel. Either it was a sincere promise, or it wasn't.
The NT repeatedly compares the church to Israel, repeatedly tells us to avoid Israel's mistakes, and warns that if Israel can fall away, so can we.
End-times descriptions of the church resemble that of wayward, rebellious Israel oblivious to the coming danger.
Just as Jesus had to come to Earth to save us from Israel's wicked shepherds, He will once again return to impose His authority. Jesus and His spotless bride will be victorious -- not the "church" at large. It is for the sake of the elect, not for the sake of "the church" that the tribulation will be cut short. Most of "the church" will ultimately be exposed as feckless in the face of the antichrist. Just as Daniel and his friends were spared in the sacking of Jerusalem, Christ will spare His elect.
If the OT is a shadow of Jesus, Israel is a shadow of the church.
Note: I do not believe in replacement theology. I don't believe the church replaces Israel in end-time prophesy. Only that Israel showed us the plight of the church in the OT.
Just my personal thoughts.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2018 13:54:57 GMT -5
Yes, Israel is the "ensample" of the church in scripture....and it is a key to understanding OT scripture. It's why the church is called the Israel of God. The church has sadly gone the exact same way that Israel did in her apostasy. There is nothing new under the sun, and what has been will be (and is) again. The OT writings are for the church just as much as they were for Israel. The warnings as well as the promises... and I believe ultimately that God will keep all of His word to both the church and to Israel. That He speaks to us in parables is another key to understanding. So yes, the book of Jeremiah is very much for these times....but in all the warnings of judgment the Lord also holds out hope....and here is one that I took note of recently, just to encourage us that there is a silver lining in the cloud:
Jer 51:33 For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; The daughter of Babylon is like a threshingfloor, it is time to thresh her: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come.
Glory to the Lord!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2018 14:12:42 GMT -5
If anyone is wondering what Babylon has to do with Israel and the church...."mystery" Babylon is what takes the church and Israel "captive" when they fall away from the Lord. In other words, the apostate church becomes mystery Babylon in her apostasy, as well as apostate Israel (Judaism) became mystery Babylon and was judged by the Lord 70 years after Jesus came....except for those who fled her through the preaching of the gospel during that time (believing Jesus' prophecy and warning to flee). God gives them (church and Israel) over to deception and the desire of their hearts to be ruled over by a "man"...an antichrist. Please test it though.
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PG4Him
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Post by PG4Him on Jun 10, 2018 14:55:23 GMT -5
If anyone is wondering what Babylon has to do with Israel and the church...."mystery" Babylon is what takes the church and Israel "captive" when they fall away from the Lord. In other words, the apostate church becomes mystery Babylon in her apostasy, as well as apostate Israel (Judaism) became mystery Babylon and was judged by the Lord 70 years after Jesus came....except for those who fled her through the preaching of the gospel during that time (believing Jesus' prophecy and warning to flee). God gives them (church and Israel) over to deception and the desire of their hearts to be ruled over by a "man"...an antichrist. Please test it though. Babylon was a real kingdom that invaded Judah. No one in Israel "became" Babylon. If we're basing the church on Israel, we'd have to base mystery Babylon on the real Babylon. Besides, keep in mind that Revelation 18 says "all the nations were deceived by your sorcery." The nations haven't been deceived this whole time by a reprobate church. Here is my personal thought on Mystery Babylon. I know is highly unlikely that anyone will agree with me, but I will offer it anyway. Christ has His bride, the church, who is depicted as a heavenly woman in Revelation. Satan has his own bride, the fruit of his own labors, the seductive "marriage" between himself and wicked humans. She isn't the nations since she's the one deceiving them, and she isn't worldly power since kings and rulers mourn for her. She is the construct of Luceferian governance over human affairs. She trades in slavery, extortion, prostitution, and bribery. One day the antichrist will use her to seduce every world ruler. They will gain control of the global economy, news media, social media, everything. Christians will have no choice but to leave society for their own safety. Of the "church" that refuses to leave, she will pillage.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2018 17:26:38 GMT -5
Yes, physical Babylon was a physical kingdom....which God used as a type and shadow of spiritual "mystery" Babylon. The church becomes spiritual Babylon, so to speak, when she is taken captive by her. Same with what had happened to Israel by the time Jesus had come. God gave the erring church over to "Catholicism" after it was led astray by the wolves that Paul spoke about...and it became a christian/pagan hybrid which persecuted the remnant of true believers. Much like Israel had become a Jewish/pagan hybrid (the Talmud is full of Babylonish mixture)...which persecuted Jesus and the early believers. This solves the "mystery" part of mystery Babylon....the mystery is that it is the congregation of God's own people gone awry...it is a harlot/spiritual adulteress....the devil perverting what is God's and using it to come against God's kingdom...but it is the Lord who allows them to be taken captive as judgment/chasisement. This explains why the "great city" is both Babylon and Jerusalem...physical Jerusalem to Israel, and Jerusalem also being a type/shadow for the church.
Not saying this is everything there is to be aware of about Babylon, but it does seem to be one layer of truth concerning it, thanks be to God.
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Post by PG4Him on Jun 10, 2018 17:34:16 GMT -5
We should get this thread back to what Sister Light intended, though. Regardless of the mystery, we need to be sober and guarded.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2018 17:47:54 GMT -5
ok...I don't think we are off topic though....Babylon is right on the topic of this thread, as Jeremiah was warning and prophesying of the impending captivity. The same thing is happening to the church today....she is being taken captive by deception and "catholic" Babylon. And like Jerusalem in 70 AD we have been led out of it to escape the spiritual carnage, to flee to the "mountains" and await the will of the Lord in the wilderness.
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Post by justinadams on Jun 11, 2018 4:48:32 GMT -5
Babel and 'Babil' and BBL and Babylon seem to be different. When one looks at the meanings they seem to contain interesting thoughts. Either variously, 'gate of the gods' or gate of God' and 'confusion'. answersingenesis.org/tower-of-babel/where-in-the-world-is-the-tower-of-babel/Read also about Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz - the early fake father son and holy spirit. Perhaps the creator of the first babylon. If we check out the story of the Lord giving up on the 'powers' and searching for a people for Himself, we see that these 'nations' decided to reach the heavens by building a huge ziggurat. The Lord had told them to move and be separated. But they banded together. The Lord then forcibly moved them by confounding the languages (Babel). However, Babel and Babylon are two distinct things. Then straightaway, the Lord searched out Abram and made a people for Himself. Today and in a lot of scriptures, we should perhaps see Babylon as typifying a corrupt system sometimes and a place at others. In Jeremiah's day it was a kingdom that the Lord used to punish Judah and Israel. Generally, we should probably use 'babylon' more as an adjective than a proper noun. Perhaps as CORRUPTING, CONFUSING, COUNTERFEITING.
So the description fits a people that are self-willed, godless, and that worship themselves and their creations. Sounds much like some western societies to me... and very much like the people of Jeremiah's day.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2018 8:33:04 GMT -5
Yes. The lesson I glean from scripture regarding Babel is that of false religion, which is a counterfeit to the true one which blows where GOD willeth and for HIS name. The building of a monument to self which reaches to the heavens and the fenced cities they build associated with it, in order to make a name for themselves and be in control, and keep God boxed up within the walls of their own making.....which He doesn't like and eventually tears down and scatters the people til not one stone is left on another. It seems to be a repeating theme in scripture...and if we are awake to see it in the present day too, it is the same lesson of except the Lord build the house they labour in vain, and how God scattered and shook His sheep out of the fenced cities (churches). So.....Babylon's days are numbered and found wanting.
2Ki 19:25 Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps.
Jer 5:17 And they shall eat up thine harvest, and thy bread, which thy sons and thy daughters should eat: they shall eat up thy flocks and thine herds: they shall eat up thy vines and thy fig trees: they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein thou trustedst, with the sword.
Hos 8:14 For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples; and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities: but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.
Zep 1:16 A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers.
Deu 9:1 Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven
A word to the wise though is the warning to not be like Lot's wife, who turned to watch the destruction of God's judgment with condemnation in her heart and smug self-satisfaction at her escape. This leads to being pickled in our own pickle juice (salt/brine of religiosity)....the stiffness and rigidity of death and unable to move as the Spirit blows. Rather, our focus needs to be on forgetting what lies behind and straining for what lies ahead......the mountains (high places of God). Not even stopping in Zoar, which was another name for "little Sodom" which led to the daughters of Lot not being able to trust in their unseen Husband, and trying to bring forth fruit out of what is seen. The book of Obadiah is a good exhortation along these lines as well, of how our hearts should not be towards our erring brethren.
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Post by tlsitd on Jun 12, 2018 19:46:47 GMT -5
People don't like the book of Jeremiah. It's not an uplifting book. You can find pleasant things and encouraging things in the books of other prophets---Isaiah, for example (people like Isaiah); but by the time you get to Jeremiah and Ezekiel God doesn't have much of anything good to say to or about most of His people. The only Scriptures I ever hear people quoting from Jeremiah are: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD..." or "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD..."
(Funny how they pick out those two Scriptures and seem to dismiss the rest of the book, which is overwhelmingly condemnatory toward God's people (and for good reason). That's not the way we're supposed to read the word of God---to find things we want to hear and that make us feel good. We're supposed to read it honestly, for whatever God desires us to know and to learn---including the lessons of people who failed before us, so that we don't follow in their footsteps and reap what they reaped.)
I tell you the truth, with great sadness and with righteous indignation for the Lord's sake, that the same thing is true of God's people today that was true of them in Jeremiah's day. Don't believe all the "Blessing" talk from popular preachers; it's rubbish, just like it was in Jeremiah's day. Most of us are NOT blessed and God is NOT pleased with the majority of us, because the majority of us are in apostasy and do not love God (our actions being the proof); and the majority of us are not going to repent of our apostasy (those of us who are in rebellion against God).
Sinning and failing saints think they're blessed because their standard is man's standard and not God's, and because they don't take the word of God seriously. If they did---and they actually looked into the word of God honestly---the Lord's rebuke and their CONDEMNATION, not their blessing, would shout out at them, just like the voice of Jesus Christ was like a TRUMPET when He spoke to John to give him the messages to the seven churches in Asia province---FIVE of which He rebuked. (And why do you think the Lord's voice was like a trumpet, and not a gentle, soothing, comforting voice? Well you can see why when you read what He had to say to those five churches.)
No; judgment. That is what is coming, and that is what we can expect next for most of God's people, just as it was in Jeremiah's time.
Read this book (besides other Scriptures), with a sincere heart, and ask the Lord to help you to see and hear whatever He would show you and say to you as you read it, and what He is saying to His people in this last hour. "I will surely bless you" isn't it---except that those who are rebelling against Him repent and return to Him---which most of them, unfortunately, will not.
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