Jeremiah Chapter 26 "Proclamation in the Temple. Jeremiah's Mission." This Bible
Study is written by Roger Christopherson, and it's
transcription/ location is provided by http://www.theseason.org Jeremiah 26:1 "In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah came this word from the LORD, saying," We are going back to the first year of the reign of Jehoiakim, and this is what God revealed to Jeremiah at that time. Jeremiah 26:2 "Thus saith the LORD; Stand in the court of the LORD's house, and speak unto all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in the LORD's house, all the words that I command thee to speak unto them; diminish not a word:" The "court" of the Lord's house is the Temple. God told Jeremiah to say exactly what I have to say and in the meaning that I give it to you. Don't you soften it for them, but give it to them straight. Many times when ministers are preaching a verse that has very strong emotions against certain sins, they tend to soft peddle the message to soothe the ears of the congregation. God is warning Jeremiah to give the message with the same emotions that He gave it to him with. Jeremiah 26:3 "If so be they will hearken, and turn every man from his evil way, that I may repent me of the evil, which I purpose to do unto them because of the evil of their doings. God is saying; "If so be", just maybe they will listen to what you have to say, and change their ways, then maybe I will change my mind. Lay my Word on them just as I give it to you, even though they will not like it. However if they will listen, it may save them and all of Jerusalem. Notice that there is a condition here; "If they would repent to me. If they would turn back to me." People are always looking for the easy way out, they look for a security blanket like today's rapture theory to make their own way of escape, and friend there is none. Remember back in Jeremiah 25:34 and 35 where God said that there will be no place to flee. What we are reading of in Jeremiah of the fall of Jerusalem and the House of Judah, happened as a type whereby we may know what will be at the end of this earth age. Are you ready for it? Jeremiah 26:4 " And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD; If ye will not hearken to me, to walk in my law, which I have set before you" What God told Jeremiah to tell the people as a warning of their destruction is based on a condition. That condition is; "If ye will not hearken to me, and walk in my law, which I have set before you," Jeremiah 26:5 "To hearken to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I sent unto you, both rising up early, and sending them, but ye have not hearkened;" The condition continues. My servants are the prophets of the Old Testament, from Moses to include all of them. When there was a crisis before God's children, He has always given us His prophets to sound the warnings. Those prophets have always been eager to give the Word, however you have just not listened. This is a condition, and when that condition is met individually by yourself, He will give His protection to you and use you in His service wherever you may be. It doesn't mean that you will become a minister, but will plant seeds in whatever capacity you are in. All that our Lord requires is that you love Him, and hearken to His Word. That means you study His Word and do what it says. When you do that, He will bless you. Jeremiah 26:6 "Then will I make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth. " This then is the other side of the condition, if they do not hearken and repent to do the Word of the Lord. "This city" is Jerusalem, and this looks forward to the time of II Thessalonians 2:1-4 when the false Messiah, the "son of Perdition" who is the Antichrist stands in the holy place claiming to be God. Then the whole world will run to him. That is a curse that God will place on mankind very shortly. That curse will fall on all people that have not studied the letter of God. Before we know what God is going to do to Jerusalem at that time, we have to know what happen to, and in, Shiloh. Shiloh was a place of rest and where God dwelt. It was the place where the "ark of the Covenant" was kept. The story of what happened at Shiloh is recorded in I Samuel 4, and it is a record of what happens when you do not obey God. The sons of Eli the priest were wicked men, and in their defying God's order, they not only lost to the Philistines, the sons killed, and the "ark of the Covenant" was taken by the Philistines. When the word of the loss of the ark came back to Eli, the old priest fell over backwards dead. Shiloh was not a place of rest at that time, and neither will the city of Jerusalem when Satan the Antichrist sits on his throne there and declares himself to be the Messiah. That is a curse that will come. Jeremiah 26:7 "So the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the LORD." Jeremiah went over to the east gate, looking over to the Mount of Olives, and there, the priests and prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking this warning that Jeremiah is giving to them. This is the exact place that Christ stood some 500 years later warning of this same event, as recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. This is the warning of the things that would happen just before Christ's Second Advent. This warning stung the priest and false prophets because they were saying, "don't worry, the king of Babylon will never bother us, it just isn't going to happen." Have you heard something similar lately concerning the Antichrist, and the church flying out of here? Their rapture theory is their security blanket. The church today is like the child running into a house on fire to get his security blanket, and the house is consumed by the fire. Friend, the security blanket, like the rapture will be consumed by the fire. Jeremiah has warned them that the captivity is going to be seventy years, and you are going into the captivity for your own good. This is a matter of believing and trusting what God has said, and not what the masses of false preachers and ministers have said. We can say that the false Messiah is coming to this world and hold them captive for their own good. It is written in God's Word, and part of the plan of God, and when it happens it will be for the peoples own good. God is allowing the king of Babylon of the book of Revelation to come into the world in our generation for His children's own good. Why? Because that is the only way that the people that call themselves can be corrected. When you look around you in this world today, there is only one thing that will straighten it up, and that is for them to see how bright a man is on his own, away from the Word of God. That is why God will remove the Word from them, who have the Word and yet refuse to study it; but would rather listen to false ministers, and false prophets. Then the day that Christ returns, maybe some of them will wake up and say, I love you Father. As Jeremiah is telling the people of Jerusalem that this will come upon them, the entire religious community is telling them just the opposite of what God has warned would happen. They got upset over Jeremiah going against their prophecies and security blankets. Jeremiah 26:8 "Now it came to pass, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak unto all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people took him, saying, Thou shalt surely die." Notice who it is that is centering the attack on Jeremiah and the warnings of God, it is the leaders of the religious community. They were the good reverends of the day, and the evangelists that went to the people, and the teachers in the Temple. They were the ones that were promoting their traditions and false doctrines, and they were the ones that lose face before the people. Their doctrines and traditions were more important to them then what God's Word had to say. Do you see how what happened in Jeremiah's day is happening all over again today? These people of the Temple were real religious, all they could think of when someone challenged their teaching was to kill the prophet. It happened when Christ started His ministry, and it is happening today. When groups of people, and individuals follow a Biblical form that goes against what the main stream religions teach, somehow it becomes okay to destroy them under false pretenses. We say this in Waco, on Ruby Ridge, and many other places, and it will get worse. You can always count on your religious brethren to attack when you teach God's Word without diminishing the Word. Jeremiah 26:9 "Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying, This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate without an inhabitant? And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the LORD." This is still the religious community speaking to Jeremiah. Friend, this was the pre-empt to the trial that Christ was held and charged falsely, and for the same reasons. Jeremiah, like Christ was charged with an attack on the Temple, and what He said would happen to the city of Jerusalem, that it would become desolate, and without an inhabitant. Jeremiah pointed out the sins of Shiloh, which is the perversion of the religious community. It was in the same place, and in that later years Christ was crucified for telling the truth. Remember what happened at Shiloh? They lost the Ark of God, when the heat came in battle to the Israelites, they dropped the Ark and ran from the Philistines. When the false messiah comes in our generation, the religious community will do exactly as they did at Shiloh, they will drop the Ark of God, the Word of God, and go over to the enemy who is Satan the Antichrist who will be their security blanket. Only friend, that security blanket will burn right along with their rapture doctrine, and all their other false doctrines. When the Ark of God was taken from Shiloh, the grace of God also left, and it became a curse on them. When the message of the fall came to them they wanted to kill the messenger, because they thought this was the religious thing to do. Jeremiah 26:10 "When the princes of Judah heard these things, then they came up from the king's house unto the house of the LORD, and sat down in the entry of the new gate of the LORD's house." When these governmental leaders heard what Jeremiah was prophesying about the captivity of Jerusalem, they came down to where the religious leaders were to listen. They sat also at the east gate, looking out over the Mount of Olives where later Christ also would sit and deliver many important messages concerning the end generation. The east gate is at the gate of the Lord's house and where the trials were held. Jeremiah 26:11 "Then spake the priests and the prophets unto the princes and to all the people, saying, This man is worthy to die; for he hath prophesied against this city, as ye have heard with your ears." So we see that the priests and the prophets have the ear to the government. All the people had heard Jeremiah's message that God sternly told him to pass on. Jeremiah did just as the Lord had commanded, and he never softened the message one bit. He gave the message boldly and straight on, and you see how upset they became. Remember what the Kenite Jews and religious leaders said when Jesus gave His message bold and to the point? They also wanted to crucify Him and kill Him for the undermining of their traditions, and false doctrines. It was the religious community that cried for Christ's crucifixion. Be aware of the religious community when you are teaching the Scripture as they are given in the original text. Especially when the Word of God goes against their traditions and false doctrines. Jeremiah 26:12 "Then spake Jeremiah unto all the princes and to all the people, saying, The LORD sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that ye have heard." Jeremiah is saying the words that I have prophesied are not my words but the Words of God. Jeremiah is not backing down from these religious leaders, he is not afraid of them. Jeremiah 26:13 "Therefore now amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will repent him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you. Jeremiah is telling them to turn from their evil ways, and the Lord will change His mind for the destruction that He has prepared for you. God would have then and He will do it on an individual basis today. This will have to be on an individual basis today because the majority will never change. Jeremiah 26:14 "As for me, behold, I am in your hand: do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you." Jeremiah is saying that you want to kill me for the words I am saying. I am here and in your hands, and all you have to do is reach out and grab me. Do with me as you will that is right unto you. Jeremiah is telling them that they are a mob, and what they will do they do as a mob action. I am here in God's name and spoke the words that He gave me to say. Jeremiah 26:15 "But know ye for certain, that if ye put me to death, ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and upon this city, and upon the inhabitants thereof: for of a truth the LORD hath sent me unto you to speak all these words in your ears." What Jeremiah is saying here comes from Deuteronomy 19:10 "That innocent blood be not shed in thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and so blood be upon thee." You know that this is a mob action because there is not one voice of opposition to the action of killing Jeremiah. The religious leaders are the ones that have stirred the people into a mob, when the words were spoken against their traditions and perverted doctrines. When Jeremiah reminds them that they are bringing the wrath of the living God down on their heads because of the spilling of innocent blood, look how the bunch of religious types respond. Jeremiah 26:16 "Then said the princes and all the people unto the priests and to the prophets; This man is not worthy to die: for he hath spoken to us in the name of the LORD our God." Remember that the heads of the government were standing in the crowd also, and when the talk of blood came up, this is what the government leaders said to the religious community. Jeremiah put the fear of God in their hearts and minds, and though the priests couldn't recognize that what Jeremiah said came from God, the government people that enforced the law did. There is a split here between the Church and the state, and the state is given certain rights. It is only the State that has the authority of capital punishment. Jeremiah 26:17 "Then rose up certain of the elders of the land, and spake to all the assembly of the people, saying," The "elders" are the legal minds, the scholars of the land. They waited to speak until this was getting out of hand, then they stood up and tried to make some sense out of the confusion. Common sense should have prevented it from getting to this point. Jeremiah 26:18 "Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest." The elders came forth and told the heads of the church that they had better look out for what they are saying, because Micah had prophesied in the very same thing that Jeremiah did, and he was definitely a servant of God. Jeremiah 26:19 "Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death? did he not fear the LORD, and besought the LORD, and the LORD repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against them? Thus might we procure great evil against our souls." These elders are telling the people and religious leaders that if they go ahead and do this act, you are committing evil against your own souls. The elders are telling them that Hezekiah put Micah the prophet to death for what he had said, and brought evil down upon himself. Wake up before you take any action, and think of the consequences it will bring to you. Jeremiah 26:20 "And there was also a man that prophesied in the name of the LORD, Urijah the son of Shemaiah of Kirjath-je'arim, who prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah:" Now the elders are bringing up what Urijah the prophet had said also, and his words were the same as what Jeremiah and Micah said. Jeremiah 26:21 "And when Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men, and all the princes, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death: but when Urijah heard it, he was afraid, and fled, and went into Egypt;" When Jehoiakim the king heard what Urijah had said, just like this mob, his first reaction was to kill the messenger. When Urijah heard what Jehoiakim had said, he became afraid and fled for Egypt. Urijah heard what Jehoiakim had said, he became afraid and fled for Egypt. Urijah simply didn't have the courage like Jeremiah had in facing them eye ball to eye ball, and telling it exactly as the message had been given to him. I'm sure Jeremiah had fear, but the message of the warning had to be given. Jeremiah 26:22 "And Jehoiakim the king sent men into Egypt, namely, Elnathan the son of Achbor, and certain men with him into Egypt." Jeremiah 26:23 "And they fetched forth Urijah out of Egypt, and brought him unto Jehoiakim the king; who slew him with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people." Remember what God did to the body of the king Jehoiakim for the sins he committed? He had the funeral of an ass, they took his dead body out into the dung heap and left it there for the vultures to consume. Jeremiah 26:24 "Nevertheless the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, that they should not give him into the hand of the people to put him to death." "Ahikam" in the Hebrew tongue means "a brother that counts for something". There was one brother in the midst of all the confusion that had enough common sense to stand up for Jeremiah and not let them put Jeremiah to death. When you have a strong man or woman that will stand up and say "NO! it's wrong! I will not let you do this!" Most cowards will back off from the bold truth. Especially if it is from God, and the Word of God. It is God that will take control over the hearts and minds of the cowards, and it will happen as God so desired. That is why one voice does matter because the Spirit of God multiplies that voice in the minds of the mob, and changes come. You can't help but love Jeremiah and his courage because of his bravery and commitment to the Word of the Lord that was given to him. God gave the order to tell it exactly as I have given it to you, and do not diminish it one bit. Give it with the same emotion that I have told you, and that is exactly what Jeremiah did. Jeremiah was committed to giving the Word, regardless what happened to him. I'm sure that Jeremiah stayed right on course and gave God's message. He knew that this was the only way that he could help his people, even if it meant giving of his own life. This is the same way that it is today, my friend, the Word of God may seem very strong, yet our Heavenly Father has given us so much in His mercy and kindness, and even His own Son whereby we can have our sins forgiven. Yet we see people carry on the way they do today. The religious community, though meaning to do well, do not teach the Word of God boldly for what God's Word says, and call it "of God". When this is done, it harms the people and voids the blessings of God upon them, and it becomes a sham, a mocking of God's own Word.
Home .~ Plough .~ Seeds .~ Vine .~ Potter .~ Seasons .~ Sonshine .~ Rain .~ Field |