Jeremiah Chapter 3 "Gods Pleadings to Jerusalem, and to Israel [North]." This Bible
Study is written by Roger Christopherson, and it's
transcription/ location is provided by http://www.theseason.org Jeremiah 3:1 "They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD." The law stating, "If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's", comes from Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Deuteronomy 24:1 "When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house." Deuteronomy 24:2 "And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife." Deuteronomy 24:3 "And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife;" Deuteronomy 24:4 "Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance." The marriage between God and Israel was defiled many times by Israel playing the role of the harlot; yet God said, I'll take you back, if you will turn to me. This is stated with Jesus Christ having died on the cross, within this analogy, as soon as the husband had died, the bride is free to remarry. Naturally with the resurrected Christ, she, the fallen bride, is free to participate in that wedding. So when God had said, though you have done this, played the role of harlots, I will take you back. God has done just that, He has asked each of His children to come back. This as it would be applied today, is if a woman's first husband had loved her, and still loved her, and there was a mutual love between them, and the second husband sought a divorcement from her; then by both the first husband and the woman [wife] repenting before Christ, they are free to remarry. This goes against the bylaws of many church systems, that like to hang people up on marriage. But I believe that Christ could forgive any sin, even those of people divorced multiple times, just as Jesus forgave the women at the well who had four husbands, and was not married to the one she was living with then. Christ forgave her, and she was used to bring many others to Him. Christ is able to forgive all sins of divorcement. Jeremiah 3:2 "Lift up thine eyes unto the high places, and see where thou hast not been lien with. In the ways hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy whoredoms and with thy wickedness." Israel played the role of the prostitute by the road, from the very earliest of times, but the great apostacy coming will bring about the greatest whoredom of all. It will be a time when people rush to this fake Jesus (when he arrives on earth to perform miracles and wonders), to be part of the Antichrist's system. They will do this because they had been led to believe the "instead of Christ" [Satan] to be the true Christ by their religious systems. They are going to be deceived, and it will be a sad time because the truth is rejected by them. All Christians, except the elect of God will run to the Antichrist in ignorance. That is what their rapture doctrine is all about; getting ready for the first Christ, the Antichrist to fly them out of here, and they will be ready to be taken in the wrong marriage. Friend, that is what the church system is preparing them for, because they will not study the Word of God for the truth. Jerusalem 3:3 "Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; and thou hadst a whore's forehead, thou refusedst to be ashamed." "The showers" are the latter rain. This is because the truth of God's Word has been held up, for the people of God are seeking to deceive themselves. God is saying that Israel, those Christians nations and their people of the latter days, don't even know that they are doing wrong. They think they are all right, yet they are heading in the wrong direction. They attend their churches, and go through the form of worshipping Jesus Christ, but they still continue with the "whore's forehead", the state of mind of the harlot to jump in bed with the first messiah, the "instead of Christ [Satan]. They will believe in the supernatural signs that the first one coming will do, and these supernatural powers are going to cause them to fly them away with a false messiah. There is one coming that will be so supernatural that the everyone, except God's elect, will believe him completely. Jesus spoke of this in warning his disciples in Mark 13:5; "Take heed lest any man deceive you:" [5] "For many shall come in My name, saying, `I am Christ;' and shall deceive many." [6] Friend, if you are still in your flesh body, and anyone tells you that they are the Christ, don't believe it. For when Jesus Christ comes at the seventh trump all flesh will be done away with, and we will all be in our spiritual bodies. Paul told us in I Corinthians 15:50-53: "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." No flesh body can or will enter the kingdom of God, which is set up at the return of Jesus Christ, when He returns to set up His kingdom here on earth. I Corinthians 15:51 "Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep [die], but we shall all be changed," The mystery is the fact that at Christ's coming when He sets up His kingdom on earth, all those living in their flesh shall not die, but be changed to their spiritual bodies. The flesh body simply will not exist in the Millennium age. I Corinthians 15:52 "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." This will happen instantly, in the wink of an eye, and Paul tells us that it will be at the last and seventh trump. All the other trumps will be finished and over, Satan and his entire system will be gone from us, as well as all his demonic realm. I Corinthians 15:53 "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." Those of the elect, living at the time of the seventh trump will be in the incorruptible, and imortal body at that time, and in their eternal bodies. Have you been taught this? Is the latter day rain falling upon your ears?And are you skilled in the Word of God? Jeremiah 3:4 "Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth?" God is asking you, when this happens, and you have fallen for the deception, are you going to turn back to me? Are you going to say, I'm your friend, from your youth, when you have been laying out there by the road with all those other whoredoms? Jeremiah 3:5 "Will he reserve his anger for ever? will he keep it to the end? Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest." Though you ask, will God keep His anger from me? As you continue in false doctrines and heathen traditions and doctrines, and do it over and over, but God will still ask for you to come back. Jeremiah 3:6 "The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot." This is aimed at Israel, the Christian nations of today. Just as that ancient House of Israel sought after every false religion and form of idolatry, so also is the Israel of today. Anytime the Christian nations go on any new mountain they will believe anything anybody tells them. We will see this chapter addressing the House of Israel spoken of separately from the House of Judah. Why? They are two separate house [nations] in this sense. They are all of the seed of Jacob, yet they are two seperate houses from this time until they are joined into one stick (that is at a time just prior to the time Christ returns). Today they are still two separate houses, the House of Judah [the Jews], and the House of Israel [the Christian nations]. "Backsliding Israel" is refering to the ten tribes that went north in captivity by Assyria. In captivity they were spread out, and fled through the Caucasus Mountains, and spred out to settle in Western Europe, and the Americas. They have lost their true identity. The House of Israel knows only of themselves by the event of their scattering. They call themselves after this event "Caucasians" and think of it as a race, not a scattered nation of the House of Israel. Hosea identifies them in Hosea 1:10; "Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, `Ye are not my People,' there it shall be said unto them, `Ye are the sons of the living God." The "sons of the Living God" are called Christians, after the Living God, Jesus Christ who came out of the tomb and today sits at the right hand of the Father. Most Christians today have limited Israel to the house of Judah, however this chapter in Hosea is directed to the House of Israel, whom God divorced, and called "not my people". Christians today just don't know who they are, or where they came from. They have no desire to return to old Palestine, and they are content to stay right where they are, and remain the "sons of the Living God". God has fulfilled his promise to Abraham, that His seed would become a numerous as the stars of the heaven, and the sands of the sea. However, remember also that Judah was the king line, and that is what is being addressed here, that they should have known better. God is also saying, wait till you see what the House of Israel is doing, they will do anything that anyone tells them to do. Jeremiah 3:7 "And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it." The king line of the House of Judah saw and witnessed all the whoredoms that the House of Israel was doing. She saw all the idolatry and the chasing after strange gods, and she heard God's pleadings for Israel to turn back to Him. But God would forgive Israel and take her back. But what did Judah do about it? Jeremiah 3:8 "And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also." It was God that divorced the House of Israel. Judah did exactly as Israel did, taking on other beliefs with apostacy. Leadership was to keep true to our Heavenly Father, but she [Judah] also was deceived and went astray. Jeremiah 3:9 " And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks." The word "lightness" in the Hebrew, means "kole" or to "call aloud, a voice, a fame" from Strong's Hebrew dictionary #6963. So we see that she became famous for the whoredoms which the House of Judah had entered into. It definitely was not a lightness that she entered into with her idolatries. This was not whoredoms in that which was sexual, but a whoredom in their belief and love for the only true God. He is God and we should place no other religion or belief before God. This gets back to what we studied in the first chapter. He is saying that you go out and commit these things, and build your own little houses, and pick up systems and customs and traditions of men, and and teach those things in the Lord's House. It went on in the days of Jeremiah, and it is still going on today. Jeremiah 3:10 "And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD." Judah faked it [feignedly] when she went through her religious practices. She knew the truth, and still allowed false teachings and traditions to creep in, thus making her the treacherous sister. The love that Judah put on, calling attention to her love for God, was a falsehood, a lie. She was faking it. It is obvious that our Heavenly Father is not happy with His children, both houses, Israel and Judah, and that is why His wrath will build. This is also why, as the latter rain does fall on the remnant that is suppose to hear, that those people that have eyes to see and ears to hear, will grow into mature children of the Living God. They will listen to our Heavenly Father, rather then some call to the way-side, and smothered in some form of religion. Christianity is not a religion, it is a reality in our every day life. Jeremiah 3:11 "And the LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah." The House of Judah should have known better, because the House of Israel doesn't even know who they are, any longer. They don't know, understand, or even care who they are. Most people of the House of Israel just want to get by from one day to the next. They don't care about their rewards, their inheritance, or the promises that God made to them through our forefathers. It is time to come alive and prepare yourself for that latter rain that is necessary to understand for the latter days. God is saying, as bad as it was for those ten tribes of Israel, it is worse for treacherous Judah because she knew better. Jeremiah 3:12 "Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the LORD; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever." Our Heavenly Father is so loving, that even after He has,(in the way of an analogy), been a husband that has been treated in this way, He is still asking His bride to come on home. He still loves each of His children, and He will put those sins of our past away, and He will provide for us forever. Our Father truly is that way, He loves His children and there is forgiveness in His heart. Though the law forbids man to do this, as we saw in Deuteronomy 24, God can and will take you back, no matter what the sin. Jeremiah 3:13 "Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD." What this is saying is that you must ask God for forgiveness, which means that you must repent of those sins in your life. If you don't repent He will not forgive you nor bless you. Don't be so foolish that you can think that you can hide anything from God, because He created you, and He can read every thought and intent that comes into your mind. He knows your sins, and He wants you to acknowledge them to Him, then ask forgiveness for those sins. You confess to God, not to man, and God has already promised you that He will forgive you and take you back. You must admit that you are not innocent and fell short. Christ is the only one that was innocent and perfect in every way, yet He is the one that was able to pay the price for our sins. Jeremiah 3:14 "Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:" God is promising that He will restore everything back to all of His backsliding children, if they will just return to Him. Remember that the sins that His children have committed are the two evils of Jeremiah 2:13 that the people had committed. He was angry about the subject. Those two evils were when you put some other belief or god before the living God. False religions will do that to you, even if you call it Christianity. They teach you to worship a system rather then the creator. These organizations have been allowed to become more important than God Himself, and those organizations were established to direct others to God, but you come to the point of making their system the salvation of your soul. Only God and His Word can save you, by repentance in Jesus name. When you repent, He will take you back. Jeremiah 3:15 "And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding." God promised that He will send pastors, but they will be part of the latter rains. Thsoe rains are the truth that shall come in the latter days. The feeding that those pastors will give is how to study and know the truth with understanding the entire Word of God. Sometimes those pastors will have to offend and jar people to shake them back into the right direction. They have to take their little sinking boats, and patch it up with the Word of God, to keep those souls from sinking in the harsh waves that are in the world today. The time is coming when only God's Word will keep people from being deceived, as apostasy is covering the earth. The time of the end is here, with the one world order a common rule in every nation on earth. All nations have signed onto the ten agencies of the United Nations, and their agencies are known commonly to even the children in grade school. Those agencies such as the World Bank, the Red Cross, UNICF, U.N. Forces [military], and those dealing with the environment, space and the World Court, and so on. Friend, that One World System is here right now. We have entered the time where many of the end time prophecies are history, and they date back fifty years. There are cities of peace everywhere, paving the way for the great deception that is coming. Our Father's Word warns us in detail about it. God promises that if you will seek, He will send you a pastor that will feed you with all the truth that you will need, so you will not be deceived. Jeremiah 3:16 "And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the LORD, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the LORD: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more." "The ark of the covenant of the Lord" when it was with the children of Israel, was basically the symbol of the altar of God. That was the seat of God, which was God's footstool. But now that we have a risen Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father in heaven, the ark of the covenant is there with Him. What God is saying here, is that there is a time coming when you will not need that ark of the covenant, or that symbol of God's altar on earth. It was the most precious and sacred item at one time, and God is telling us that His children will not think of that ark any more. Why? Jeremiah 3:17 "At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart." Because they will call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, not the ark of the Covenant. On the first day of the Millennium, every knee will bow to Jesus. All the nations of the earth will know who the true Christ is, and the throne of the Lord will be on earth in Jerusalem. This will happen exactly as it is written in His Word. As the people of the earth will see the power of the true Jesus Christ when He returns to earth, and through the restoration. Christ will reclaim all of His children from the false messiah and who many will have followed, and fallen away with, and worshipped during the great tribulation [deception]. So God is telling us that we will no longer need anything to symbolize His throne, for His throne will be on earth with you at that time of the Millennium Age. Jeremiah 3:18 "In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers." In other words, Israel, those ten tribes will come back out of the north country where they had settled after the Assyrian scattering. They are going to come back. Those caucasians are going to return to Jerusalem, and today they call themselves Gentiles. The Christian nations are going to join up with Judah, and return to Palestine, known today as Israel. Ezekiel 37:15-23 tells us how the Lord will join the two houses back together in the Millennium Age. God told Ezekiel to take two sticks and mark on one stick the name of Ephraim, the ruling tribe of the House of Israel, representing all the ten tribes and their companions. On the other stick Ezekiel was to mark the name of Judah, for the House of Judah, and place both sticks together in one hand. This was to symbolize the bringing them both together into one nation, that they would return to God. Ezekiel 37:15-23 [16] "Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions: [17] And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand. [18] And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? [19] Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand. [20] And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes. [21] And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: [22] And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all: [23] Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God." Jeremiah 3:19 "But I said, How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations? and I said, Thou shalt call me, My father; and shalt not turn away from me." In the Millennium Age they will not turn away from the Father, but cry out loud to Him, and He shall not turn them away. This is the time of restoration. But there will still be some that will be decieved at the end of the Millennium Age, even when they had the Lord Jesus Christ there on earth with them. Jeremiah 3:20 "Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD." God is going back to the subject at hand, where the House of Israel and the House of Judah are departing from God's ways. They had acted as a treacherous wife in the drifting away from the true teachings of God. They had drifted away from the language in which the Word of God was written. In other words, they stopped caring and started chasing winds of false doctrine and false traditions of men. Jeremiah 3:21 "A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God." God's children today have been deprived of hearing His Word and have sunk to an all-time low, butchering their own, killing one another, and they don't care. God doesn't allow that, for their actions are of Satan. Mankind in the flesh is reaching a new low spiritually, the hour is late, and Christians better wake up and get themselves and their children back into the Word of God! It is time to sound the alarm, and teach people that there is hope even though it looks like despair all over the world. When it gets just so bad, people will seek a change and it will stop. Jeremiah 3:22 "Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God." God is saying that you can return to me on an individual basis, when you tell Him that you love Him. It doesn't matter what you have done, there is forgiveness with the Father, when we repent and come back to him. The price has already been paid and God will take you back as you are His child. He will love you and care for you. Jeremiah 3:23 "Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel." This is wisdom. "Vain" is emptiness and hoplessness. The multitudes are the nations of people that make up the Houses of Israel and Judah, and God is saying that when you are in those nations scattered all over the hills, you begin to arrange your own salvation. Remember this is the two evils that God spoke of in the prior chapter - that Israel had committed. They were turning their back on God, and taking up new forms of religions and beliefs. Friend, if you have made yourselves Biblically illiterate you have turned your back on God. You have snuffed at His Word. That angers God. But here God is saying that now, just as you are, He still takes you back, if you will just repent and turn back to Him. You are the one that must take the step to reunite yourself to Him. The way has already been paid for at the cross of Christ. Jeremiah 3:24 "For shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth; their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters." The shame that God is placing on His children is on the labor of their hands. They try to get ahead in their work, their savings, and their wealth, to have an inheritance for their children, and their labor is devoured by the shame that has come upon them. They have allowed it to happen by turning their backs on God and His Word. Friend, do your children undertand the Word of God? Are your children one of those millions upon millions that call themselves Gentile, but are in fact of the "House of Israel"? God is saying that each one of them have a purpose, and He wants them back. If you have children, and they do not know the Word of God, then your labor is lost, my friend. You can feed that child into adulthood with the Word of God, yet if that child rejects God of his or her own free will, then it is between that child and God, not you. However, our responsibility as the parent is to discipline the child as we are taught from and within God's Word. Jeremiah 3:25 "We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God." We have not studied His Word, and even if a pastor comes along that is chosen by God, that teaches the Words of God, and not some words that try to make you feel good, most Christians just refuse to accept it. They get too busy in the ways of the world. There is a time coming when all will bow a knee to our Lord, and then you will wish that you would have spent some time in His Word, getting ready for that time. What we do and what we say in our confusion will cover us in that day, and it will be to our shame. All that we have done, and the deceptions that we have allowed to enter our lives, we will be accountable for, and those words and actions will be part of our shame. It is getting today where so-called Christians even snuff back at the Word of God, is this like the clay talking back to the potter? The truth is lack of knowledge in the Word is not innocence when a person chooses to be ignorant of the spiritual matters in his or her lives. Our heavenly Father had His entire plan written down by the prophets, and the wise person will take heed to those words. God does not do anything until He has warned us first. God's entire plan is necessary for you reading, and it is a type of everything we will face in our generation. Every detail of Jesus birth, His life, and His death and resurrection was spelled out ahead of time in His plan, the Bible. Just as God foretold us what Christ would face, He also told us what that last generation of this flesh age would face, in detail, yet most Christian's would rather disregard those warnings, and hinge their entire future on fairy-tales, and traditions of men that make them feel good. Living in our generation, we must be wiser than the serpent, and this can only come by studying His Word. Our Heavenly Father loves you and He wants you to come back to Him. We do that by repenting to the Father of all our sins, in Jesus name, and turning to Him. You cannot claim that you are innocent and have Him forgive you, repentance comes only confession of those sins.
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