Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 28-30.

At the end of yesterday’s passage, Jeremiah prophesied that the people of Judah and Jerusalem should submit to the “yoke of Babylon.”  Today’s passage begins with a prophet named Hananiah telling Jeremiah in the presence of the people in the temple that God had told him He would break the yoke of Babylon and the captives would return, including Jehoiachin, who had been king.  To which Jeremiah replied, “May it be so, but God usually sends prophets to prophesy war, disaster, and plague.”  So, Jeremiah continued that prophets who prophesy peace and prosperity need to be taken with a grain of salt, they need to be held to a higher standard before being believed.  Prophets who prophesy war, disaster, and plague can be believed when they tell us these things will happen if we do not turn from our sins, even if the war, disaster, and plague do not come.  Because those things may not have come because enough people turned to the Lord.  But if a prophet prophesies peace and prosperity, we need to give it careful evaluation because peace and prosperity only comes when God is not calling us to change our ways.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Jeremiah 26-27.

When Jehoiakim was king, Jeremiah prophesied to the people of Jerusalem and Judah that if they listened to God’s words and repented of their sins, He would forgive them and relent of the destruction He had planned for them.  But if they did not, He would bring desolation upon Jerusalem.  There was still time for them to turn from their sins.  God had declared destruction for Jerusalem, but there was still time for them to turn to Him.  Later, when Zedekiah was king, God sent Jeremiah with another prophecy.  If the people of Jerusalem would accept God’s judgement and submit to Babylon, He would spare their lives, but it was too late to maintain their independence.  The day when they could avoid God’s judgement had passed.  Their only choice was to accept, or suffer even worse.  I believe that today we are still at the point similar to Jeremiah’s first prophecy in today’s passage, but we are rapidly approaching the second.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.