July 12, 2023 - Jeremiah 28-31

At the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, the last king in Jerusalem, a prophet from Gibeon, Hananiah, told that the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar would be broken within two years and God would bring back all the people and the things of the temple. What a liar! And within the year, he was dead and his prophecies still a lie. The people did not come back, and Jeremiah wrote a letter to the exiles telling them they would remain in exile and encouraging them to get on with their lives.

Yet, Jeremiah was able to say, “behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judah, says the Lord, and I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall take possession of it” (30:3). Not yet, but one day! The grace of God is so much greater than Israel’s sin! “Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away; say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.’ For the Lord has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him. They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord” (31:10-12). Israel could have sung with us the verses of George Matheson:

O Love that will not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee.

I give thee back the life I owe,

that in thine ocean depths its flow

may richer, fuller be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to thee.

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

and feel the promise is not vain,

that morn shall tearless be. --George Matheson (1882)