THE LORD SPOKE (October 21)

Daily Reflections from Scripture:

Jeremiah 25-26

Jeremiah 25:11 - This whole country will become desolate waste. and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

The saints of the Old Testament knew their Bibles! This prophesy in Jeremiah is quoted in three other prophetic books:

Daniel 9:2 - In the first year of [Darius’] reign, I, Daniel understood from the Scriptures, according to the word given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.

Ezra 1:1 - In the first year of Cyrus King of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus....

Zechariah 1:12 - Then the angel of the Lord said, “Lord Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns of Judah which you have been angry with these seventy years?”

We can take several lessons from this:

1. Read your Bible carefully and take the time to compare Scripture with Scripture. (That means you’ll need to invest in a good concordance.)
2. Believe what it says. Live in expectant anticipation.
3. Use the promises and the prophecies of Scripture to encourage yourself and others in the fact of God’s sovereignty, His wisdom, and His control of all things.
4. Study carefully what the Bible has to say about future events - prophesies regarding the nation of Israel, the signs that will indicate the end times, the return of Jesus Christ to rapture His saints.
5. Work out for yourself a sequence of future events. Even if we can’t determine exact dates, enough detail is given to us that we should be able to place in chronological order the Rapture, the Tribulation, the Return of Christ to earth, the Millennium, the Great White Throne judgment, and the beginning of Eternity.

Jeremiah himself gave more details about the seventy years of captivity and, by application, it contains some encouragement for us:

Jeremiah 29:10-14 - This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”


Psalms 69-70

Zeal for your house consumes me! (Ps. 69:9)

Can you say that? Can you resonate with the psalmist’s words in Psalm 84:10 - “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere”?

We must take care not to equate the Temple and its worship with our present-day church services. However, there is a connection in this: both provided a place and a program to draw the individual worshiper into communion with God. Each had/has the purpose of giving expression to both corporate and private worship. Even the sparrows and the swallows were considered fortunate to find a place for their nests close to the altar.

We would recognize something similar in our day. Is not the child brought up in Sunday School and church considered fortunate to have that background? Don’t we give value to a serious religious up-bringing that includes regular church attendance where those young ears can hear God’s Word and that little heart can be molded after God’s own heart?

What changed? What happened between those years of childish delight in the things of God and our present ho-hum attitude? Why is it something of a burden to make it to church Sunday after Sunday? Forget the evening service - that died a long time ago.

Jesus thought differently! Watching Him in the Temple on one occasion, “His disciples remembered that it is written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’” (Jn. 2:17). Jesus loved to be in the place where He could meet with the Father.

How about you? Make the effort to be in church this week - both services. Find a place where you can grow in the Lord. Get zealous again!