A COMING AGE

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

In those days, when your numbers have increased greatly in the land,” declares the Lord, “people will no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It will never enter their minds or be remembered; it will not be missed, nor will another one be made. At that time they will call Jerusalem, The Throne of the Lord, and all nations will gather in Jerusalem to honor the name of the Lord. No longer will they follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts. In those days, the people of Judah will join the people of Israel, and together they will come from a northern land to the land I gave your ancestors as an inheritance.”

Jeremiah 3:16-18

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Let me make two bold statements today.

First, there is a day ahead when the only focus people will have is on Jerusalem and the Lord’s place there.

Second, in this future time, people who were once separated for whatever reason, whether by distance or ideology, will come together as one and gather in the place the Lord provides.

It is a vision of a coming age and it’s not a vision I have had. It’s the vision of a pending reality that the Lord God Almighty shares with His prophet Jeremiah, a vision recorded in the scriptures for us to share in as well. Look at these verses as we continue to study from Jeremiah 3:

In those days, when your numbers have increased greatly in the land,” declares the Lord, “people will no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It will never enter their minds or be remembered; it will not be missed, nor will another one be made. At that time they will call Jerusalem, The Throne of the Lord, and all nations will gather in Jerusalem to honor the name of the Lord. No longer will they follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts. In those days, the people of Judah will join the people of Israel, and together they will come from a northern land to the land I gave your ancestors as an inheritance.”  Jeremiah 3:16-18

Now you might not think see the significance in these words because we aren’t a people who were invested in the ark of the covenant. Likewise, we weren’t a people who were a divided kingdom as the nation of Canaan was back in Old Testament days with the Israelites breaking up into two factions, the nation of Israel to the north and Judah to the south. But to the people of Jeremiah’s time, these words spoke volumes.

They had held the ark of the covenant in great reverence because not only did God instruct them in how to construct it, He also gave them His commandments to place within it. The words of God went with them wherever they would go and it was of the utmost importance to protect the ark and hold it completely sacred. Any statement that would assert that they would ever forget the ark in the way they lived would have been considered foolish. But that’s exactly what the Lord said would come about and indeed it happened when Jesus returned and brought a new covenant with God’s people, one that required a person follow His ways instead of hauling a wooden chest around. Jesus became the Word made flesh who dwelled among God’s people and still does today. He would be all that anyone would ever need to enter into salvation and a lifetime spent with God and all other who placed their faith and hope in Jesus as Savior.

So where does Jerusalem come into play?

Go to Revelation and the opening verses of chapter 21. You will see that when Jesus returns and God hits the reset button on creation, all Christians will dwell together in a new Jerusalem where the Lord will reign and be honored as the true King of kings and Lord of lords. There will be no other ruler or authority but Him and all those in His kingdom will worship and praise Him solely, no longer victimized by the stubbornness of their own hearts because sin will perish along with the prior heaven and earth.

Go back to my first bold statement and you will see it will happen because the Lord said it would and His promises always come true.

Now, let’s go back to the population of the new Jerusalem. There will be no sense of national origin when Jesus gathers all those who believed in Him for the salvation He promised them. We will not see one another as American or British or African or Asian (or in Old Testament times, Judean or Israelite) but rather as brother and sisters in Jesus Christ and shared residents of Jerusalem, set free from affliction and hardship and pain and sorrow and war to live with one another in perfect light and love and peace.

It’s a day worth looking forward to, the coming age where we can say goodbye to creation as we know it and, if we are in Christ, start over free from the difficulties and trappings of this world.

Will you be there with me?

If you have accepted Jesus as Savior, then the answer is “yes”.

If you haven’t, the answer is “no” but it doesn’t have to be that way. I pray that you will receive Jesus today and seal your future with Him, a future that has no end, a future that offers you the hope of the coming age when Jesus returns.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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