Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to
OurChristianWalk@aol.com.
In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on
Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests
to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of The Christian
Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
This is the message Jeremiah the prophet gave to the staff
officer Seraiah, son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went to Babylon
with Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the fourth year of his reign. Jeremiah had
written on a scroll about all the disasters that would come upon Babylon—all
that had been recorded concerning Babylon. He said to Seraiah, “When you get to
Babylon, see that you read all these words aloud. Then say, ‘Lord, You have said
You will destroy this place, so that neither people nor animals will live in
it; it will be desolate forever.’ When you finish reading this scroll, tie a
stone to it and throw it into the Euphrates. Then say, ‘So will Babylon sink to
rise no more because of the disaster I will bring on her. And her people will
fall.’”
The words of Jeremiah end here.
Jeremiah 51:59-64
This ends today’s
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
In today’s devotion, we not only looking at the final words
in Jeremiah 51 but as we see in our scripture passage, the final words of the
prophet Jeremiah as well. Look again at his last message:
This is the message
Jeremiah the prophet gave to the staff officer Seraiah, son of Neriah, the son
of Mahseiah, when he went to Babylon with Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the
fourth year of his reign. Jeremiah had written on a scroll about all the
disasters that would come upon Babylon—all that had been recorded concerning
Babylon. He said to Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, see that you read all
these words aloud. Then say, ‘Lord, You have said You will destroy this place,
so that neither people nor animals will live in it; it will be desolate
forever.’ When you finish reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it
into the Euphrates. Then say, ‘So will Babylon sink to rise no more because of
the disaster I will bring on her. And her people will fall.’”
The words of Jeremiah
end here. Jeremiah 51:59-64
At the heart of these verses, we find the theme that has
dominated Jeremiah, Chapters 50 and 51. Babylon, the once mighty, dominant
empire was about to see its reign end in a big way as God’s judgment came upon
them. The news came in the form of a chilling decree that Jeremiah had written
on a scroll and sent to Babylon with Seraiah, a staff officer who traveled to
Babylon with King Zedekiah of Judah.
What made the decree chilling?
The scroll contained words that detailed the punishment God
was sending, punishment that included:
1. A series of
disasters.
“Jeremiah had written
on a scroll about all the disasters that would come upon Babylon.”
God’s consequences were not going to be mild. They were
going to be epic and not even the mighty Babylonian forces were going to be
able to defend the empire against the disasters God was sending, disasters that
would culminate in complete annihilation. And that leads to the second outcome
of God’s punishment.
2. Destruction and desolation.
“Then say, ‘Lord, You
have said You will destroy this place, so that neither people nor animals will
live in it; it will be desolate forever.’”
How bad would the devastation of God’s disaster be?
So bad that the entire empire would be laid to waste and
left in ruins. Scripture tells us that the demolition would be so harsh that
the once rich and fertile land would be left uninhabitable and desolate, not just
in the short term but forever.
3. Lost power and prominence.
“When you finish
reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it into the Euphrates. Then
say, ‘So will Babylon sink to rise no more because of the disaster I will bring
on her. And her people will fall.’”
Once mighty and on a steady upward trajectory as the world’s
superpower, Babylon would fall and fall hard, sinking into the depths of world
significance just like the scroll with its recorded judgment would sink into
the Euphrates after being read to the Babylonians.
Of course, we know now that God’s prophecy spoken through
His prophet came to absolute fruition through the work of the attacking Persians
who overthrew the Babylonians and took over all that they possessed. Babylon
had chosen to unrepentantly sin against God by worshiping false gods and as a
result they faced the same penalty that other nations had suffered for the same
offense, nations which included the Israelite’s own Judah. God has sent a clear
message that any nation that opts for wickedness over His righteousness can
expect judgment and that judgment can include utter destruction.
It applied to the nations in Jeremiah’s day, it applies
today, and it will apply until God decides He has had enough and sends Jesus
back to judge the world. We know our future has this in store because God has
given us our own chilling decree which reads as follows:
“When the Son of Man
comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on his glorious
throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the
people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He
will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.”
“Then the King will
say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father; take your
inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I
was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me
something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited Me in, I needed clothes
and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you
came to visit Me.’”
“Then the righteous
will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and
give You something to drink? When did we see You a stranger and invite You in,
or needing clothes and clothe You? When did we see You sick or in prison and go
to visit You?’”
“The King will reply,
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and
sisters of Mine, you did for Me.’”
“Then He will say to
those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire
prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave Me nothing
to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and
you did not invite Me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe Me, I was
sick and in prison and you did not look after Me.’”
“They also will
answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing
clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help You?’”
“He will reply,
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you
did not do for Me.’”
“Then they will go
away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Matthew 25:31-46
A day of reckoning is coming for us all, the day when Jesus
returns in all His glory. Heaven and earth as we know it will be destroyed on
that day but not before there is a sorting of people into two distinct groups:
a group who did accept Jesus as Savior and a group who did not.
The first group are labeled as righteous by Jesus because
they not only received and acknowledged Jesus as Savior but also reflected His
life attitudes in the way they lived, namely caring for the most vulnerable
people in society like the hungry and thirsty, the stranger who had no place to
stay, the person in need of clothes, those who were afflicted in some way, and
those who were incarcerated. Jesus made it His mission to care for the needs of
others and those who truly followed Him would do the same. Because of all they
were in Jesus, Christians are referred to as blessed in this passage as they
prepared to receive their inheritance and inhabit the new heaven and earth with
God and Jesus forever.
Now for the chilling part of the decree.
For those who chose to reject Jesus and not care for the
needy as the Christians did were called cursed by Jesus for their future
included being cast into a fire fashioned for the devil himself and the angels
that served him. Their destiny was eternal destruction, an obliteration that
was even worse than the one Babylon faced in today’s scripture passage.
The bottom line then for all of us here in the 21st century
is that God has already told us what the future will hold. We all know how the
story of creation is going to end. The question is, “Will we perish or be saved
when it comes?”
God gave us a chilling decree to help us make the right
decision, a decision that leads to the outcome of eternal life. We just need to
follow His guidance, accept Jesus as Savior, and in doing so, claim our part of
His blessed everlasting kingdom where we’ll abide with Him forever.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment