RUSSELL SANDERS
8-31-2021
JEREMIAH PROPHESIES ABOUT CAPTIVITY
The southern kingdom of Israel, Judah, escaped the Assyrian captivity in 722 B.C. of the northern ten tribes of Israel due to some godly kings. However, as time passed, Judah became very idolatrous.
God punished them by sending them into Babylonian captivity. Led by general Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon invaded Jerusalem and took the finest of them captive. This included Daniel in 606 B.C.
Afterward, later in 606 B.C. the prophet Jeremiah wrote his prophecy about it in a letter and sent it to Babylon. It was also distributed in Judea. (Jeremiah 29.)
In the letter Jeremiah instructed the captives to build houses, plant gardens and vineyards, have children, and grandchildren, and to make yourselves at home in Babylon because they would be there for seventy years.
He told them, after seventy years, God will bring you back to Judea and Jerusalem. You will have learned your lesson and you will then serve me, says the Lord your God.
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you (saith the Lord), thoughts of peace, and not evil, to give you an expected end.” (Jeremiah 29:11.)
We often use that verse applying it to ourselves that God has a plan for each of us. Jeremiah received it as a promise that God will bring his people out of the tough times and into their fulness in Him.
Jeremiah also warned them that many false prophets will rise up whom God did not send. God promised in 29:17 that he would bring the sword, famine, and pestilence (pandemics) upon those false ones. Many of those would be slain by Nebuchadnezzar who became emperor in 605 B.C., one year after his initial invasion of Jerusalem.
Seventy years later the prophet Daniel saw the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy. Not everybody accepted Jeremiah’s 606 B.C. prophecy. We will see the opposition to it tomorrow and how that same spirit is active today. I will name that evil spirit.
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