71. Beginner Bible Course: The books of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Lamentations

EPISODE 71  The simple Bible overview of…JEREMIAH, EZEKIEL, AND LAMENTATION – JERE AND ZEKE (GOD’S ODD GUYS)

My dad died when I was seven leaving my mother, a widow of seven children at the age of 49. She was a really great mom, but by the time I, and my two older brothers were teenagers, she was beginning to wear a little thin. I was number seven in my two older brothers were number six and five. I remember distinctly a night when we were all in our teenage years, we lived in a two bedroom apartment with the three of us boys stacked up in a single room. This particular night, we just weren't interested in going to bed much less to sleep. My mom in the other room had first asked then urged then warned us. It was time to go to sleep for whatever reason we really wanted no part of that.

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Finally at about midnight, the latch at the front door quietly shut. Now I've got to tell you there wasn't one ounce of me to believe my mother would leave us. I mean, she was a great, great mom, but I knew she'd left the house at midnight. I was going to find her. I found her in the side yard of our apartment house. She was just sitting there quiet in the dark, looking up at the sky. I had no doubt what she was doing. She was getting help from our father. Of course, I don't mean dad. I'm in her heavenly father. She'd reached the end of her rope with us three boys, as I read the next two profits. Jeremiah and Ezekiel, I think about my momma in that dark side yard.

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And I wonder if God, the father felt anything like that toward his kids. Jacob's children in the nation of Judah. He'd given them repeated warnings and sent prophets, Joel, Micah, Isaiah Zephaniah, and Habbakuk to warn them, but Judah didn't want any part of that. So for me, at least where I sit as a student of the prophets, God pulled out all the stops like he did in the Northern kingdom with Hosea, whom he told to go marry a harlot to represent their unfaithfulness to him, the God of Israel, God finds Jeremiah and Ezekiel Jere and Zeke as is Last to profits, to Warren, the kingdom of Judah before utter destruction was to fall on them as well.

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Jere and Zeke gods odd guys, both were sent to Judah into their Capitol city of Jerusalem, both served long term Jeremiah for 40 years Zeke Hill for about 20, both were utterly faithful, but essentially fruitless and both ended up dying in a foreign land. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's look at Jere first God tells Jeremiah. I sent you a part in your mother's womb to be a prophet in my name. When you read Jeremiah you'll see that he was a sensitive man. And yet God grabs this sensitive guy in his mother's womb to send him on a steel edged mission. He's given the label, the weeping prophet, the reluctant prophet, the lonely prophet.

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He proclaims this sticky note from God Last call to repent. This is the front door of heaven clicking. This is God's last attempt. The gracious God is running out of options. Jeremiah his 40 year ministry is met with scorn and mocking. When I see friends, I often ask them, Hey, what's the good word for today? When people in Judah med Jeremiah in the morning, they asked, Hey, what's the weighty word from the Lord today, Jerry, for some reason, the entire nation of Judah was in denial that they were in trouble at all kind of reminds me of me and my brothers in that single bedroom on that fateful night.

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Back when I was a teen, not surprisingly, he experienced extreme opposition from politicians, as you read Jeremiah you'll see he brought his entire written prophecy to King Jehovah Kim, after reading one or two columns of it, he cuts it up with a knife and tosses it in to the fire. You'll understand how much work that involves when you see how big the Jeremiah scroll is, by the way God said, Jeremiah write it again. Can you imagine writing your biography and having your computer crash after forgetting to hit save, he didn't get any help from the other profits in town either. They countered him on every front, when Jeremiah would preach a sermon on the coming destruction of Babylon.

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They'd preach a sermon on, do you remember Hezekiah in <inaudible> and the angel of the Lord killing 185,000 Assyrians in one night, God has on our side people Jerry's just having a bad day. When Jeremiah goes to his hometown, they plot to kill him later. He's beaten by a prophet. He's put in stocks and later STILL thrown into the city sewer. Now you'll know what he means when he prays to God, you pulled me up out of the muck and mire and set my feet upon a rock with his words, falling on deaf ears and worse. God ask him to begin to live out his message much like Hosea to the North.

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The first thing God asks him to do is get a new pair of underwear. You'll read about a linen belt, but its next to his skin and his way. So that makes an underwear. He's told to wear it and not change it for like a year. Then he's told to take it off, carry it prominently through the city of Jerusalem, take it off to Babylon and bury it in a cliff. When he gets back to Jerusalem and that's no small walk, he's told to go back to Babylon and retrieve his skivvies. Then to bring it home and show it off to the people. It was marred. Not pretty. God then tells the lonely prophet. You can't marry no life. I want the people to know bridal shops and stuff should probably shut down around here.

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There's not going to be any wedding soon in Jerusalem or Judea later, God asked him to build a yoke. That's that wooden bar that goes across the top of cows shoulders. When they pull a he's commanded to put it on his shoulders and walk through the busy streets of Jerusalem. Can you imagine, excuse me, excuse me, coming through. Pardon me? Excuse me. People wonder what is that crazy Jere doing with that yoga on his shoulders. Jere tells them soon you'll be put under yolks and hauled off to Babylon. You'll be treated like cattle, doing their work in Babylon. God tells Jerry to go buy property as he's buying it. He explains to them. He won't be taking possession for a very long time, but someday God's told him he or his descendants will return to this land and he'll need that deed to settle back in Jere isn't all bad news.

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That's for sure. In chapter 23, he paraphrases and reminds people of the promise God gave to David. Here's what he says. Behold. The days are coming declares. The Lord, when I will raise up for David, a righteous branch and he will reign as King and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land in his day, his Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely. And this is his name by which he will be called the Lord, our righteousness. That's quite a King. And then through the prophet Jeremiah God gives us this gem, his fifth covenant, behold, the days are coming declares. The Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their father's in the day, I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant, which they broke.

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Although I was a husband to them declares the Lord, but this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel. After those days declares the Lord, I will put my law within them and on their heart. I will write it and I will be their God. And they will be my people that should sound familiar and they shall not teach again. Each man, his neighbor and each man, his brother saying know the Lord for, they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest to them declares the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more says the Lord. You might want to back the podcast up 30 seconds in listen to that again.

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That's stunning. God promises his people through Jeremiah a day will come. When they have a change of heart, a heart transplant they'll have intimate fellowship with God they'll know the Lord, their God and their sins will be no more. All the earnings of the profits that the people of Judah had been rejecting will become a reality. We're going to leave Jerry for a moment and we're going to move to Zeke with Zeke. God really does let it fly before Zeke goes out and begins to minister. As a prophet of God tells him, you see that scroll over there. It was probably the law of Moses. Eat it. No, I mean really chew it up and swallow Zeke does it.

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He eats a scroll possibly in front of the people of Jerusalem. Then God tells him to get a large brick. He's told to draw a sketch of the city of Jerusalem on the brick. Then God tells him to lie down in the side and play army men with it. Yep. Right there in the main arteries of Jerusalem, a grown man on his side, playing army men, building seeds, ramps, and attacking the city in miniature. God tells him every day, go to this spot for the first 390 days. Lay down on your left side all day, that represents God's judgment on the Northern kingdom of Israel. And when that's done, go back for 40 more days and lay on your right side, representing God's judgment on the nation of Judah that's 14 months people playing army men in the main city square.

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God says you're going to need to have lunch those days. So here's what you'll do. Bring about a quart of water and enough flour and oil to make a tiny loaf of bread. I want you to bake your lunch over poop. That's right. Dried poop for briquettes and not just any poop human poop Zeke you'll appeals to God's kindness. And God says, all right, you can use animal poop is the OD enough for you yet? God then tells the Zeke Hill to shave all of his beard and cut off all his hair. Then after putting it into a pile there in the main city square, he's the separate it perfectly into thirds saving just a few hairs to tuck into his clothes one-third of the pile he has to burn.

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You smelled burning human hair lately. He has to take the second pile around the city and at various places stop and chop it up with the sword Japanese steakhouse style. The last third, he used to walk around town, tossing it into the wind. Of course the burning hair. He explains represents God burning Jerusalem. The chopped up hair represents those. The Babylonians will kill with the sword and the hair thrown to the wind, represents those taken into exile. Zeke cut a hole in the wall of your house. When the nightlife is happening in Jerusalem. I want you to come out of that hole in your wall, carry a knapsack of basics on a stick like you're running away.

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Then walk around Jerusalem, carrying that runaway knapsack. I want you to do this every night. Of course, when people asked the crazy Zeke what he's doing, he explains you. Or at least our King, we'll be doing this someday crawling through a hole in the wall in the middle of the night to escape the Babylonians. Perhaps the most tragic of all one morning God tells us EQL kiss your wife. Goodbye. The desire of your eyes will be dead by night and hear this as Ezekiel. I need you to not cry, no tears, not even in the morning. I want the people to know they'll come a time when everything that's most precious to them will be ripped away and they will not even be allowed to weep interspersed in Zeke's outrageous behavior or a series of vivid visions.

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Some of them are in spirituals, Zeke, you'll Saudi we'll weigh up in the middle of the air and Dem bones, them bones, them dry bones. At other times, he communicates with vivid parables. In each of these cases, Zeke's actions and words are met with complete denial. Of course we learned in Kings of the South. Jerusalem is taken by Nebuchadnezzar in a Zeke. ULAs taken away with them. Nebuchadnezzar comes back and lay siege to Jerusalem and then destroys it, which brings us back to Lamentations our last major prophet. The word Lamentations means to cry out loud.

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Lamentations believe written by Jeremiah. Our five poems, four of which are across sticks. This prophetic book from beginning to end is morning over the destruction of Jerusalem in the temple compare. The destruction of Jerusalem in the temple to exit is 50. And when God's people were birthed as a nation, do you remember that? They're on the other side of the red sea, a baby nation has come out of Egypt after 10 powerful contractions of God. They're freed from 400 years of slavery. They're supernaturally delivered by God and they burst into exuberant praise. But now watching the Babylonians cut a third of the population down with a sword, destroy the city and the temple and haul their relatives East toward Babylon.

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We see a nation that's crushed led into slavery and judged by their God Lamentations is five long crushing chapters of grief over what is what was, and what could of been, this will not be the only time Lamentations like this will be made over Jerusalem. Almost six centuries later. Jesus stands on a perch overlooking Jerusalem. And he States this Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem who kills the prophets and stones. Those who are sent to her, how often I wanted to gather your children together in a way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you were unwilling behold, your house is left to you desolate, but with the God who made us and once his children back, there's always hope dead center in the middle of Lamentations in the middle of the third poem, the writer sucks back the tears and says this, this I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope the Lord's loving kindness.

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Indeed never ceases for his compassion. Never fails. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion says my soul. Therefore I have hope in him for the Lord is good to those who wait for him to the person who seeks him. It is good that he waits silently for the salvation. The Lord, the sticky note for Lamentations M STILL here delivering you. The Babylonians gave Jeremiah choice to come to Babylon or stay in Jerusalem. Not surprisingly this sensitive prophet chose to stay in destroy Jerusalem. With those left behind those very people who mocked him throughout his ministry shortly after Gedaliah.

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The puppet governor of Babylon was assassinated in the rebels, kidnapped Jeremiah and took him to Egypt there in Egypt. Faithful Jeremiah continued to plug along with his pronouncements against all the nations around Israel. And Judah, I'm guessing with tears in his eyes as for Zeke. I mentioned he was taken to Babylon there. He becomes the pastor of these exiles from Judah the last third of the book of his Ezekiel. His written to the exiles in Babylon Zeke becomes their pastor. And once in Babylon, he turns to the prophet of hope. In fact, that's a sticky note. Hang on to hope.

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Hang on to hope people you'll read him. Describe a future, a glorious future, a temple real priests and real worship God's people back in the land in best of all the glory of God returning once again there in Babylon, we think pastor Zeke got to know another very special captive of Judah in a very important character in the old Testament. His name was Daniel and we'll hear his story and our next word picture.