Jeremiah and Ezekiel Jeremiah and E Zekiel
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STRAIGHT TO THE HEART OF Jeremiah and Ezekiel JEREMIAH AND JEREMIAH 60 BITE-SIZED INSIGHTS E Phil Moore ZEKIEL 3 Introduction: Only Radical Surgery Can Save This Patient “I will slay in my anger and wrath… I will bring health and healing.” (Jeremiah 33:5–6) A few years ago, an Australian woman stabbed me. She had planned her move so carefully that I was powerless to stop her. First, she arranged for her friend to drug me so that I became disorientated. Then she stabbed me with a sharp knife, slicing a great chunk of flesh out of my leg. Her blade was only inches 9 hadaway been from diagnosed a major artery. with a suspected melanoma? What if I told you thatSounds the prettyAustralian shocking, woman I know. was Buta gifted what surgeon if I told youwho that had I What if I told you that her scalpel enabled me to sit here writing thisbeen devotionaltasked with commentary removing the forsuspicious you, cancer-free? tissue from myIt wouldbody? transform your perspective, and I want you to think the same Theyway about share Jeremiah a common and message. Ezekiel. TheyThey bothare two address of the the greatest same writers of the Old Testament, and two of the most neglected. Only radical surgeryspiritual can cancer save thatthis patient.is spreading1 across the southern kingdom of Judah, and they both reveal God’s diagnosis: 1 The twelve tribes of Israel had split into two kingdoms in 930 BC. The northern kingdom of Israel had already been destroyed by this spiritual cancer in 722 BC. Jeremiah and Ezekiel address the southern kingdom of Judah in order to rescue it from the fate of its northern neighbour. Jeremiah 1–25 explains why radical surgery is needed. still refer to any speech that outlines a long list of problems as a These early chapters are the reason why, in modern English, we jeremiad. They are why modern politicians dismiss those who point out problems with their policies as the Jeremys of this downworld. by Granted, their doctor these and chapters informed can that make they for have difficult cancer, reading but it wouldin places, be farbut worse that’s forprecisely their doctor the point. to pretend Nobody that likes everything to be sat the sin that is destroying God’s people and he calls his listeners towas lie looking down gladly fine and on God’srosy whenoperating it wasn’t. table beforeJeremiah it spreads describes to their entire body. At a time when many churches are in decline and when our experience of Christianity seems quite distant chapters carefully. They help us to recognize the spiritual cancer thatfrom still the destroys triumphs God’s of the people. book Theyof Acts, invite we us need to embrace to read God’sthese scalpel in our own lives and in our own churches today. Jeremiah 26–52 informs us that radical surgery has begun. The Lord has heard his people’s response to his diagnosis, 10 and he has begun his life-saving operation. These chapters are full of horror, as many people close their ears to the doctor’s warnings and become part of the infected tissue that needs to deliverance.be removed Thefrom Lord the usesbody. these But chaptersthese chapters to describe are also the brightfull of futureglorious which hope, lies as on others the other face sideup to of thesurgery dire fordiagnosis anybody and who find is willing to surrender to the truth of his Word. Lamentations is a collection of poems that teach us healthy ways of responding to surgery . Although the five poems are anonymous, we will discover later that the prophet Jeremiah weepprobably for thepenned sin inside them our and churches so we will and take for the a brief catastrophic look at them pain thatin our it inevitablytour through causes. Jeremiah He encourages and Ezekiel. us thatHe teaches the Lord us wounds how to us in order to heal us, so long as we respond well to his scalpel. Ezekiel 1–32 informs us sadly that further surgery is needed . Ezekiel was a teenager in 605 BC, when the Babylonians first besieged Jerusalem and carried away thousands of tocaptives, surrender including to the surgeon’s Daniel and hand his of God.friends. He wasEzekiel in his therefore twenties witnessed first-hand the stubborn refusal of the Jewish leaders when the Babylonians captured Jerusalem for a second time, in during597 BC, the and eleven he found years himself that amongled up theto the group total of destructioncaptives taken of into exile. These chapters record his prophecies in Babylonia pleadingJerusalem with in 586God’s BC. people Ezekiel to surrender confronts to the the spiritualsurgeon’s cancer blade that still lingers on in Judah and in its capital city of Jerusalem, to be ruined so that its spiritual recovery can begin. whileEzekiel they still 33–48 have isa chance.a glorious Otherwise proclamation their ofnation the results will need of surgery . After Jerusalem is destroyed and Judah is swallowed up into the Babylonian Empire, the Jewish exiles start hearing promises of a glorious future for their fallen nation. Even now, 11 Ezekiel prophesies that if they repent of their rebellion against the Lord, he will bring them back to their land and recommence their nation’s great salvation story. These chapters take us surgeryback to thehas creationbeen successful of Adam and and that Eve thein thebest Garden days for of Eden,God’s peopleencouraging now lie the ahead Jewish of them. survivors These to chapters believe are that full the of mightyLord’s promises about what God has in store for those who willingly embrace his radical surgery. So, well done for deciding to read these books of the Bible and thank you for allowing me to guide you through them in this devotional commentary. Jeremiah, Lamentations and Ezekiel are some of the least-read books of the Bible, but they are also some of the most rewarding. They are still the words God speaks to his backslidden people today. It doesn’t take much insight to spot that the church in the West has problems very similar to those of Jerusalem and Judah, in The Independent newspaper predicted that the church would as described by Jeremiah.2 and A few Ezekiel. years Some later, timean Anglican ago, a headline bishop admitted to The Daily Telegraph that he felt it hard to see the churchbe dead surviving within 40 more years than another 30 years.3 So let’s not treat these three books as somebody else’s stillmail, God’s dismissing Word tothem his peopleas too today.gloomy Full or oftoo solemn difficult warnings for us andto understand. glorious promises, These three they booksstill warn of the believers Old Testament in our own are generation that only radical surgery can save this patient. 12 2 The Independent is published in London, UK, and ran this headline on 16 April 2000. 3 The Daily Telegraph is also based in London and ran this article on 27 June 2009. Jeremiah 1–25: Radical Surgery is Needed 13 You Go First (Jeremiah 1:1–19) “Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them.” (Jeremiah 1:17) Shrek comes when the evil Lord Farquaad sends his soldiers off on a near-impossible mission.One of the He best informs lines themin the grandly movie but callously that some of 1 them may have to die – but that it’s a sacrifice that he is willing RADICAL SURGERY IS NEEDED RADICAL SURGERY to make! merelyThe inform opening other verses people of thethat book radical of Jeremiahsurgery is reassure needed. Heus that the prophet is nothing like Lord Farquaad. He does not 14 “one of the priests at Anathoth”is the very first to lie down gladly on the Lord’s operating table. was synonymousJeremiah is withintroduced sin and corruption.to us as Not only was the town named after, a townthe Canaanite three miles war to goddessthe northeast Anath, of butJerusalem it was alsothat home to a family of priests that had been spiritually sidelined for the sins of its ancestors. The family had been cursed because had been exiled to Anathoth as a result of Abiathar’s treachery Eli tolerated wickedness2 within among his sons, and the family reprieved,towards King so whenSolomon. the LordJeremiah called had him therefore to pronounce grown aup dire in a family that tried to keep its nose clean in the hope of being 1 Shrek (DreamWorks Pictures, 2001). 2 Joshua 21:17–18, 1 Samuel 2:27–36 and 1 Kings 2:26–27. ofdiagnosis the respectable. over the disobedient3 nation of Judah, he was asking thehim prophetto surrender so unpopular all hope ofthat ever even being the restored disgraced to prieststhe ranks of Preaching such a message would make servingAnathoth as would his prophet seek to murderwill cost him him in everything.11:21–23. Nobody In order likes to to be given bad news, so the Lord warns Jeremiah upfront that Y preach that only radical surgery can save the nation of Judah, OU G hisJeremiah unpopular must bemessage the first for to submitover forty to God’s years. surgeon’s He started scalpel. in O These opening verses inform us that Jeremiah preached FIR ST 627 BC, in the thirteenth year of King Josiah. He carried on (Jeremiah 1:1–19) throughout4 the reigns of the last four kings of Judah, then continuedwhile still toonly prophesy halfway even through after his the marathon destruction of ofministry.