Political Suicide
The people also to whom they are prophesying will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and there will be no one to bury them—neither them, nor their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters—for I will pour out their own wickedness on them. Jeremiah 14:16 NASB
I will pour out – Wake up, people! Don’t think that our relationship with YHVH will spare us from political suicide. God acts as executioner when it serves His purposes. The story of Jeremiah should be one of the most frightening lessons we could ever learn.
“Jeremiah keeps returning to his most deeply held principles: God controls geopolitics, and He has chosen Nebuchadnezzar to rule the world at this time. This decision cannot be revoked, and anyone who rebels against it is in fact rebelling against God.”[1]
Compare the text of Jeremiah 27:8-10. God warns the people that He will punish anyone who does not bow his neck under the Babylonian king’s yoke. “This is unprecedented in the Bible. The prophet beseeches God as the people’s defender, yet God refuses to hear him. The prophet fails. The gates of mercy remain impenetrable. Death stands at the door.”[2] No one in Israel could believe what Jeremiah was saying. How could God expect His people to serve a pagan tyrant? It was unthinkable! Didn’t God promise over and over to protect those whom He had chosen in His eternal covenant? This prophet must be a false proclaimer of doom.
“The prophet’s job is not to tell the future, but to open the eyes of the people and their leaders to the emergent reality and to cogently and soberly sketch what will unfold.”[3]
What magnitude of catastrophe must occur for Israel to forsake forever its past mistakes? How deeply must God sear the national consciousness in order to restore Israel’s recognition of His role as Father? The answer is found in the Babylonian captivity. Devastation, slaughter, starvation, terror, genocide. How can we imagine that these become the instruments of a compassionate God? But the book of Jeremiah corrects our myopic self-concern and misplaced hope. No one knew what was happening except the prophet and what he knew killed him. A century later Israel could say, “Oh, so that’s what was happening.” But in the midst of it, horror, despair, disbelief.
Do you think you know what God is doing in today’s geopolitics? Are you convinced that you and yours are secure in His love? Have you forgotten about the interconnectedness of life? There is always collateral damage, and sometimes when God sweeps away the wicked, the righteous are caught in the torrent as well. Shaphkti ‘et ra’atam—I will pour out evil. Can any government prevent that when it comes?
Topical Index: geopolitics, pour out, prophecy, judgment, Jeremiah 14:16
[1] Benyamin Lau, Jeremiah: The Fate of a Prophet, p. 141.
[2] Ibid., p. 157.
[3] Ibid., p. 105.
Are we not told God will show Mercy for the just and the unjust but on the other hand wrath for the just and the unjust? It’s not only who will fall they will fall. Who will rise again as God’s holy nation across the Earth. No Borders or boundaries either way.
I think the “day of the Lord” (Second Coming) is so disastrous that the prophets were starting to talk about far longer than they talked about anything else except the First Coming. These Comings are ground shaking, but the Second one is going to be a ground burner. The events leading up to it are going to be cosmic and everyone is going to be swept up in them. From one end of the planet to the other will be unprecedented disaster and death, and all will suffer, even the righteous, for the suffering is necessary to produce the remnant who totally get it.
Right now, no one is getting it; there is NO community that is perfectly exhibiting Torah, but the 144,000 of Revelation represents a community who finally has gotten their act together. This is a community molded by unprecedented disaster. The more I see the successive captivities that purified people in history, the more I can see that disaster is where we are torn from our dependence on our idols and thrown onto the mercy of God. Extreme disaster; extreme dependence. The recipe is clear. Fasten the seat belts, y’all, I think this one’s a curler!
Because of the “spiral / helix” of time, the prophetic message does not need to change: There is nothing new, what happened will happen again. The prophet’s message before the first coming is the same as the message before the second coming.
At The Day, time may cease and the cycle will stop, or perhaps not… but then after another 1000 years it will
The OT prophets spoke of failure. What made and makes both Jesus and John singular was they preached not the old bad news but the Good News. Repent and the Kingdom can be yours, right here, right now.
A prophetic voice recognizes trouble and cries out, just as in (I believe it is ) Jeremiah. That prophet speaks of the “watchmen on the wall” suggesting if the watchmen (the prophets in my understanding of this context) see trouble and cry out but the people will not listen the blood will be on the head of he people. If however the watchmen=prophet does not cry out, the blood will be on his head.
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This truth of God, has guided much of my “crying out” and it hurts. It hurts my relationships with dear friends/ brethren, it hurts my ability to make a living when that crying out is not received and I get push back politically or in my business relationships. These are sobering truths to face in life. .
Yet as Skip, who is crying out with great effect, insight and understanding shares there are ramifications for our behaviors. Both for the prophets and for the people. I will add a very sobering end time’s consideration.
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I do not have the time to do the reference searches on this summary of an important spiritual understanding. Its worth the trouble and I believe it’s accurate. It is about Jurisdictional authority and the “spiritual covering over” the Nations/Peoples of this earth.
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I share as this is in the context of this important message and our current geo-political events. I will rely on my aging memory and simply share without biblical references. God placed angelic guides or powers/authorities over all the nations/peoples for this earth. From these powers come national personalities or cultural expressions.
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The real issue is about Israel. God himself chose to be remain as the covering/authority/power over Israel the people that have become a nation. He chose them “for himself”. Not because they where better but actually because they where the “least”, the “smallest” the most needy. “You worm Jacob” say’s he.
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We shall see the nations express their allegiances to their spiritual authorities in their behaviors as nations.
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Israel will stand for God when it stands with him. It falls from grace, authority and power when if stands away from him. America is not Israel and we will reap what we will sow as a nation who chooses to stand with the principles and purposes of God or against them.
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However the church, the Body of Messiah is united with Spiritual Israel. This allegiance is even recolonized I believe by the Rabbis in the term “Jerusalem the Upper” the capitol city of the spiritual Israel. May we find encouragement and comfort in the fact that our home is not here, but waits on high and yet is coming down to us who believe.
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when the city (Jerusalem) shall be rebuilt for the Lord…it shall not be plucked up, or overthrown anymore forever” Jeremiah 31:38,40
“At that time they shall call Jerusalem “the throne of the Lord,” and all the nations will be gathered into in to Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord…” Jeremiah 3:17
“Not only on the face of this earth is there a Jerusalem, called in Hebrew Yerushalayim Shel Matta (“Jerusalm the Lower”) but also in Heaven is there such a city: Yerushalayim Shel Maacan (“Jerusalem the Upper”)” Zevllillnay, Legends of Jerusalem.
The prophetic voice Mark first refers to is in Ezekiel chapters 3 and 33.
FOLLOWING OUR MASTER BY LEARNING OBEDIENCE FROM WHAT WE SUFFER – LIVING AS PRIESTS ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK IN THE CONTEXT OF SUFFERING UNDER “BABYLONIAN” (even Pharisaical in alliance with “Babylonian”) RULE
“HE, (YESHUA) LEARNED OBEDIENCE FROM WHAT HE SUFFERED” AND WAS “CALLED BY GOD KOHEN GADOL ‘ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK'”
AND “YOU ARE A CHOSEN PEOPLE, A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR GOD’S OWN POSSESSION” AND “A SERVANT IS NOT GREATER THAN HIS MASTER.”
“So also Messiah did not glorify Himself to be made Kohen Gadol; rather, it was God who said to Him, ‘You are My Son; today I have become Your Father.’ And He says in a different passage, ‘You are a kohen forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.’ In the days of His life on earth, Yeshua offered up both prayers and pleas, with loud crying and tears, to the One able to save Him from death; and He was heard because of His reverence. Though He was a Son, HE LEARNED OBEDIENCE FROM WHAT HE SUFFERED. And once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him—called by God Kohen Gadol “ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK.” About this subject there is much for us to say, and it is hard to explain since you have become sluggish in hearing. For although you ought to be teachers by this time, again you need someone to teach you the basics of God’s sayings. You have come to need milk, not solid food. For anyone living on milk is inexperienced with the teaching about righteousness—he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who through practice have their senses trained to discern both good and evil.” [Heb 5:5-14]
“But you are a chosen people, A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession…” [1Pe 2:9]
“Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A SERVANT IS NOT GREATER THAN HIS MASTER.’” [Joh 15:20]
“Therefore, since MESSIAH SUFFERED IN THE FLESH, ARM YOURSELF ALSO WITH THE SAME ATTITUDE. For the one who has suffered in the flesh is finished with sin.” [1Pe 4:1]
“After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace—who has called you into His eternal glory in Messiah—will Himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.” [1Pe 5:10]
WE, TOO, MUST LEARN OBEDIENCE FROM WHAT WE SUFFER (whether by divinely ordained judgement of “natural” disaster or the divinely ordained discipline of persecution)” AND BE OBEDIENT PRIESTS ALSO ACCORDING TO THE ORDER OF MELCHIZEDEK, AND NOT THE AARONIC/LEVITICAL ORDER.
It may be, in fact, those of the Levitical order that will cause us to suffer persecution, if we are obedient to the Book of the Covenant Royal Torah and not the Book of the Law torah (“For whenever the priesthood is altered, out of necessity an alteration of law also takes place.” [Heb 7:12]), likewise as our master and Cohen Gadol, YESHUA MESSIAH.
IT SEEMS TO ME, THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLE IS HIS TORAH FOR OUR FAITH AND OBEDIENCE RE: “anyone who does not bow his neck under the Babylonian king’s yoke” AND IT MAY BE BETTER CONSIDERED A SPIRITUAL OFFERING OF WORSHIP AND NOT POLITICAL SUICIDE (unless we obey man and not Him):
“Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego replied to the king saying, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to answer you concerning this matter. If it is so, our God whom we serve is able to save us from the furnace of blazing fire and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. Yet even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, nor worship the golden image that you set up.” [Dan 3:16]
We may be threatened with sufferings, even by those who call themselves Jews, but are the synagogue of HaSatan, for not worshiping according to the Noahide laws and/or them making sacrifices day by day and/or whatever the form of religion and its laws will be authorized and enforced by those serving at their own altar in their own temple to the image of their own god…..
BUT…..”the One who does remain forever has a permanent priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save completely those who draw near to God through Him, always living to make intercession for them. For such a Kohen Gadol was fitting for us: holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. HE HAS NO NEED TO OFFER UP SACRIFICES DAY BY DAY LIKE THOSE OTHER KOHANIM G’DOLIM—first for their own sins and then for the sins of the people. For when He offered up Himself, He did this once for all. For the Torah appoints as kohanim g’dolim men who have weakness; but the word of the oath, which came after the Torah, appoints a Son—made perfect forever. [Heb 7:25-28]
WE OUGHT TO FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE OF THE APOSTLES:
“But Peter and John replied, ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you decide. For we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.” [Act 4:19]
LET US PUT OFF THE OLD LEAVEN/HAMETZ OF THE PHARISEES AND BECOME A NEW LOAF OF MATZOT.
“Get rid of the old hametz, so you may be a new batch, just as you are unleavened—for Messiah, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed.” [1Co 5:7]
BLESSINGS TO ALL WHO REMEMBER TO KEEP THE MASTER’S PESACH OF THE NEW COVENANT AND THE FEAST OF UNLEAVEND BREAD! LET’S APPLY HIS BLOOD, GET RID OF THE OLD LEAVEN, AND BE A NEW LOAF! BARUCH YHWH AND MESSIAH YESHUA!