Jeremiah
27 – 31
Verse 27:2 opens with an analogy of a yoke:
Eternal One:
Make a yoke out of leather straps and wooden bars, and place it
upon your neck as you would upon an ox.
For
the next few chapters this analogy is used by God, Jeremiah and Hananiah (a
false prophet) to describe what Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon would
do. I notice that one thing Satan does is say things people want to hear and
not based in reality at all. One of the problems of churches today is we get
too involved in the marketing and the message and not the reality.
Sure God is awesome and God will do great
things, but often that is not the case. We need to endure hardships to learn
the lesson God intends for us. I believe it’s what we do yoked that determines
the hardship we endure. If you are like the dwarfs and whistle while we work in
the mines than maybe our suffering will be shorter and if not shorter we are
having fun.
As we get into chapter 30 and 31, the
Messianic prophecies begin. Verse 30:9 promises a king from David, a Messiah:
Instead, they will
serve the Eternal their God, and I will raise up a descendant of David
their king to rule over them.
Now Jesus does not rule over them, but
rater is Lord over then. Big difference, a ruler controls his people often
begrudgingly where a Lord offer the option. It’s your choice, not the rulers.
Verse 31:22 is said to predict the virgin
birth:
How long will you
drift this way and that,
My renegade daughter?
Take
heart—for now the Eternal will do a new thing on the earth:
a woman will surround a man.
Looking at a few versions it’s hard to draw
this analogy, but studying the Hebrew word for man (gerber) we see this man is
a champion or hero.
Verse 31:31 talks about the new covenant:
Look, the days are
coming when I will bring about a new covenant with the people of Israel and
Judah.
When people heard this I can see why they
were expecting something different than a meek, homeless guy making the “old”
covenant even harder. Think about it, every time Jesus talked about the Law, he
made it more difficult. Adultery now includes ones thoughts, giving went from
10% to all and the list can go on. We need to understand that Jesus is not more
restrictive, but more freeing. Sure we have higher goals, but we have greater
grace and can stumble the path of life without fear of death.