This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 11:01 am and is filed under Scripture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Pages:
Feeds
Categories:
- Administration (6)
- Apologetics (20)
- Church Growth (13)
- Culture (122)
- Devotional (13)
- Media (8)
- Misc. (27)
- Philosophy (18)
- Podcasts (20)
- Question (9)
- Scripture (15)
- Testimony (6)
- The Church (59)
- The Outlaw Church (3)
- Theology (70)
- Uncategorized (129)
Archives:
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
Meta:
Jeremiah 33
05.16.2008 by Tim Reed
I’m working my way through Jeremiah (referred to around my house as the emo prophet) and came across chapter 33. In this chapter God relates how he’s going to lay the smack down on Israel. Check this out:
For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says about the houses in this city and the royal palaces of Judah that have been torn down to be used against the siege ramps and the sword 5 in the fight with the Babylonians [a] : ‘They will be filled with the dead bodies of the men I will slay in my anger and wrath. I will hide my face from this city because of all its wickedness.
Ouch. But don’t worry it all works out in the end:
” ‘Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security. 7 I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity and will rebuild them as they were before. 8 I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me. 9 Then this city will bring me renown, joy, praise and honor before all nations on earth that hear of all the good things I do for it; and they will be in awe and will tremble at the abundant prosperity and peace I provide for it.’
But the key to this passage is found a bit later on:
14 ” ‘The days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
15 ” ‘In those days and at that time
I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line;
he will do what is just and right in the land.
This is messianic prophecy. The messiah is how God’s promises will be fulfilled. Unfortunately, all too often, we can get caught up in the details and forget that this entire thing we call Christianity is focused on Christ. Arguments about the reformation, baptism, free will, or any other issue need to always keep in mind that center is Christ. If our theology becomes anything other than either an expression of Christ, or looking to Christ then its as empty as Jeremiah 33 without the restoration.