The Lord told the people of Israel to mark the way home with rocks and signposts. God would make sure that someday things would be different. God promised that someday He would set the people free and lead them back to their hometowns. He would restore them and their vitality too. Someday He would take care to plant the people firmly in the land and care for them. The time would come when God would make a new agreement with the people of Judah and Israel. He would write His laws on their hearts and minds and he would be their God and they would be His people. No longer would they teach each other about God, rather, they would know God because He would put Himself in their hearts. God who is all powerful will never let Israel stop being a nation. Can heaven be measured or the earth's foundations discovered? If that happens then God would reject the descendants of Israel because of their sins. Not only did God declare that Jerusalem would be rebuilt, but he described a word map of the exact outline it would follow. In 1935, (2500 years later) the prophecy had been fulfilled to the letter. (From a footnote in the Amplified version, Jeremiah 31).
Jeremiah had been put in prison because he told everyone what the Lord had said about Jerusalem being conquered by the king of Babylon and how the king of Judah was going to be taken to Babylon. If the people wanted to fight they would lose. While he was in prison God spoke to him and told him his cousin would be coming to sell him some land and he should buy it. So he did. He paid 17 pieces of silver and had two copies of all the necessary documents drawn up and signed and witnessed. One copy was sealed with wax and the other was left open. He told another man, Baruch, to take the copies and put them in a clay jar to preserve them. Then Jeremiah told the people that the Lord promised they would buy and sell land again in that country. Jeremiah had a question for God. He knew that God could do anything, that He had created everything, and made great plans and had great wisdom. So why when Jerusalem was about to be captured by the Babylonians did God have him buy a field? God told Jeremiah how displeased He was with the people. So just as He brought disaster, He would bring good things. Just as Jeremiah had bought the field, someday the land would be bought and sold again.
Jeremiah was still being held captive in the courtyard of the palace when God spoke to him. He told Jeremiah that things were bad now, but they would be good again and he would hear laughter and happy voices. People would come to the temple again to worship God. Then God told Jeremiah about a wonderful promise He made to the people of Israel and Judah. He promised that in time He would appoint a king from the family of David who would rule with justice. In those days there would be peace. There would always be priests from the tribe of Levi serving at His altar in the temple. Just as God would never break His agreement with day and night to stop obeying His commands, so he would never reject the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or not have a descendant of David as their king. He would be kind to His people and they would succeed.
Tomorrow read Jeremiah 34-36
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