It’s Oct. 27, 2023. We intend to return to the topic of “Special
Revelation,” but feel the need to take a brief break and share a couple of
posts on Israel. On Oct. 7, as you
surely must know, terrorists from Gaza invaded southern Israel and viciously killed
(butchered in many cases) over a thousand Israeli’s. We are not interested in giving the news;
that is available in many places on the internet, from Christian sources as
well as sources inside Israel. (If you want
to know, our primary source in Y-Net News.com from Israel.)
Our reading throughout these three weeks has
included The Lamentations of Jeremiah.
You might think this to be valuable for Israel in these days. The “weeping prophet” lamented one of the
worst events in Israel’s history, being the day the Babylonians entered
Jerusalem, ending the year and a half siege of the city (Jer. 32:1-7). We have heard people of Israel refer to Oct.
7 as their “9/11.” But Israel already
has a day like that, called “Tisha B’Av” (the ninth of Av). This day recognizes several tragic events in
her history that all happened on that day, the first being the one that caused
Jeremiah to write his Lamentations. What
Babylon did is the type of thing Hamas did, only on a much larger scale, not to
diminish what Hamas did. I’m just saying
that Israel has the original and greatest “9/11.”
For Bible-taught
Christians, Lam. 3:22-24 is often all they know about this little book. It’s the basis for the great hymn, “Great Is
Thy Faithfulness.” But this book also
teaches God’s people how to grieve when they have experienced days filled with atrocities. Eventually they need to put their hope in the
faithful God. But before that it is
critical that they come to grips with the true nature of the event. In today’s passage, Jeremiah recognizes
something critical: God, the Lord, has done this. Oct. 7, as well as Tisha B’Av, are the work
of God. Hear Jeremiah’s words:
The Lord has swallowed up and has not
pitied all the dwelling places of Jacob.
He has cut off in fierce anger every
horn (military might) of Israel.
The Lord was like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel.
The LORD has purposed to destroy the
wall of the daughter of Zion.
This does not absolve Hamas nor indicate they
should not be destroyed. But if Israel
does not come to recognize God’s hand, and to understand what they and their
sin has done to move God’s hand, they can never come true repentance. They will only repent of bad governmental
leadership, poor intelligence, insufficient ammunition for the Iron Dome, and
not enough help from the United States.
Jeremiah knew Tisha B’Av was God’s hand at work, not just because he was a prophet, but because he read his Bible. Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 and 31:29-32:43 were Jeremiah’s sources. They apply to Israel today, along with Jesus’ predictions in Matthew 24 and Luke 19:41-44. More on this, Lord willing!
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