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Jeremiah 3:6 - Israel and Judah in the balance of God's righteousness - Day 188

Good afternoon friends,

Some thoughts today about the questions that God asked Jeremiah early in his role as prophet.  Any time God asks a person a question, it is not so that the person can fill God in.  Here God wants Jeremiah to understand why Judah is so much worse than Israel.  God wants to show Jeremiah how important understaniding history is in seeing God's plan.  We would do well to consider history (personal and corporate) in these terms.

Blessings,

Jeff

Israel (Northern Kingdom) is coming to an end when Jeremiah is called.  V 8 says God has sent her away with a decree of divorce.  Judah is condemned for not learning from the apostacy of Israel.   In fact, God considers Judah to be worse the Israel even though it will be another 140 years before Judah goes into captivity.

Every high hill and every green tree - Not a few, not some, not many but every.  The people of Israel practiced idolatry at every opportunity.  Continual, consistent violation of commandments 1 - 4.  There was no legitimate worship in the northern tribes.

What does this tell us about Israel and Judah's relationship to the law?  

Israel left the law and temple worship behind from day 1 of the divided kingdom.  So in their case it was not that the law was ineffective in producing a just and righteous nation, but that without the law they were doomed to destruction.  

Judah had the law and temple worship, but disregarded more and more over the years.  There were good kings and bad kings, decline and revival.  But this was just a slower decline.

If all we had was the history of Israel and Judah, a case could be made that obeying the law could have saved and sanctified them.  Just because they failed doesn't mean that failure is inevitable.  But we have Paul's commentary on the law in Romans to help us understand that the law, though holy and righteous and good, cannot save or sanctify because all men are justly put into the category of sinners due to Adam's sin.  Every man needs the Savior.

My point is that understanding the message of the OT prophet requires the use of the NT.  The message of the OT prophets is not confined to the people he was speaking to.  The context of the entire plan of salvation is needed to see the purpose of the parts.

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