Jeremiah 23:7

God makes a great promise about the future of Israel and says in Jeremiah 23:7-8, “Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.” It is important to notice that this promise is given right after the promise of a great king that was given in verse 5 where God said, “I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.” We are told very clearly what will happen. The Messiah will come and set up His reign over all the earth with His capital in Israel. All Jewish people will be returned to Israel at that time.

The Jewish people will never be destroyed. If the nation of Israel as we know it is destroyed, it will eventually be re-constituted. But even if Israel as we know it remains, it will never become what God plans for it until the Messiah comes. Jesus is the Messiah. The reason that God has such immutable plans for the nation of Israel is because of the promise that God made to Abraham. The Bible says in Genesis 12:1-3, “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” If you want to know what is going to happen in the future, then just find out what are the promises of God. God always keeps His promises.

The Bible says in Jeremiah 23:9-10, “Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine hath overcome, because of the LORD, and because of the words of his holiness. For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourneth; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their force is not right.” Jeremiah was shaken by what he saw coming to pass in his country. Jeremiah said that his heart was broken. He said, “all my bones shake.” And he said, “I am like a drunken man.” Concerning exactly why Jeremiah was so shaken and so troubled, Jeremiah said, “because of the prophets,” “because of the LORD,” and “because of the words of his holiness.”

When Jeremiah said that he was troubled “because of the prophets,” Jeremiah was stating his astonishment at the fact that there are so many who claim to have a message from God, but who actually are teaching falsehood and the teachings of man instead of the teachings from God. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of preachers, and priests, and teachers from around the world fall into this category. Think of all the religions in the world. Think of most of official Christianity. The leaders, and the preachers, and the teachers from these organizations are teaching falsehood. They are the blind leaders of the blind. People can do no better than what they are taught. By constantly being taught falsehood about God and falsehood about what their behavior should be, the people of the world are being led down a terrible path with terrible consequences for everyone.

Jeremiah was also troubled “because of the Lord.” We might call this the fear of the Lord. The concept of the great and holy God who is the All-powerful Judge of the whole earth can be a concept that definitely can shake a person to their core. When the Holy Spirit convicts of sin and reveals the presence of God a person can be touched and shaken. As a matter of fact, that is exactly what we need. We need God to touch hearts and to convict people of their sins so that they will experience in the depth of their beings their need to turn to Christ.

Two sins are mentioned in Jeremiah 23:9…adultery and swearing. They committed sins in what they did and sins in what they said. God said to human beings in one of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” One of the reasons that God created marriage was so that it would be symbolic of the relationship that Christ has with the believers. It says in Ephesians 5:24-25, “Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” It also says in Ephesians 5:31-32, “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” To commit adultery is to sin against God’s idea of what marriage is meant to be.

“Swearing” refers to the making of oaths. For an honest person, oaths should never be necessary. If you always tell the truth, everyone will know that you always tell the truth, and it will not be necessary to make an oath or to swear that something is true. Jesus said in Matthew 5:37, “But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” It says in James 5:12, “But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.”

The Bible says in Jeremiah 23:11-13, “For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the LORD. Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the LORD. And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied in Baal, and caused my people Israel to err.” Verse 11 mentions the Jewish prophets and priests, and verse 13 mentions the prophets of Baal. Another example of how evil Israel had become was the fact that those who should have been teachers of truth were no better than the obvious false teachers. They were all corrupt. They were all part of the problem. With such error and falsehood running amuck from all corners of organized religion, it does not surprise us that God decided to “bring evil upon them.” We must wonder what God thinks about organized religion including so-called Christianity when God looks at the world today. It appears that one of the ignoble characteristics of the end-times will be the corrupt religious system of the world. It says in Revelation 14:6-10, “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,[ The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:” The worldwide false religious system is somewhat described in Revelation 17:1-6, “And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.”

God said in Jeremiah 23:13 about the false religious teachers that they “caused my people Israel to err.” Today the false teachers are causing the whole world to err, which is one reason that we see the world as being very close to the time when the antichrist will take over, because that is exactly the situation that will exist during the tome of the Great Tribulation. That is why it says about Babylon in Revelation 17:2, “the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” But if we are close to the time of the antichrist, then we are also close to the time of the setting up of the Messiah. The antichrist will rule the earth for only a short time, and then King Jesus will come and destroy the evil one. Jesus is the Savior in more ways than one.

The Bible says in Jeremiah 23:14-15, “I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormword, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.” It is interesting to notice two of the sins committed by the false prophets are adultery and lying. Both of these sins are violations of the Ten Commandments, and actually these two sins are more closely related than one might think. When a person gets married, he or she promises to forsake all others and to be faithful to his or her spouse for the rest of his or her life. If you do not keep that promise, then you have, in effect, lied. Also, those who commit adultery are usually constantly lying about the true nature of their relationships, and thus are living a lie.

Let’s notice also what the Lord said at the end of Jeremiah 23:14. God said about Israel, “they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.” From a Biblical standpoint, in talking about the degradation of a society, there is perhaps nothing worse that you can say about them. These people remind me of Sodom and Gomorrah. The words “Sodom and Gomorrah” tell us how bad a nation has become, and also tell us what destiny awaits them. The Bible says in Genesis 19:24-28, “Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD: And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.” In the book of Revelation the city of Jerusalem is called “Sodom.” It says in Revelation 11:7-8, “And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.” We live in a time when society looks more and more like Sodom and Gomorrah. Repent and turn to Jesus while you have time to escape.

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