September 19, 2024 | Be God's Light
Seventy Years of Captivity
Scripture: Jeremiah 25:1-14(NIV)
1 The word came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. 2 So Jeremiah the prophet said to all the people of Judah and to all those living in Jerusalem: 3 For twenty-three years—from the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah until this very day—the word of the Lord has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.
4 And though the Lord has sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention. 5 They said, “Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways and your evil practices, and you can stay in the land the Lord gave to you and your ancestors for ever and ever. 6 Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them; do not arouse my anger with what your hands have made. Then I will not harm you.”
7 “But you did not listen to me,” declares the Lord, “and you have aroused my anger with what your hands have made, and you have brought harm to yourselves.”
8 Therefore the Lord Almighty says this: “Because you have not listened to my words, 9 I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,” declares the Lord, “and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. 10 I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. 11 This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
12 “But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt,” declares the Lord, “and will make it desolate forever. 13 I will bring on that land all the things I have spoken against it, all that are written in this book and prophesied by Jeremiah against all the nations. 14 They themselves will be enslaved by many nations and great kings; I will repay them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.”
Devotional
You can hear Jeremiah’s pain as he pleads with the people of Judah: “For twenty-three years… I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened.”
One of the great laments of any preacher is that nobody is listening. In the Beatles song, “Eleanor Rigby,” there is a line that every pastor can identify with:
Father Mackenzie
Writing the words of a sermon
That no one will hear
no one comes near
Look at him working
Darning his socks in the night
When there's nobody there
what does he care?
Like any preacher, Jeremiah understood that he was not alone in his feelings of exasperation. In the three hundred years prior to him, God sent prophets like Elijah, Elisha, Joel, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and many others. Referring to them, Jeremiah wrote, “And though the Lord has sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention” (v. 4).
In the end, the people of God rejected God Himself. Verse seven states, “But you did not listen to me,” declares the Lord, “and you have aroused my anger with what your hands have made, and you have brought harm to yourselves.” As a result, God said to Judah, “This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years” (v. 11). At the end of that period, Babylon itself would face the Lord’s discipline.
When Jeremiah wrote this, he had been warning them in vain for twenty-three years. Sadly, he would preach and prophesy another eighteen years, warning the people to abandon their idolatry and turn back to God. Nobody listened.
In Mark 4:24, Jesus said, “Consider carefully what you hear… With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more.” What are you hearing from the Lord? Are you listening? Are you changing the way you think? Are you changing the way you live?
Poem
Take This Cup Away From Me
I’m thirsty, LORD
From sweating blood
I need to drink
I come unto Your well
I dip my prayer bucket
Into the deep
Wishing for living water
Spring clear, clean
Not cistern stagnant
Defiled
But when I draw
From Jacob’s well
I smell the sin
Fermenting
Polluted, yes
My heritage
Which fills my cup
Your deserved wrath—
Take this cup
Away from me
Not my will
But Yours be done
