Introduction.
Jeremiah was raised up as a prophet of God during one of the darkest times that God’s people went through in the Old Testament. The ten-tribe kingdom, or Israel, had been conquered by the Assyrian king Sennacherib about 100 years earlier, and almost all the survivors were taken captive beyond the Euphrates.
The book of Jeremiah begins in chapter 1 with God calling Jeremiah to be a prophet, then Jeremiah is shown in verse 11 a rod of an almond tree that blooms early. The almond tree is also called the watchman tree, and the Lord tells Jeremiah in verse 12 that He will watch over His people. In verse 13, Jeremiah sees a boiling pot tilting away from the north, and the Lord says in verse 14 that disaster will be poured out on all the inhabitants of the land. The boiling pot represents, or is a picture of, the calamity that will come upon the Jewish people if they do not turn and seek God.
If we go to chapter 6, we see that the calamity that Jeremiah was shown in chapter 1 is mentioned again, but now as a prophecy, and in verse 16 we find this: Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where [is] the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, we will not walk [therein], (Jeremiah 6:16).
Almost as usual, this is a prophecy that has two fulfillments, or two target groups. First, the prophecy applies to the Jews, God’s people, in Jeremiah’s time. Second, it applies to all who call themselves Christians in the end times. Yes, I write quite deliberately calling themselves Christians, because not everyone is Christian in the biblical sense. My home country Norway is called a Christian country, but there is only a small minority who are Christians, and so it is with those who call themselves Christians, there is only a small minority who are Christians according to the Bible’s standard.
Here in Jeremiah 6:16 the Lord asks us to stand on the roads to ask for the old paths. What is the reason for that? What are the old paths? As we see in verse 16, there is a good way. If there is a good way, and the Lord asks us to find it, it means that there is also an evil way that we should avoid following. When this prophecy was given, the Jews had come to a crossroads. They had followed the evil way for so long that they had fallen so deeply that there was no difference between them and the heathen. So, it is our day too. Among God’s people we find a large group who call themselves Christians in name, and like the Jews of Jeremiah’s time, these too have fallen deeply. They have fallen because they have absorbed so much heathen doctrine, mixed with mysticism, Gnosticism and heathen philosophy that it is impossible to distinguish them from the wicked.
It is therefore not without reason that the Lord through his prophet Jeremiah asks his people, both then and now, to get out onto the roads, ask for the old paths, find the good way and walk therein. But both the Jews in Old Testament times and the Christians of our time say: We will not walk therein!
Martin Luther was one who, towards the end of the Middle Ages, stood on the roads in the early 16th century to find the way back to the old paths when he wanted to reform the Catholic Church. But as the prophecy says, the church leaders said; we will not walk therein! The same thing happened about 300 years later when William Miller began studying the Bible in the early 19th century. At first everyone was positive about his preaching, but eventually they turned their backs on Miller and said, we will not walk therein!
Chapter 6 of Jeremiah has been given the title Destruction of Jerusalem Impending, (Amplified Bible). Then we can ask why this calamity threatens, and what this calamity is. The reason is that almost all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea had fallen and engaged in idolatry, and King Jehoiakim had even introduced idolatry. In other words, it was because of the sins of the people that the calamity would come upon them from the north.
Chapter 6 is a prophecy given to the Jews and Jerusalem about the time when Nebuchadnezzar came and besieged the city for the first time in the year 605 BC. In verse 1 it is said that the calamity threatens from the north, and that it will result in great calamity for those who do not turn to God. This is a picture of the typological antitype of the end times. In the last times, the calamity will also threaten God’s people, at least those who flirt with ecumenism and who follow the same path as the mother church. If these do not turn around and deal with the paganism that has flooded the church, a great calamity will befall them.
It is of little use with a high confession factor if the heart is not in the heavenly temple with the Father and the Son. This is not something I throw out without evidence, because this is something Jesus himself says in Matthew 7:21-23: Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. As we know, we cannot do the will of God, nor can we do anything pleasing to God unless our hearts are in God.
If we go back 3,400 years in time, from our time to the time when Israel was about to conquer Canaan, we can read the following in Deuteronomy 4:1-6: Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do [them], that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you. Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish [ought] from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baal-Peor: for all the men that followed Baal-Peor, the LORD thy God hath destroyed them from among you. But ye that did cleave unto the LORD your God [are] alive every one of you this day. Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do [them]; for this [is] your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, surely this great nation [is] a wise and understanding people.
After Israel took possession of the Promised Land, God has reminded them of this time and again, that they must keep His commandments, laws and regulations in order to be able to live in the land He promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Yet God’s people moved further and further away from God at the same time that they fell deeper and deeper into sin. Finally, there is a final warning. In Jeremiah 6:1 we find the following warning: O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction.
How is the situation with Christians in our time? There are approximately 2.5 billion Christians in the world, and this constitutes about 31% of the world’s population. Of these, only a tiny fraction, perhaps less than 1%, live according to what God through the Bible commands us to do. It is not unlikely that the relationship between those who believed in the Lord and those who worshipped idols in Daniel’s time is reflected in the relationship between those who today only call themselves Christians, and those who are counted among God’s end-time church, God’s little remnant.
All Bible texts are from the King James Version 1611/1769 unless otherwise stated.
God warns Jerusalem.
The prophecy begins, as we have seen in verse 1, by warning of a great calamity that will befall God’s people if they do not turn to God. It then continues with a picturesque description of what will happen if they do not turn: I have likened the daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate [woman]. The shepherds with their flocks shall come unto her; they shall pitch [their] tents against her roundabout; they shall feed everyone in his place. Prepare ye war against her; arise and let us go up at noon. Woe unto us! for the day goeth away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out. Arise, and let us go by night, and let us destroy her palaces. For thus hath the LORD of hosts said, hew ye down trees, and cast a mount against Jerusalem: this [is] the city to be visited; she [is] wholly oppression in the midst of her, (Jeremiah 6:2-6).
There are many words and expressions that need to be explained here.
The daughter of Zion here is the inhabitants primarily of Jerusalem, and then the rest of Judea. The expression a comely and delicate [woman]refers to the frivolous and soft-hearted inhabitants primarily of Jerusalem. The shepherds who are to come are the leaders of the enemy’s army, and that they will pitch [their] tents against her roundabout means that their armies are surrounding and besieging the city. That the shadows of the evening are stretched out means that the soldiers who are besieging Jerusalem are eager to get started. They want to finish their job before sunset – figuratively.
God gave the inhabitants of Jerusalem a clear warning through the prophet Jeremiah and told them clearly and distinctly that if they persisted in their sins, the Lord would turn away from his people and lay the land desolate. This means that God would let a foreign power conquer Judea and Jerusalem and drive the people into captivity. God is in a sovereign position. He can do what He wants, and in relation to the rebellious people of Jerusalem and Judea, God chooses to use a pagan king to punish His people.
But we also see God’s love expressed in these verses. Already in verse 1 of Jeremiah chapter 6 we see God’s love. If the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea had repented and sought the Lord, they would have been spared the punishment that awaited them. Despite knowing and remembering what had happened to Israel – the Northern Kingdom, or the Ten Tribes – just over 100 years earlier, they would not turn to the Lord and abandon their idolatry. Yet God, through Jeremiah, urged them time and again to turn and seek Him.
In Jeremiah 6:15 we find an interesting verse. Through Jeremiah, the Lord asks a rhetorical question, and He answers the question right away: Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush therefore they shall fall among them that fall at the time [that] I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.
This verse is as valid today as it was then. If we look at what has happened since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), also called the 21st Ecumenical Council, we see that almost all Protestant and Reformed denominations have crept back to the mother church, the Roman Catholic Church, and on October 31, 2017, the Protestant and Reformed churches signed the document; “From conflict to community. Joint Lutheran-Catholic commemoration of the Reformation 2017. Report of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission for Christian Unity,” and with this they effectively put an end to the Reformation, and they did so without blushing. Quite the opposite. They boast of having returned to their roots, and that the disagreement and strife between the Catholic Church and the Reformed churches have finally ended, and the hatchet has been buried.
The abomination that today’s churches have created is that they are adopting more and more of the paganism that the mother church forces on them through ecumenical cooperation, and they do so without any shame or blushing. What does Jeremiah 6:15 say about these churches (and those members who follow the fallen churches to the end)? They will fall among those who fall, says the prophet. In Jerusalem, the priests and prophets who supported idolatry were killed by Nebuchadnezzar’s soldiers. In the end times, it will still be the clergy in the fallen churches who have forced this paganism on their members who will fall at the return of Jesus – together with all who do not turn to God and seek Him.
As we know from history, it was the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar who conquered Jerusalem in the year 605 and took some of the inhabitants into captivity to Babylon. Among them was Daniel. Later, Nebuchadnezzar’s soldiers were in Jerusalem two times more, in the year 597 BC. where, among others, Ezekiel was taken captive, and in the year 586 BC when both the city and the temple were destroyed. Jeremiah was still in Jerusalem, but shortly after the destruction of the city he went to Egypt and remained there until his death.
But what is the reason why the disaster would come upon Jerusalem and God’s people? The reason is found in Jeremiah 6:7 where it says: As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness: violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually [is] grief and wounds.
The description that Jeremiah gives of the people’s sins in verse 7 is fascinating. Anyone who has seen a spring where water comes up from the ground has seen that new water keeps coming up and the new water mixes with the old before flowing out onto the ground. In the same way, Jeremiah describes the people’s sins. The people keep adding new sins that mix with the old, and which spread among the population and finally permeate the entire people so that the judgment that God has warned them about will come and devastate the land.
Even though the people would not listen to Jeremiah, God continued to admonish his people through the prophet. And now the Lord’s message comes with a warning of a complete destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. This prophecy of destruction is a conditional prophecy. If the people repent, the fulfilment of the prophecy will not occur, but if the people do not repent, the destruction will come upon them in its full force. God says through Jeremiah: Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited, (Jeremiah 6:8).
In Jeremiah 6:17 we find the following sigh from God, before the destruction befell Jerusalem: Also I set watchmen over you, [saying], Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, we will not hearken.
As we know, the Jews as a people did not turn to God. Even after the first siege, neither the king nor the people sought to return to God. Instead, they continued their fall and their opposition to God and His will, which led to both a second and a third siege with the tragic result that many lost their lives and the rest, except for the poorest, were taken captive to Babylon. But it would have been possible for the Jewish people to escape the destruction that threatened them if they had repented of their sin both as a people and individually. Despite God raising up Jeremiah as a prophet and watchman over Judea, they would not listen to him. The king threw him into prison and would have nothing to do with God’s prophet.
What about those who consider themselves God’s people today? Have we, today’s Christians, learned anything from history and what happened to Israel and Judea? Unfortunately this is a dark chapter in the history of the church in more ways than one.
Firstly: Let’s look at how God judges His people in the Christian age, and we find some characteristics in Revelation 2 and 3.
Revelation 2:4: … thou hast left thy first love.
Revelation 2:14-15: … that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.
Revelation 2:20: … you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols, (New International Version 1984).
Revelation 3:1: … thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.
Revelation 3:15-17: I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.
Secondly: As we entered the fourth century, the persecution and killing of Christians ceased, at least for a time. Instead, Emperor Constantine was led by Satan to make Christianity one of many state religions in the Roman Empire, something that literally opened the gates of hell and the doors to all the pagan traditions and customs, as well as all the human traditions and all the human/pagan philosophy that the Roman Church is full of. This has only continued into our time, and at an increasing rate. Not to mention the approximately 50,000,000 believers who were killed because they would not submit to the dictates of the papacy.
Dogmas are still being added that have no basis in the Bible, and they are constantly finding new pagan customs that they are making Christian by wrapping them in a Christian disguise. Although there is no open persecution of what this church calls heretics, this is lurking in the shadows, and signals from the Vatican indicate that it is not a foreign idea to resume this. Pope Francis said this in March 2013, shortly after he was elected Pope: Religious fanatics, even if they are not violent, are terrorists, and there is only one appropriate punishment for them… … The most interesting thing about this is that just before he got to this point, he specifically mentioned a small group, the Seventh-day Adventists.
What this punishment is he did not say, it was left hanging in the air, but it is not so difficult to add 1 + 1 to make it 2! In other words, we are witnessing an ongoing decline.
The ongoing decline.
The history of Israel and the Jews is full of ups and downs, just like a roller coaster. Ever since they conquered Canaan, it has been like this for God’s people (Israel and the Jews). This reached its peak when Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate, where the Jews demanded Jesus crucified, and they rejected God by saying, we have no king but Caesar, (John 19:15).
About 600 years earlier, Jeremiah said to the Jews: To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear [is] uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the LORD is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it, (Jeremiah 6:10). The same is true for us today. Every time God sent Jeremiah with a message to the king or the people, they rejected what Jeremiah said to them. This is exactly what he says in verse 13: For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one [is] given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest everyone dealeth falsely. Every time Jeremiah pleaded with the people to repent, they pointed to the false prophets and priests who only spoke after the king’s lips in order to keep their “important” positions at court.
No one in Judea or Jerusalem cared what Jeremiah preached. His preaching was repent and seek the Lord, then the calamity will not befall you, but the problem of God’s people throughout all ages has been that they continually rebel against God. Even though God’s people sometimes go through a revival, the result is that they fall even deeper than they were before the revival. Yet God does not reject a single person, not even after His own people rejected Him when they demanded Jesus crucified, God rejected them.
We see the same thing in our time. The fall of Christianity has now become so deep that there is only one way out. Everything is about enriching oneself, about self-indulgence, and greed and selfishness have reached heights that were not thought to exist just a couple of decades ago.
Also in “our time”, that is, from the Reformation until today, God has raised up servants who have tried to reform the church, but the result has mostly been disappointing. For a short period, it seemed that Luther’s Reformation would bear rich fruit. But no, there were disputes between the reformers, and between the various reformed church denominations that arose. The Reformation was fragmented, and today there are approximately 50,000 different churches and denominations. The biggest problem, however, is that all denominations, except for a few, have returned to the mother church.
The fall has really entered the Reformed churches, and we are in the same place where Israel was before Assyria conquered the ten-tribe kingdom, and where Judea was before Babylon conquered Judea. Yet God has been constantly trying to reunite His people with Himself. God has sent prophets throughout history, but it almost seems to have been of little use.
In Jeremiah 18:15 we find another of the Lord’s many indignations against His people. God says: Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways [from] the ancient paths, to walk in paths, [in] a way not cast up.
Ezekiel was another prophet who lived and worked at the same time as Jeremiah. His ministry was among the exiles in Babylon, and God says to Ezekiel this: So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me, (Ezekiel 33:7). This also has as much validity today as it did in Ezekiel’s time, because fortunately God has continued to raise up servants and prophets. God always has a remnant, even if it is a small remnant. There is always someone who can carry on His wonderful work, and who will finish it when the time is right. There is always a small remnant who upholds the word of God, and who honours God by keeping all of God’s ten commandments, not to be saved, but because they are saved. They respond to God’s love by meeting God on God’s terms. These are the ones Isaiah looks forward to when he says this: I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, [which] shall never hold their peace, day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence, (Isaiah 62:6).
Jerusalem in this setting is God’s church on earth—the entire church of God. The watchmen are the group that Pope Francis had in mind when he spoke of religious fanatics, and whom he would like to get rid of, because they expose the papacy in its true light and show all the abominations that exist within the walls of this church. It is this group that is also mentioned in Revelation 12:17 and Revelation 14:12.
Revelation 12:17: And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Revelation 14:12: Here is the patience of the saints: here [are] they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
What are we as God’s end-time church to do in the last days?
The most important thing we can do is to carefully examine the Bible to see what God says about the time we live in, so that we can prepare ourselves for the coming attacks of Satan. We know that all the devil’s attempts to bring God’s end-time church to its knees are becoming more and more cunning, and they will come with increasing frequency and power as we draw near to the return of Jesus.
In Ezekiel 33:7 the Lord says to Ezekiel: So, thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. This is also true in our day, and God has set an entire denomination as watchmen, although not all of them are equally zealous and fervent.
Ellen G. White once said of the watchmen: The Lord is soon coming. The watchmen on the walls of Zion are called upon to awake to their God-given responsibility. Many of them are in a stupor of insensibility. God calls for watchmen who in the power of the Spirit will give to the world a warning message, – watchmen who will proclaim the time of night. He calls for watchmen who will arouse men and women from their lethargy, lest they sleep the sleep of death, (Review and Herald October 22, 1903).
Further, Ellen G. White says in 9T 19.1: In a special sense Seventh-day Adventists have been set in the world as watchmen and light bearers. To them has been entrusted the last warning for a perishing world. On them is shining wonderful light from the word of God. They have been given a work of the most solemn import—the proclamation of the first, second, and third angels’ messages. There is no other work of so great importance. They are to allow nothing else to absorb their attention.
To compare this statement with the Bible we must see what Ezekiel says: But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take [any] person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand, (Ezekiel 33:6).
With this background, it becomes obvious that our job is not just to be watchmen, but we are to warn of the coming dangers, and not least we must proclaim that Jesus Christ will soon return to earth to collect his people.
There are already so many temptations and seductions that our enemy has planted in the world, and not only in the world, but this has also found its way into God’s church, this has even crept into God’s end-time church. This is perhaps the most difficult thing to deal with, but we will receive wisdom and strength from God if we sincerely begin this job and go out in prayer and faith and believe that the Lord will help us. After all, it is not our work that we are doing, but God’s work, and then God will equip us with everything we need to complete the task He has given us.
We must therefore get up on the walls, and scout for the enemy’s seductions, and warn all people of what is coming. I have personally experienced that people constantly come to my church and try to plant false doctrines by talking to people who seem to be receptive to such things. The cunning that Satan shows, these people also have. They do not start spreading their poison right away, but see who may be receptive, and when that is done, they strike.
No one has the authority to refuse these people access to our churches, but every time I have observed such people, I have confronted them with their actions and refused them to “preach” false doctrines. The result is that they have chosen to leave our churches.
The most important thing we can do in the end times is to volunteer to become one of God’s watchmen to call those of God’s people who are still in Babylon out of the confusion that Babylon represents. We do this by proclaiming the three angels’ messages in Revelation 14:6-13 with the addition of Revelation 18:4: Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.