February 26, Jeremiah 25
Thus the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: "Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it." - Jeremiah 25:15
After decades of patience and centuries of long suffering, God sent a judgment of death and destruction on Jerusalem, Judah, and the surrounding nations. As the end approached, God sent Jeremiah to warn of the coming destruction and call what was left of Israel in Judah to repentance.
After 23 years of faithful service, the leaders and the people had not repented. They rejected God's word from Jeremiah and mistreated the Lord's faithful messenger. They had been enamored with the sensuous rituals of the Baals, and nothing that Ezekiel, Daniel or Jeremiah said changed their hardened hearts.
Idolatry and the associated ungodliness was so entrenched in the people of Judah that they would not repent. The long-delayed end came quickly, and the last generation of David's dynasty and the people of Judah fell into death, ruin and slavery. They would be captives for 70 years, a year for each Sabbath year they had neglected for almost 500 years.
God started with Judah, but did not stop there. Their neighbors were just as ungodly as Judah had become. They too would drink from the cup of God's wrath at the hands of the Babylonians. A remnant of Judah would return from captivity. But some of the nations around them would fall to never rise as nations again after Babylon devastated them. Finally, Babylon herself would fall victim to God's wrath for her hateful excesses of violence against the conquered people and their mockery of God.
It's interesting that God called Nebuchadnezzar, the ruthless conqueror, his servant. He was not a faithful, godly man like others God called his servants. Abraham, Joshua, Josiah, Jeremiah and other leaders and prophets were a different kind of servants—godly leaders and faithful messengers. God used Nebuchadnezzar as a different kind of servant, to punish and mete out judgment on the nations. After he accomplished his purpose with them, the Lord also destroyed Babylon, turning their kingdom over to the Medes and Persians in a single night.
The cup of wrath God gave to Jeremiah to give to the nations was not a literal cup, but a symbol of God's wrath being poured out on the disobedient. Isaiah had already spoken twice of it, and John would use the symbol again hundreds of year later in Revelation. Jeremiah delivered the cup to the nations by announcing their doom to them. The time for warnings and repentance had passed. Now sin-hardened Judah and the idolatrous neighbors would receive a fatal dose of the devastating wrath of God. The cup of wrath represents the consequences of their ungodliness. These people brought the consequences upon themselves. But God said he would pour out his divine wrath on these nations. God would send the invaders' swords among them. The punishment came through the hands and swords of vicious enemy forces. But the punishments were from God. Those invading armies were instruments in God’s hands.
Jerusalem and Judah led the list of people to drink the cup of wrath. They had broken their covenant with God. They knew better, disobeyed anyway and persisted in their rebellion against the Lord. That reminds me of the passage in 1 Peter that describes how judgment begins at the house of God.
The cross of Jesus Christ stands above all this sad destruction and death as the only way for sinners like us to avoid this wrath ourselves. I pray that you and I will never become so hardhearted that we will willfully disobey and reject God's warnings and calls to repent. It is still true that the wicked will perish. But the gospel invites us all to come to Christ and find relief, life and freedom.
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission.
All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—February 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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