March 21, Jeremiah 49
"For Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has made a plan against you and formed a purpose against you." - Jeremiah 49:30
In Chapters 47 and 48, we read how God expanded the fury of his wrath beyond Judah to punish the cruel and idolatrous neighboring nations. Egypt and Moab were the first two Gentile nations mentioned. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was expanding his empire by conquest. The Chaldean forces were unstoppable as they swept across the region destroying the cities and subjecting the people.
In Chapter 49, God told Jeremiah of more nations that would suffer the same fate. Jeremiah foretold the impending ruin of Ammon, Edom, Syria, Kedar, Hazor and Elam. God would use Nebuchadnezzar and his armies as tools of judgment and punishment against all of them.
Some were destroyed for their idolatry. Had Milcom dispossessed God in the land of Ammon? These people were descendants of the other child born to Lot from his incest with his other daughter. (To be fair to Lot, let's remember that these acts of incest was not of his will, but the will of his daughters who feared they would never have a child unless they got their father drunk and had approached him.) The people of Ammon were fierce longterm enemies of the people of Israel, with multiple wars between them during the days of Saul and David. They were brutal war criminals who ripped open expectant mothers. The Ammonites worshiped their false god, by offering their children as sacrifices to MIlcom. They trusted in their fertile valleys and riches. But none of that could save them from God's wrath.
The Edomites were descendants of Esau. Their animosity toward their ancestor uncle Jacob had pitted them against Israel for centuries. They took pride in the fact that they made their enemies afraid, and felt secure in their strategic mountain citadel. God promised to send gleaners who left no grapes and thieves who took and destroyed all their possessions. Nebuchadnezzar's armies would reduce the proud warriors of Edom to cry out in pain and fear.
Nebuchadnezzar would also strike down Kedar and Hazor. They were at ease and felt secure, but plague and destruction were on the way. They would be terrified from attacks on all sides. Their great cities would become uninhabited ruins. Babylon would also bring terror and disaster to Elam. The nation would be destroyed, and the surviving people would be scattered among other nations.
God promised a future restoration to some of these people, just as he promised Judah. The survivors would be absorbed into other Arab nations. But afterward or in the latter times, in the days of Messiah, some of these people would come to God through Christ. Elamites were present at Pentecost, according to the Acts record, and I do not doubt that other descendants of these doomed nations would hear and believe the gospel as it spread across the Roman Empire in the first century.
Do all these words about God destroying these people disturb you? Some critics point to these outpourings of God's wrath and say that's not the God they're looking for. Some teachers have styled the Old Testament God as a God of wrath, and the New Testament God as a God of love. But those two are one and the same God. He is perfectly loving, compassionate, gracious and merciful. But he is also perfectly righteous, holy and just. He showed Moses on the mountain that he is a merciful, gracious and forgiving God, adding, "but who will by no means clear the guilty." By his nature he cannot ignore or excuse sin.
We don't get to choose the kind of God we want him to be. We are made in his image, not the other way around. This one true and altogether righteous God hates sin. But he loves people who have been ruined by sin. He loves them so that he gave his only Son to bear their sins and redeem them to himself. When we see him clearly, we love him, trust him and submit to him as God.
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—March 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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