LESSONS FROM JEREMIAH – PART 13 – THE LORD’S CONDITIONS FOR THOSE OF JEREMIAH’S TIME AND IN THE TRIBULATION
PART 13 - Jeremiah 4:1-2
CHAPTER 4
[A]. THE CONDITIONAL RETURN HAPPENS IN THE GREAT TRIBULATION
{{Jeremiah 4:1-2 “IF YOU WILL RETURN, O Israel,” declares the LORD, “then you should return to Me, and if you will PUT AWAY YOUR DETESTED THINGS from My presence, and will not waver, and you will swear, in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, ‘As the LORD lives,’ then the nations will bless themselves in Him, and in Him they will glory.”}}
Chapter 4 continues from the previous chapter. As a quick revision, in Jeremiah 3:22, Jehovah appeals to the nation with this invitation, “Return, O faithless sons. I will heal your faithlessness.” Even on the eve of their deportment to Babylon, at least those who survived, the Lord still held out the hand of forgiveness.
Also in verse 22 we saw the people’s response, but we know it could not have come from Judah in Jeremiah’s time for they never did repent nationally and on that scale. The confession there will be enacted in the Tribulation when God takes up the Jews again after the times of the Gentiles has finished with the Rapture of His Bride, the Church. Jehovah calls His wife, Israel, back to Himself again, and she will respond, something the Jews have not done for at least the last 2500 years.
After the response of the people returning to the Lord at the end of chapter 3, at the start of chapter 4, the Lord then spells out a number of conditions governing that return, and there are 3 or 4 of these. It all begins with the first “IF” and these are serious conditions, because in the Tribulation period when the Jews again turn to the LORD (Messiah), it will not be a time for pretend commitment. To be true to the Messiah in those days, may mean forfeiting your life as saints are hunted down and killed for their testimony. Also, there must be steadfastness until the end as we see in this section about those days in the Great Tribulation, taught by the Lord Jesus –
{{Matthew 24:9 “Then THEY WILL DELIVER YOU TO TRIBULATION and will kill you and you will be hated by all nations on account of My name.”}} In Matthew 24 we must note that these words, in fact the entire chapter 24, was spoken solely to His disciples and therefore must relate to what is Jewish. He is addressing the Jews of the future time, for all this chapter, except for the first 3 verses, is yet future and does not happen while the Church is still here. The disciples asked Jesus what was the sign of His coming (the Second coming) and the end of the age, and He answers them.
The end of the age will be His Second Coming when He comes to Jerusalem, to the Mount of Olivet. The World Leader and his False Prophet, the one I call Antichrist, turn against Israel three and a half years after making a treaty with them for seven years, breaking that treaty half way through, and the Jewish saints are hunted because this trilogy of evil: World Leader, False Prophet and Satan, as they hate anything to do with God. That is why this Matthew verse contains “all nations” because the World Leader’s dictates will be worldwide.
This is very significant, as right now at the end of February 2024 when Israel is in battle with Hamas and Hezbollah, and by default, Iran, no one knows where this might end (Christians who study prophecy do). We are so close to the Church being raptured and then this World Leader (sometimes called Antichrist) comes on the scene and solves the Middle East problem. He is the one on the white horse with the breaking of the first seal of Revelation 6. He makes this 7 year peace treaty covenant with Israel but he breaks it half way through. (Daniel’s 70 weeks – {{Daniel 9:27 “and he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, BUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WEEK he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering, and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate.”}}) He is looked on as a problem solver and the world runs after him. Keep your eye on the WEF and the WHO.
{{Matthew 24:10 At that time MANY WILL FALL AWAY and will deliver up one another and hate one another.}} The going will be tough and will sort the wheat from the chaff, the genuine from the pretend, and many will fall away. The Lord wants those who fight the good faith, not to surrender at the first opportunity or difficulty. The intensity of evil in the world will be great and betrayal and mistrust will be widespread. Add to that the other element that gains a foothold in repression, hate, and you have awful times. The Lord is warning his saints of the future, of the times they will face. Jeremiah uses the term that is used by God, “and not waver”. That means endurance, not giving up and falling away, or going backward because of doubt (wavering).
{{Matthew 24:11 “Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many,”}} False prophets and false teachers have been around always. The Church is warned against this false teaching also, but in the Tribulation, it will be particularly bad, because when God does a deep, genuine work, especially with His own people, the descendants of Jacob, then the devil raises up even more to oppose that work. It is just a shame that many will be misled by these demonic counterfeits. Deceivers and scammers are definitely on the increase today, inside and outside the church.
{{Matthew 24:12 “and because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold,}} Lawlessness will most certainly increase because the man of lawlessness is on the scene and ruling the world as the head of the revived Roman empire. {{2Thessalonians 2:1-4 Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you may not be quickly shaken from your composure, or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless THE APOSTASY COMES FIRST, and THE MAN OF LAWLESSNESS is revealed, the son of destruction * (This word “apostasy” almost certainly should be translated as “departure”, that is, the departure of the Church at the Rapture. I have written on this in the Prophecy, Eschatology series on SermonCentral.) who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.}}
Lawlessness is rebellion, and the world leader is both lawless and rebellious. What it means in those coming days, is that all behaviour and laws will be godless, and the culture of those days will be drugs and the occult. You expect no less from the trinity of evil. The Matthew verse says that the love of many will grow cold because of the times, and this suggests that love struggles when the culture is godless, lawless and occult. That would not be surprising, and the only remedy is that which was known to the prophet Elijah in such terrible times as he had under Ahab and Jezebel, that is, THE WORD OF THE LORD. It was God’s word that came to him that gave him direction and hope, and kept his love fixed. When the storms are all around, the word of God must have full control in a believer’s life for it is the very foundation of faith.
{{Matthew 24:13 “but the one who endures to the end, he shall be saved.”}} WE NOW COME TO THIS VERY SPECIAL VERSE THAT CONNECTS WITH THE VERSE IN JEREMIAH, “AND WILL NOT WAVER”, where God addresses the Jews who are repenting and who become the Jewish saints of the Tribulation. The Lord speaks to His future Jewish saints in Matthew 24. It is the same group of people in mind. These will find it very hard in the Great Tribulation because of the conditions, so He is urging them to endure, to stay the course, to be there at the end. It is very upsetting that the church generally, which does not understand the difference between Jew and Gentile, applies this verse wrongly to the Church age. Therefore, some teach that if a person slips back or backslides, then they have not endured to the end and have lost their salvation. This verse has nothing to do with the Church doctrine. Its reference point is in the Tribulation, to the Jewish believers then.
{{Matthew 24:14 “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come.”}} The Gospel of the kingdom is NOT the gospel of grace which we preach today. The Kingdom Gospel means the gospel as it related to the conditions in Messiah’s kingdom. It is very Jewish and was confined to the Jews. Messiah’s kingdom only happens when Messiah is ruling as King of the Jews. When He came first time He was rejected and not owned as King at all by the nation who crucified Him.
John the Baptist preached the gospel of the kingdom – “repent for the kingdom of God is at hand”. Some of the conditions of the kingdom were laid down in the Sermon on the Mount. However it all involved repentance and acceptance of Messiah’s kingdom, and Messiah as King. The Lord could never have preached the gospel of grace as Paul expounds it, because the Lord’s preaching was in a time before the cross, and was distinctly Jewish. The term “gospel of grace” confuses people and some ask, “Well, does that mean the Lord did not preach grace?” No, it does not mean that.
The term means the gospel that was expounded by Paul about the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord who was the Substitute for our sins, and the grace of God which is extended to all, and to those who believe He died for them, shed His blood on their behalf, for redemption, and they accept Him as their Saviour. In the time after the Rapture it will be Jewish preaching again, and the gospel of the kingdom will be preached by the 144 000 Jews from every tribe because it requires repentance from all the national rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ by the Jews. The repentance is to be the pathway of entry into the coming kingdom of Messiah which we know as the Millennium.
This Matthew verse says clearly that the gospel of the kingdom will be a witness to all nations, and then the end will come. What is this end being spoken of? Let us recall. Well, the disciples at the beginning of the chapter, asked the Lord when the end of the age will come, that is, when all the affairs of men will be wrapped up, and God will take all control. In other words, what they were really asking is when does the Lord Jesus Christ return to earth at the Second Coming. Well, He does that at the end of the seven year Tribulation when all those Jews converted through repentance on hearing the gospel of the kingdom, are received into Messiah’s kingdom when He gathers all His saints from all over the world and restores them to Israel in His kingdom.
{{Matthew 24:15-16 “Therefore WHEN YOU SEE THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then LET THOSE WHO ARE IN JUDEA FLEE TO THE MOUNTAINS.” The Lord speaks of this abomination in the holy place. It stands there, and is the statue of the World Leader which the False Prophet causes to speak and to do miracles (and it will have nothing to do with magician’s tricks). Here is God’s account of this time – {{Revelation 13:13-15 “and he performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. He deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life. There was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast might even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed”}}
The original abomination happened in 168 B.C. when Antiochus Epiphanes IV sacrificed a sow on the altar in the temple and absolutely desecrated it, and at the same time, he erected a statue of Jupiter. He prohibited Temple worship, forbade circumcision on pain of death, sold thousands of Jewish families into slavery, destroyed all copies of Scripture that could be found, and slaughtered everyone discovered in possession of such copies, and resorted to every conceivable torture to force Jews to renounce their religion. The World Leader in the Tribulation will be a worse copy of Antiochus Epiphanes IV, and will enforce similar conditions on Israel and Jews in an effort to exterminate the Jews, but the Lord has told them to flee to the mountains where, in chapter 12 of Revelation, God miraculously takes care of them. These very same Jews are the ones spoken to some 2000 years earlier in Matthew 24, and are the ones to whom the “endure to the end” applies.
Nevertheless, endurance is a quality that must be found in the good soldiers of Jesus Christ. God must be disappointed in cowardly wimps who profess to follow him, but live a life of ease and won’t put themselves out to go to Bible Studies or won’t do anything to further the kingdom, or can’t be bothered going out if it is raining. It is those who endure, who will hear the Lord say, “Well done, you good and faithful servant.”
BACK TO THE JEREMIAH PASSAGE. {{Jeremiah 4:2 and you will swear, in TRUTH, in JUSTICE, and in RIGHTEOUSNESS, ‘As the LORD lives,’ then the nations will bless themselves in Him, and in Him they will glory.”}}
In verse 2 three words are significant – truth, righteousness, justice. They are the three qualities God demands of the repentant Jews, not only in the time of Jeremiah, but also it will pertain to the Jews in the Tribulation. In a careful reading of all the prophets, you can not help but notice that these three virtues were the ones constantly highlighted over and over again and upheld by the prophets, for Israel sadly lacked them, and trashed God’s truth, and lived unrighteously in idolatry, and showed no justice, and took bribes and thrived on unjust judges.
It is those matters that must be addressed and God will have truth, righteousness and justice in His people, Israel, in that day of restoration. That is why He lets them know. In Jeremiah’s time they did not repent and return, and they had so much to turn from, that they were unwilling, and scorned the prophet’s message and even persecuted him. The king locked him up. These three words are special qualities especially noticed in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He was the Truth, “I am the WAY and the TRUTH and the LIFE.” He was the Righteous One, and as such, it was then possible for Him to die for the ungodly, the righteous for the unrighteous – {{Acts 7:52 “Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? and they killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose BETRAYERS AND MURDERERS YOU HAVE NOW BECOME –“}} {{2Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin (the Righteous One) to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”}} Because those aspects were especially known in our Lord, then they must be also reflected in us. We must pursue the truth, and The Truth. We must live righteously in this world following the Righteous One. We must learn of justice through God’s own word and imitate the Just One.
In verse 2 of our passage Jeremiah inserts “then” which is most important, and he goes on to say, “THEN THE NATIONS WILL BLESS THEMSELVES IN HIM, AND IN HIM THEY WILL GLORY.” We must look carefully at the sequence here because it is only after God’s people are walking correctly, will anyone notice and take heed. When the Jews, and even the Christians, are walking openly in truth, righteousness and justice, only then, will that have the correct effect on the nations. In the Millennium, people will come into Israel yearly. They will know the presence of the Lord there and see His righteous people, the redeemed Jews. Jesus reigns in Jerusalem. All will be glorious.
At the end of chapter 3 the people responded with a desire for total commitment, and after the first two verses of chapter 4, there is no more response from the people. Those of Jeremiah’s time could not respond because they were unrepentant. Those who are in view, the Jewish Tribulation saints of the future, will respond correctly, but we leave these first two verses and move on.
