The lives of the biblical kings are really interesting case studies. As with all men, the kings of Israel and Judah who loved God often made mistakes. Today, through the writings of the prophet Isaiah, we get a close look at one of King Hezekiah’s mistakes. Through the prophet Isaiah, God directe...

In today’s reading, we will explore the way God spoke through time to a man yet to be born. Isaiah was a true prophet of God, which means that his prophecies were not good guesses, and they were not political forecasting, they were messages from God Almighty. Isaiah was living in the time of the ...

Through the prophet Isaiah, God spoke clearly to His people. Without any guess work, the LORD labelled the people of ancient Judah as “transgressors.” In Hebrew, the word is “pasa” (pronounced paw-shaw), and it means people who revolt and rebel. God called them this because they had broken the te...

The twelve verses of Isaiah 53 are quoted multiple times in the New Testament and applied directly to Jesus Christ and the result of His life and ministry. It is a poetic yet extremely clear example of the Hebrew prophets speaking about Jesus long before He was even born. Because this connection ...

When we look at the world critically, we can see the ways we justify evil. When we think that evil will benefit us in some way, we rationalize it and make it happen. Rather than stopping evil from growing, in so many ways, we have fostered and fed it. So, what can we do about it? Isaiah 57 remind...

One of the great lies is that we do not need the LORD to live a good life, that we can do life on our own and be fine. You might be or might know someone who truly believes they can maneuver life’s ups and downs and steer through any difficulties, but the truth is, the life they have control over...

The greatness of God is astounding. He has created all that we see, hear, touch, and feel. Mankind has tried multiple ways to deny that God created the universe, but in my opinion, with every theory also comes haunting questions that lead to the inevitable conclusion that there must be an intelli...

Jeremiah’s name most likely means loosens or throws, but some like to call him the Weeping Prophet. This is because Jeremiah’s message from God was not a nice one, he was sent to call Judah out for her sins and tell her that she would fall to Babylon. Jeremiah’s ministry began around 627 BC, and ...

God does not try to trick us; He is fair and just. We see this principle over and again in the Scriptures. In Jeremiah 11, the LORD repeats to His people why judgment was going to come. Though the people of Jerusalem had convinced themselves that they would not fall to Babylon, that God would nev...

Jeremiah 15 begins with God saying, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before Me, My mind would not be favorable toward this people” ( J E R E M I A H 1 5 : 1 ) . Moses and Samuel were known for their intercessory prayer and were seen as heroes of the faith, so this would have been a devastating
sta...

Not many people today like to talk about sin because our culture would rather find excuses for it than admit it is wrong. While it is true that God made humanity good, we did not stay good. God made us free to choose. God gave instructions to Adam and Eve, but they failed. They allowed doubt abou...

Even though we may not see God working, we believe that He is. It is interesting to think about this on a world scale. When we pray, “Your will be done, Your Kingdom come” ( M AT T H E W 6 : 1 0 ) , we are praying for God’s plans to be unfolded. We don’t always know what those plans will look lik...

It is easy to get tripped up when we try to understand how God can know the future perfectly and yet still enable us as His creations to have free will within His knowing. Regardless, we do know several things. We know that God knows the future. We know that the Bible teaches that we do have real...

Another reason that Jeremiah is sometimes called the Weeping Prophet is because he shares with his readers some of his personal struggles. He had a hard job. He was confronting Judah and Jerusalem with their sins to their faces. And beyond calling them out for their sins, he was telling them they...

We have short memories. It is easy to forget how you got to where you are in your life because you’re busy living it. But truth has consequences. We may like to live as if the only thing that matters is the last twenty-four hours, but we are accountable for all our actions regardless of when they...

During the years of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah (605-604 BC), God spoke to Jeremiah and told him to write down the words that the LORD first began to reveal to him about 20 years before (627 BC). The prophecies were against Israel, against Judah and all the other nations surrounding them; they we...

In a surprising move, the king of Babylon commanded the captain of his guard to find and free the prophet Jeremiah after Jerusalem’s destruction. The captain was to take charge of Jeremiah and help him. Jeremiah’s own king had met him with hostility, imprisonment and scorn but this pagan, enemy k...

Promises are important! If you break them, you are seen as an untrustworthy person. God makes promises to us as well, but of course, He cannot and will not break any of His promises because He is faithful. A major problem that we face as humans is that we now live with sin and in cultures of sin;...

The city-state of Babylon is synonymous with rebellion against God. The unique tower built after the great Flood of Noah, was in rebellion against God. According to Jewish tradition, Noah’s descendants came together to create a society that was unified and strong. They built a tower so high that ...

According to Jewish tradition, the book of Lamentations is written by Jeremiah. It is a collection of five structured and powerfully emotional poems that lament Jerusalem’s destruction. It was fitting to cry on the fall of that great city. About nine hundred years before, Moses wrote Deuteronomy
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How someone in the West would define suffering is nothing compared to how someone in North Korea would define suffering. Perhaps there is no greater definition for suffering than the gospel: Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, came to the earth and suffered for our sake, not because He had don...

Ezekiel’s name means ‘God will harden’ or ‘God will strengthen’. Ezekiel was a priest during the time of Zechariah and Jeremiah, when Judah was to be exiled to Babylon. It seems that Ezekiel and the exiles lived near the River Chebar or canal off the River Euphrates. It was from here that Ezekiel...

The main reason Jerusalem was judged by God was because they had forgotten Him and His mighty act of rescue. Their hearts were hardened like stone. The interesting thing about God’s prophecies is simple: He desires to be known by those who say they serve Him. In Ezekiel 6, we hear the message fro...