Chapter 3

 

In our first two chapters we showed the distinction between Israel and Judah. The Israelites were deported by the Assyrians eight centuries before Christ, and they did not return to Palestine, because God had divorced them. It would have been unlawful for God to allow them to return as a nation.

The nation of Judah was deported to Babylon about 150 years later, but God did not divorce Judah. Hence, they were allowed to return after just 70 years. If you read Jeremiah 3:8-11 you will see that God gave Israel a bill of divorce, but did not do this to Judah—even though Judah was worse. Verse 11 says,

¹¹ And the Lord said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.

God rendered this verdict on the grounds that Judah had pretended to be a good wife and had faked repentance (vs. 10). The book of Jeremiah tells the story. In Jeremiah 2:35 the word to Judah was,

³⁵ Yet thou sayest, ‘I am innocent; surely His anger shall turn from me.' Behold, I [God] will plead with thee, because thou sayest, ‘I have not sinned.'

The house of Israel was not like this. Israel brazenly and officially worshipped idols and forsook God. But at least she was not a hypocrite like Judah. Judah worshipped false gods in her heart, calling them Yahweh. She violated the laws of God, but continued to worship in the temple in Jerusalem. We find this in Jeremiah 7, where we read,

⁹ Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not;

¹⁰ And come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, “We are delivered to do all these abominations”?

¹¹ Is this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord.

¹² But go ye now unto My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of My people, Israel. . .

¹⁴ Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by My name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh.

¹⁵ And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim.

¹⁶ Therefore, pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to Me; for I will not hear thee.

Somehow, Judah's theologians had come up with the idea that God had put away His law, and that because the people were delivered (“saved”), they were now allowed to do all these abominations. In other words, they said the same thing that much of the Church says today: We are now saved, we are “under grace,” and so we are now free to violate God's law whenever we disagree with Him.

This is the doctrine that made the temple in Jerusalem “a den of robbers.”

Then God reminded them of the days of Eli, who was the high priest at Shiloh (1 Samuel 1:3) before Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem. Shiloh was the place where Joshua placed the ark of the covenant when Israel first conquered the land of Canaan. Shiloh was a city of Ephraim, and Joshua was of that tribe. Ephraim was the son of Joseph who held the birthright (Genesis 48:14).

Eli's sons were “sons of Belial; they knew not the Lord” (1 Samuel 2:12). They thought they had a license to violate God's law (1 Samuel 2:13-17). As a result of this, God forsook Shiloh. He brought in the Philistines, who actually captured the ark of the covenant and held it for seven months before returning it (4:11; 6:1). The ark was never returned to Shiloh. The glory had departed (4:21).

It is an observable fact that once the glory departs from a certain place, it never returns. God always does a new thing in another place. God does not put new wine in old wineskins (Matthew 9:17). Hence, the ark was brought to the town of Kirjath-jearim (Hebron), where it remained for about 20 years (1 Samuel 7:2). From there, David took it to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6:16). Solomon then put it in the Most Holy Place of his new temple.

A few centuries later, Jeremiah told the people that God was going to forsake that house and that place (Jerusalem) “as I have done to Shiloh” (Jeremiah 7:14). Why? Because Judah was guilty of the same thing that Ephraim had done in the days of Eli. They had put away the law, teaching people that they could sin with immunity, because they had been “saved” and were the chosen people under the covenant with God.

This is what made Shiloh a den of robbers; and this is what made old Jerusalem a den of robbers. This was, of course, confirmed by Jesus Himself, when He cleansed the temple and overthrew the moneychangers (Mark 11:17). Jesus knew the implications of His statement. This verdict would result in the glory departing from that city and that temple, never to return again. He even warned the people to flee that city and not look back (Matthew 24:16-22).

Jesus knew the prophecies, and He knew that the old city had been forsaken by the glory of God. For this reason, He wept over the city and said, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate,” or abandoned. Ichabod.

Back in Jeremiah's day the glory departed prior to the temple's destruction. Jeremiah did not see this in his visions, but Ezekiel did. Ezekiel lived at the same time, although he was a prophet sent to the house of Israel in their Assyrian captivity near the river Chebar (Ezekiel 1:1; 2:3). This is the “river of Habor” mentioned in 2 Kings 17:6.

Ezekiel saw the glory depart from the temple (Ezekiel 10:4, 19; and 11:22, 23). The glory went to the mount of Olives on the east side of Jerusalem. But Ezekiel did not see it depart further than the mount of Olives. I believe this is because it was yet in transition. While Jerusalem was certainly going to be destroyed in 586 BC, there was yet to be a secondary fulfillment in 70 AD that would complete this departure of God's glory.

After Judah's 70-year captivity, Zerubbabel built another temple, but it was never glorified like we read about in the dedication of Solomon's temple. This new temple did not have the ark of the covenant in it, nor did God ever really “inhabit” that temple. It appears that the glory of God was still half-way moved eastward, in a sense resting and waiting on the mount of olives.

Judah's Divorce

As we said earlier, Judah was NOT divorced in the days of Jeremiah, but Israel was. Why? Simply because Jesus had to be born of the house of Judah. God had to remain married to Judah at least until Jesus was born, or else Jesus would have been born as an illegitimate child. If Judah had not been God's wife at the time, He could not lawfully have overshadowed Mary and conceived a child. It was therefore imperative that God not divorce Judah prior to His birth and ministry.

But once this had been accomplished, once the first work of Christ had been finished, then it was no longer necessary that Judah be married to God. So in 70 AD God sent her out of the house. We know that G od does not violate His own law, of course, and so we can only conclude that God gave Judah a divorce before sending her out of His house (Deut. 24:1).

A study of the two works of Christ shows that His first work was a Judah work, while the second is a Joseph work. The first had to begin in Bethlehem of Judea (Matthew 2:1). The second begins in the house of Joseph, whose coat was dipped in blood (Genesis 37:31). Hence, the One called “The Word of God” is said to have His vesture dipped in blood (Revelation 19:13). In the law of lepers, we see that the first bird (dove) was killed; while the second was dipped in the blood of the first dove and let loose into the open field (Leviticus 14:5-7).

Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives

Those who are expecting Jesus to return to the old Jerusalem in His second work are mistaken. That work was completed on the Cross, when He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The glory of God, embodied in Jesus Christ, later departed from the town of Bethany, located on the mount of Olives (Mark 11:1), when Jesus ascended from there (Luke 24:50; Acts 1:12). This completed the departure of the glory of God that had begun in the days of Ezekiel. This is also why it was very important that He depart from the mount of Olives.

Zechariah 14:4 says that “His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives,” leading some to believe that the glory will return to the old land, the old city of Jerusalem, and the old mount of Olives. However, this would directly contradict His statement that He will forsake Jerusalem as He did with Shiloh. Certainly, God never returned to Shiloh, once the Philistines had taken the ark and destroyed that city. Even so, the glory departed from the temple in Jerusalem and rested upon the mount of Olives.

In Biblical symbolism, a mount or mountain is a nation or kingdom. The mountain of the Lord is the kingdom of God. Mount Seir is the kingdom of Seir, or Edom. Thus, the mount of Olives represents the Olive Kingdom. Jeremiah 11:16 says of the house of Israel, “The Lord called thy name, A green olive tree.” The fig tree represented the nation of Judah; the olive was Israel.

And so, the small mount east of Jerusalem became the symbol of a much larger fulfillment in the latter days. The glory departed Jerusalem and went to the mount of Olives. The first work of Christ was completed in the Jerusalem fig tree, and then the focus shifted to His second work in Joseph-Israel, the “olive tree.”

Revelation 21:2 speaks of a “new Jerusalem” along with a “new heaven and a new earth.” This prophecy is taken from Isaiah 65:17, 18. However, Isaiah does not use the term, “New.” He just calls it “Jerusalem,” as do all of the other prophets. Only in the New Testament is our understanding increased, where John interprets it for us. It is no longer the old city, but a new one whose origins are in heaven. No longer is it a mere city, but “as towns without walls” (Zechariah 2:4) with “many nations” being joined to them (Zechariah 2:11).

Hence, the prophecies to Jerusalem can be fulfilled, and yet it is a new entity, not the original city. The old city was only a type and shadow of the greater fulfillment as the kingdom of God would spread into all nations.

The original events occurred in those literal places. But the events associated with the second work of Christ have been cut loose from those old locations. It has now moved to an entirely different work, with an entirely different people (Israel and the world), an entirely different priesthood based on Melchizedek, not on Levi (Hebrews 7:12), and a different temple made of living stones, built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets (Ephesians 2:20-22).

A Warning to Jerusalem

What God is doing today in the old city of Jerusalem is based upon His Word to the cursed fig tree of Judah (Matthew 21:13, 19) and to Esau (Genesis 27:40). Because Judah was the hypocrite wife (Jeremiah 3:10; Matthew 23:15, 23, etc.), her desire was to remain in God's house, while she pretended to be obedient and submissive to Him. Thus, she has played the part of the wife who is sent out of the house, but who keeps returning without truly repenting in the long-term sense, first from Babylon, and now again in 1948. But Esau-Edom is also playing a role in this, for they too wanted to possess the land of Canaan and inherit the birthright. Both motives and both prophecies are today being fulfilled in the Israeli state.

That nation was also brought back to Palestine, so that they might appear in the divine court for judgment. This is made abundantly plain in Luke 19, where the “citizens” of the kingdom said of Jesus Christ, “We will not have this Man to reign over us” (Luke 19:14). The verdict for this rejection is found in verse 27:

²⁷ But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before Me.

This is a hard saying for many people, but the truth must be told. Those Jews who have accepted Jesus as the King must understand this, so that they do not make the mistake of remaining in Jerusalem when its time of judgment arrives. They must be prepared to flee that city as did the Jerusalem church before 70 AD. If they turn around to look back in their reluctance to sever ties, they may find themselves in the shoes of Lot's wife. (Note: Rev. 11:8 compares Jerusalem to Sodom.)

This warning will not endear me to many Jews, even Jewish Christians. But I am not concerned with making friends. I am more concerned with the truth and giving the warning from God. The Israeli state is presently in its 50^th year. The day of reckoning may soon be upon the old Jerusalem. The recent breakdown in the peace process may prove to be the final step to disaster.

Jeremiah's Warning to Jerusalem

As we said earlier, Israel and Judah are two different nations with two different sets of prophecies that each must fulfill. This is most apparent in Jeremiah 18 and 19. In chapter 18 we read how God told Jeremiah to go down to the potter's house to observe a revelation from God. As he watched, the clay jar in the hand of the potter was defective, so the potter beat it down and remade the wet clay into a new vessel. God then told Jeremiah in 18:6,

⁶ O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in Mine hand, O house of Israel.

In other words, Israel was this jar of wet clay that was marred, but still pliable. It was still possible for the potter to make it into another vessel fit for the Master's use. Then in verse 11, God gives Jeremiah a different Word, one which related directly to Judah and Jerusalem.

¹¹ Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I frame EVIL against you, and devise a device against you.

After giving the legal indictment against Jerusalem, God then told Jeremiah in 19:1,

¹ Thus saith the Lord, Go and get a potter's earthen bottle, and take of the ancients [elders] of the people, and of the ancients of the priests,

² And go forth unto the valley of the son of Hinnom [called in the New Testament, “gehenna”], which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee.

If you will read the rest of that chapter, you will find that the word given to Jerusalem was NOT a word of hope and comfort such as He gave to the house of Israel in chapter 18. No, this jar was not made of pliable clay that could be made into another vessel. Jeremiah was told to take an old clay bottle, one that had already been hardened by fire, and go to the city dump (gehenna).

There, Jeremiah gave a word that would make the ears of the people tingle. After delivering the message of dire judgment, God told Jeremiah in verse 10,

¹⁰ Then shalt thou BREAK THE BOTTLE in the sight of the men that go with thee.

¹¹ And shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaketh a potter's vessel, that cannot be made whole again, and they shall bury them in Tophet [“place of fire,” another name for gehenna] till there be no place to bury.

This is as clear a word from God as any in the Bible. There is no possible way to misinterpret it. It is clear that God intends to utterly destroy the old Jerusalem as a potter's vessel that cannot be made whole again. This was NOT a popular message in Jeremiah's day. Few believed him. In fact, we read in Jeremiah 20:1-3,

¹ Now Pashur the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things,

² Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the Lord.

³ And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then said Jeremiah unto him, The Lord hath not called thy name Pashur [“liberation”], but Magor-missabib [“fear on every side”].

The people of Judah thought they would always be free, liberated, because they were married to God and had the house of God in their midst (Jeremiah 7:4). God was not impressed. He cared nothing about beautiful temples or glorious cities. Even the “chosen” status could not give them a license to sin. Hence, Jeremiah called the chief temple governor Mr. Fear-on-every-side, because God was going to strike terror in their hearts when He judged them for thinking they were delivered to do all these abominations. They could not make God's house a den of robbers and remain immune to God's judgment.

This verse was NOT fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city in 586 BC, because that city was rebuilt by Ezra and Nehemiah a century later. That verse was NOT fulfilled when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD, for the city was again later rebuilt and is with us even today. As long as the city is rebuilt, Jeremiah's prophecy is not yet fulfilled, except in part. I believe that Jerusalem is going to be destroyed in our own day and never again be rebuilt. I believe it is likely that this could happen as early as this year, 1997.

The fact that so few people have ever understood or even read this verse in the time of the Laodicean Church is absolute proof of our “blindness in part.” Those who hang their faith upon the idea that the old Jerusalem will remain forever will stumble and fall in their faith when the Word to Jeremiah is fulfilled. We must get our eyes off the old city and focus upon the New Jerusalem which is from above. That is the true eternal city, for it is made without human hands. Its builder is God. It alone will not fail.