Jeremiah [Part 6] - The Untold Promises for Israel

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom. We are in Jeremiah, chapter 31. Now, the problem with this chapter 31 is that most Christians only know four verses from that chapter, and I am sad to say that even most pastors only know four verses from that chapter. It's a serious problem. I don't like to talk about problems, but it's a serious problem because if you pick a little here, a little there, a few verses from here, and connect them with other verses from there, what you're doing is a salad from nice that has everything in it, including fish. That's not a way to study the Bible. And, Brad TV has been very kind to me and very kind to its listeners and those who watch my teaching on Brad TV, and they allow me to be very frank, very Israeli, very Jewish, and very much a disciple of Yeshua, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, the Savior of the universe, the uniter of humanity.

Yep, my dear brothers and sisters, it's true. It's true that we need to re-study, re-learn how to learn the word of God, and the first rule is: it's a book. The word Biblia comes from the city of Biblos in Lebanon, just south of the city of Beirut today, and the name Biblos is the name of the city. And that's why the book that we call Bible is called Bible. Because what happened in Biblos is before the people of Biblos got a hold of the text of the Bible, both Old and New Testament, they figured out that it's too difficult and too heavy to carry a big scroll made out of goat skin or sheepskin in some cases, and with the wooden stands that you have to roll it, and it's difficult to find things in it. It's much easier if you have a book, a Biblia, a book that you can flip from one end to the other in seconds, and you don't have to roll that heavy—sometimes it weighs 15 kilos, 20 kilos—a good Torah scroll. That's only the five books of Moses. We're not even talking about the prophets.

So that's why we get the word Biblia, Bible in English, from the city of Biblos, because that's the first place that they made a codex. They cut the scroll into leaves, and they sewed the leaves at the ends, and it became a book. So, the word Bible means a book, 'the book' for us Disciples of Yeshua Mashiach. But a book has a beginning and has an end. Even our Bible starts with a beginning, "In the beginning," and you get to Revelation chapter 21, and you find out, that's the end—the heavens and the Earth will melt away, and there will be a new heavens and a new Earth—something that Isaiah the prophet prophesied in the 8th Century BC. And there will be a New Jerusalem. Hallelujah! I am so glad that there won't be a new New York or a new Beijing, but there will be a New Jerusalem.

So, a book has to be read in its context, and every chapter has to be read in the context. And you will see in a few minutes how important it is, in order to understand the meaning that the Lord and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob intended for us to understand. How important it is to read at least the context of the chapter and not pick four verses from the middle of the chapter and make a salad out of it. That's what Christian theology has done for nearly, nearly 1700-1800 years. Yep. So, I'm going to start chapter 31 of Jeremiah from the beginning so that we know who is the prophet speaking about, who is he addressing. The three questions that everybody that reads the book, or a newspaper, has to ask are: Who is the writer? Who is he addressing? And what is the consequence? What is the context of that newspaper, or book, or pamphlet, or tract, or anything else that you have to read?

So, here I am starting from verse 1 of chapter 31 of the Prophet Jeremiah:

Verse 2:

So, who is the prophet talking about in chapter 31 of Jeremiah? He is not talking about the church. He’s not talking about Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian Church, Egyptian Church, Seventh-day Adventist Church. He’s not talking about any church. He’s talking about the people of Israel, the nation of Israel. That’s to whom the Lord is speaking in chapter 31 of Jeremiah. That’s a beginning. That’s a beginning, dear brothers and sisters. What is he saying? Pay attention to the grammar when you read, too. You have to.

He’s talking about the people that suffered in the wilderness, suffered in Egypt, suffered under the sword, suffered from their enemies. And he says, “Don’t worry, I’m going to give you rest.” And this is God speaking through the mouth of the Prophet, or through the pen of Jeremiah the prophet, and He says:

That’s the meaning. Of course we know the history of the Bible, we know the history of the Jewish people. Not all the time the love of God that is everlasting expresses itself with chocolates and candy and drinking hot chocolate. No. Sometimes love is expressed, as the writers in America wrote a book, "Tough Love." My parents loved me even though they kicked me out when I believed in Yeshua. But eventually, they all became Believers of Yeshua—my mother first, and then my sister, and then my sister’s family, and then finally my father became a Believer also.

But my father loved me; I know he loved me. My mother loved me; I know she loved me. But one time, I had a big—my sister was 15 years older than me. She was born in 1931, and I was born in 1945. So, she was much older than me. I had a big fight with my sister, and we were eating lunch. I took the soup spoon—we had good soup spoons, good silverware, from Silver, heavy, big English—and she was screaming at me. I took the soup spoon, boom, threw it in her face, and it entered her mouth. She was pregnant at that time, and it broke two of her front teeth. The spoon did, not me, the spoon did.

And that’s the only time that my mother showed me a different kind of love. She tied me—we lived on a Main Street, the Bethlehem Road, and we had a yard with a stone fence and a garden. And in the middle of the garden, there was an apricot tree. She tied me to that apricot tree—where the whole neighborhood could see it—left me there crying for about an hour and a half. When I started screaming, she came out with a rope and hit me with the rope a few times. She still loved me, but that love expressed itself because of what I did to my sister in a different way than normal. Yep. God did the same.

Is it the same in our history! Jeremiah chapter 1 starts with the idea that Jeremiah is going to be a prophet and is going to bring destruction, exile, suffering, tearing down of the city of Jerusalem. And we’re reading now in chapter 31 that God will rebuild the Virgin of Israel. In verse 4:

Hallelujah! Today, too.

So, here is my first point. Everything till now is an introduction. Here is my first point, dear brothers and sisters: my point is that the chapter of Jeremiah 31 is not talking to and addressing the church. It’s addressing Israel in a time when Israel was in a difficult situation. When the prophets of God, like Jeremiah, were beaten, put in jail, thrown in a well like Jeremiah, it wasn’t easy to be a disciple of God, a worshiper of the Almighty God, Creator of the universe. No, it wasn’t popular. The prophets of Ba'al, the false prophets, were popular in that time. But the prophecy that God is giving Jeremiah is that this is going to change. Israel will be rebuilt. Even Samaria will be rebuilt, and the people of Samaria will say, “Let us go up to Jerusalem, to Zion, to worship the Lord our God.”

I’m in verse 7. I’m not going very fast.

Hallelujah! I added the Hallelujah; it’s not in the text.

There where? We’re not talking about Manhattan, New York. We’re not talking about Mexico City. We’re not talking about Tokyo. We’re talking about Jerusalem, the land of Israel. That’s where they’re going to return. From where they went to exile, they shall come...

Ah, my dear brothers and sisters in Korea and in the world, it’s so important to pay attention to who is the writer, who is he addressing, what is the circumstance, what is the consequence, and what is the general context of the text. Now, God, in verse 10, changes his subject:

Up to now, he has been talking to Israel. Now this change is addressing the nations, the Gentiles.

Oh, I remember this song from kindergarten. [Singing] “I’m sorry, I can’t sing, but I tried:

Because of time, I have to jump a little bit of the text, but it continues on the same vein until verse 15. I’m jumping to verse 15 from verse 10. The scene changes from what is going to be in the future to what is happening now in the days of Jeremiah. From where Jeremiah lived, he could see what is happening.

Hope for Israel, for the people who are left, for the exile. They’ll come back. There is hope for them.

Restore me—it means bring me to repentance. “Bring me to repentance, and I will repent.” That’s what Israel is saying to God. But this scene of Rachel taking her children to exile is a realistic thing, and that’s why he says that he is looking from Rama. Rama is the place from where Joseph of Arimathea came from—the guy that gave his grave for Yeshua to be buried in, one of Yeshua’s disciples who was a Sanhedrin member, together with Nakdimon Ben-Gurion. Nicodemus, the son of Gurion. That’s why our first Prime Minister was a kind of a believer. He was a believer in Yeshua. He changed his name from David Green to Ben-Gurion, because Nicodemus, the secret believer that came at night to Yeshua, his family name was Son of Gurion—Ben-Gurion. So, Rama is about 60 meters higher than Mount Zion, than the old city of Jerusalem. It’s the highest point around Jerusalem, and the exiles left Jerusalem going north on the road to Damascus. And from Rama, the prophet could see them walking on the old road.

Yes, that's three things that we learned: One is that chapter 31 is not talking about the church. It’s talking about Israel. The second thing is that God is going to be kind, and sometimes will be pretty rough. And there is a future that is flourishing, blossoming like a rose. Israel’s future is secured by God’s promises to the prophets of Israel, even to Moses himself. And I’m going to summarize this: The prophet speaks in the name of Israel in verse 19:

And that’s what it takes, folks. There is no repentance without being ashamed. There is no repentance without being humiliated. And the prophet is speaking in the name of Israel as a prophecy that Israel will repent. We have that promise many times in the prophets, but we have it in the New Testament. In Romans chapter 11, verse 25 and 26, Paul says, “Thus, I will not keep it a secret from you Gentiles that in the fullness of the time of the Gentiles, all Israel shall be saved.” No, maybe. No question mark. “All Israel shall be saved.” That’s already here in Jeremiah, in Isaiah, Amos, and most of the classical prophets proclaim that promise of God. And God is keeping his promises. The fact is, I am a Jew. Everybody in our congregation is Israeli. Not everybody is Israeli, but everybody is saved, including people who were Orthodox Jews before. Our founders were—or the founders of Netiviah were Orthodox Jews. I was in the Yeshiva, an Orthodox Yeshiva at that time too. Yes, God keeps his promises. All Israel shall be saved, and we are just the beginning sparks of light in the great darkness. But the light will overcome the darkness, and all Israel will be saved.

We’ll continue in the next lesson.