Ezekiel 14:1-16:63 I forgot. This is something I say almost daily as things go in one ear and out the other. How easily we forget things. God, in understanding the forgetfulness of his people, reminds them in Ezekiel 16 of all he has done for them. He brought life to them, raised them, married them, and provided for all their needs. Despite God's extravagant grace and provision, they ran from him ...

Ezekiel 10:1-13:23 God is gone! This may sound like some click bait article on the internet, but it actually happened to the people of Judah. Ezekiel was given a vision of God's glory leaving the temple in Jerusalem. God was enthroned over the ark of the covenant (in some sense) within the temple, but on one fateful day before the destruction of Jerusalem, he is seen to move from the temple to the...

Ezekiel 5:1-9:11 Reading the prophets may feel like you are on a hamster wheel. You are reading a lot but going nowhere. For over a month we have been reading about the imminent judgment coming upon Judah, but it still has not come. Ezekiel is speaking the same judgment as other prophets but speaking in Babylon. What would be the purpose of his prophecies since he is speaking to those who have alr...

Ezekiel 3:16-4:17; Jeremiah 27:1-28:17, 51:59-64 Ezekiel and Jeremiah prophesied at the same time but in different locations. Jeremiah was with the remnant in Judah, while Ezekiel was among the exiles in Babylon. Despite their different locations they both played a key role in communicating God's truth. This calling was so critical that God told Ezekiel, if he failed to communicate God's message, ...

Jeremiah 37:11-38:28; Ezekiel 1:1-3:15 God makes amazing things like porcupines, giraffes, hippos, and humans. Today we are introduced to “four living creatures” that reside in heaven. Their description is bizarre and hard to fully comprehend. They are like humans but with four faces and four wings, with human hands under the wings. They have legs but their feet are like that of a calf. Their four...

Jeremiah 51:15-58; 2 Chronicles 36:10; 2 Kings 24:10-17; 1 Chronicles 3:10-16; 2 Chronicles 36:11-14; Jeremiah 52:1-3; 2 Kings 24:18-20; Jeremiah 37:1-10 Who is the winner? Typically, we decide a winner based on a single game or an individual season. We crown the winning teams as champions and move on. God’s view of a winner is based on a much longer perspective. Babylon is about to destroy Jerusa...

Jeremiah 31:15-40, 49:34-51:14 How easy it is to feel like God has abandoned us when difficulty comes. We so often expect that God is going to deliver personal happiness and comfort to us, when that has never been promised. Judah would have wondered these same questions about where God was having watched many of their friends dragged away while a remnant remained in the land. Yet in the face of di...

Jeremiah 23:33-24:10, 29:1-31:14 Exile. This word is defined as, "prolonged separation from one's country or home, as by force of circumstances." This word is true of the identity of everyone born after the fall of Adam and Eve. Jeremiah is writing to those who have already been exiled, while a large contingent remains in the land. The questions that Jeremiah answers revolve around how to live in ...

Jeremiah 49:1-33; 2 Kings 24:5-7; 2 Chronicles 36:6-8; 2 Kings 24:8-9; 2 Chronicles 36:9; Jeremiah 22:24-23:32 Judah was led politically by Jehoiachin, who "did evil in the eyes of the Lord" (2 Kings 24:9) and was led spiritually by prophets who spewed lies and deception. Yet amid this leadership vacuum comes a promise from God. Jeremiah 23 tells us God is going to raise up a righteous Branch, a w...

Jeremiah 16:1-18:23, 35:1-19 There are times when it feels like our country and our world are doomed. Our culture has not only turned from God’s word but has completely gone against it. I often ask my sisters how difficult it is to raise their kids in this environment. From my perspective it seems like there is no hope for the younger generations. To me this problem also seems like a relatively ne...

Jeremiah 12:1-15:21 Honesty is the best policy. Though we may believe this idea, I wonder whether we embrace it in our relationship with God. Sometimes we may find ourselves filtering what we tell God, even though he already knows everything. If we are going to be brutally honest with anyone, it should be easiest to do so with God. Notice the way Jeremiah speaks to God in chapter 12: "I bring a ca...

Jeremiah 8:4-11:23 Every baseball season I had to re-earn my calluses. As I swung the bat thousands of times, the skin on my palms would slowly toughen. That is great for sports but terrible when our hearts become callused. When we no longer feel guilt, shame, or embarrassment, then something is very wrong. Three times Jeremiah speaks of Judah reaching this condition and being unable to blush. The...

Daniel 2:1-3:30; Jeremiah 7:1-8:3 People are fickle. I see this in my kids where their favorite food one day becomes something they refuse to eat the next. We can see it in the divorce rate of our country. Sadly, we can also see it in people’s relationship with Christ. Those who are passionate about Jesus one day can become those who are apathetic or verbally reject him in the next. We see this fi...

Jeremiah 19:1-20:18; Daniel 1:1-21 Obedience can be hard. It often means choosing the harder path in the moment, rejecting instant gratification, and dying to ourselves. This was the calling of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a faithful prophet of God but the response from Judah was apathy at best, and often outright rejection. His obedience in speaking for God in Jeremiah 19 led to imprisonment and beatin...

Jeremiah 25:15-38, 36:1-32, 45:1-46:28 When starting a puzzle, you typically start with the border and then move into the center. The border helps to provide a framework for understanding where the rest of the pieces go. When we read the Bible, we similarly need a framework from the whole Bible to understand individual pieces. Part of constructing this framework is to utilize clear verses to help ...

2 Chronicles 36:1-4; 2 Kings 23:31-37; 2 Chronicles 36:5; Jeremiah 22:1-23, 26:1-24; 2 Kings 24:1-4; Jeremiah 25:1-14 In a courtroom, evidence is critical to prove the guilt or innocence of the person on trial. Similarly, God desires that we would have evidence in front of a watching world to show we are his children. Jeremiah 22:15-16 speaks of Josiah and says, "‘He did what was right and just, s...

Zephaniah 2:8-3:20; 2 Chronicles 35:20-27; 2 Kings 23:29-30; Jeremiah 47:1-48:47 We have a God who cries. We see this most clearly in Jesus who weeps at the grave of Lazarus and over the unrepentant city of Jerusalem. Yet God is seen to cry repeatedly in the Old Testament. In Jeremiah 48 we see God wailing over Moab, moaning over the people of Kir Hareseth, and weeping over others. This crying com...

Habakkuk 1:1-3:19; Zephaniah 1:1-2:7 All of us probably have a series of questions that we cannot wait to ask God. They may be theological, Biblical, or life situations we find hard to reconcile with God's grace, mercy, and love. This is the situation in which Habakkuk found himself. He asks God a series of questions beginning with: how God could remain silent in the face of injustice. He wants to...

2 Kings 23:1-20; 2 Chronicles 34:29-33; 2 Kings 23:21-28; 2 Chronicles 35:1-19; Nahum 1:1-3:19 One of the beautiful works of the Reformation was the emphasis on the fact that salvation comes through personal faith in Christ alone (sola fide). This is not something that reformers like Luther, Calvin and others fabricated but is found throughout the pages of Scripture. Israel has modeled for us king...

Jeremiah 5:20-6:30; 2 Kings 22:3-20; 2 Chronicles 34:8-28 We hear so many different sounds and words every day but many of them simply go in one ear and out the other. Today, we encounter three different ways we might respond to God's words when we hear them. The first possible response is to have “ears but do not hear” (Jeremiah 5:21) This is a common refrain throughout the Bible for those who he...