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Word in the Wild is a one year Bible adventure with friends. Join from anywhere and enjoy a fun, rewarding, and doable 12-month journey through the Bible where you read it from cover to cover and understand it. It’s not a devotional or recap. It’s a guide by your side through God’s Word. With support from a weekly podcast and an online community of fellow travelers, this is the year when you finally explore the Bible in its own words and on its own terms for yourself.
This is Word and the Wild. It's a one year Bible adventure with friends. My name is Owen. I'm delighted as always to be your host and your guide as together we are on this 12 month journey as a podcast plus community. Where we read the Bible for ourselves, but not by ourselves. Friend, it is week 35. Last week was like the season finale as the kingdom of Israel fell to the Babylonians and now, however, we're going to start a new season as we follow Ezekiel and Jeremiah and the story builds toward the ultimate end.
So, hello and welcome in. I want to say a special welcome to our Word and the Wild Plus community members. It's their support of this non profit endeavor that's making space for all of us here on this Bible reading adventure. As part of the Word and the Wild Plus tribe, they enjoy access to our private, safe, online space.
where no honest question is a dumb question along with a weekly live stream Q A bonus content like articles interactions and more and even some live stream teaching gatherings with yours truly so if any of that sounds like your cup of tea hey why don't you join in the fun especially since Jesus is coming soon and by that I mean We're gonna be hitting the New Testament here before we know it just a few weeks away.
And so if this has been something interesting to you and you're craving for a way to dive even deeper into the Bible, understand what it's all about, now is a great time to do it. Check the show notes for how to become a member yourself or get all the details over at Word and the wild.com. With the story of Jesus and the aftermath on the horizon now is a great chance to jump in. Check the show notes again for how to become a member or just check us out over at word and the wild. com. Well, now let's jump into this week's episode in the epic movie. That is the Bible with a look back at the ruins of Jerusalem.
Ever sit on a hill on a fall morning and wait for the sunrise. I've spent a fair amount of time chasing down stories in various parts of the world in my work as a photographer or videographer. And that means I've spent my share of pre dawn mornings perched somewhere high up to get that classic shot of sunrise over the city or sunrise over the village or wherever the story happens to take me.
And so I bring my gear, you know, I've got my camera, tripod, lenses, I've got my monitor. Maybe I've got a motorized slider if I'm capturing a time lapse. I've schlepped all the gear up to this hill. And well one thing I never forget Is to bring the coffee. Because, not only is it early, But, because by the time I'm all set up, My hands are gonna be numb.
And the chill will have pushed its way through my outer layer of clothing. Because it's coldest, In the darkness, Before the dawn. Now, this week in our one year Bible adventure, it's cold, it's dark, and we're waiting for that dawn. But there is a little bit of hope we see, and we're going to let that hope keep us warm like a cup of coffee keeps us warm while we wait for the sunrise.
Let's talk about that dark and then we can talk about the coming dawn. Now here's the dark part of the story. God's people have lost Jerusalem. With it, their freedom, their national identity. And how it went down was every bit as ugly, violent, and brutal as Jeremiah and Ezekiel predicted it would be. I mean most of the Israelites, you Or, right now, they're on the long, long road to captivity in Babylon, a thousand miles away.
The few, infirm, impoverished who remain in the promised land, they live like refugees in a war torn country. Just civil society is broken down. It's everyone for themselves. They're left to pick through the ruins for what they need to survive. Well, we know what has happened, but, but the big question is why, why did it come to this why?
And, and another big question, what does it all mean? And then how about another question. Why in the world does the Bible spend so much space and emotional investment in the long, slow? downward spiral of Israel. I mean, it's not just a one time event. This is a major plot point in this story. We've been grinding to this unhappy conclusion for some time now.
Question is, why is it so important? Well, remember that God is the main character of the story that the Bible wants to tell. And from the very first first moments of this story. The Bible shows us not only who the Creator God is and what He's like, but it also shows us what it takes to establish and maintain a relationship with this Creator God.
And that's why the Jerusalem plot point Matters so much. See, it's not just about the city perched up on top of Mount Zion. That city, it's a real thing, but it also serves as a symbol for the rise and fall of God's people and how that rise and fall is directly tied to the rise and fall of their relationship with this Creator God.
See, Jerusalem is, is beautiful and invincible. When it's people love God and maintain their friendship with Him. And it is a bombed out pile of ruins when they walk away from friendship and relationship with Him. And as we've been seeing from prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, hey, there's coming a future when Jerusalem's fortunes will be forever reversed.
And this beautiful city will serve as not only the capital for God's people, but God's capital of the world. And we're going to see all of that at the very end of our story, along with the, with, with God's idea of a happily ever after, which includes a radiant reconstructed re imagined Jerusalem where, where all God's friends gather and enjoy life forever with him.
So it's a, it's a dramatic moment packed with meaning when Jerusalem is, is overrun. by the cruel, determined Babylonians. I mean, they didn't surprise or overwhelm God with their strategy or their military might. No, the shocking thing is God allowed this whole thing to happen. He allowed it. It's unbelievable.
Almost unbelievable. unthinkable because Jerusalem is such a key part of his future plans. So, so what does it all mean? Right? Why? Why? Right? Back to the why question. Why would God let this happen? Well for for us, it's Ezekiel to the rescue on this question. He's been explaining God's meaning behind this disaster for quite some time leading up to the actual events, right?
And if we walk back through Ezekiel and what he showed us in the last week or so in our little journey together We start to get a picture, and it emerges, and it becomes clear. In fact, this last week, I think we saw at least five messages God is sending His people through the fall of Jerusalem. And they're really key to the Bible's whole project of explaining what it takes to have a relationship with God in good standing.
So I'm going to run through these and I've also made a little sketch of these five messages. God is sending his people by allowing Jerusalem to fall into enemy hands. There's, it has a little more detail than I'm giving here in the podcast version. So if you'd like to see it, you can just click on the link in the show notes and and you should be able to get, get a little PDF.
It's not fancy. But it'll explain things a little bit. But here for our sake our purposes, here they are. These are five messages God sends his people by allowing Jerusalem to fall. This is all from Ezekiel. Okay. So I'm just going to run through these from Ezekiel 14. We see God saying to his people, you have embraced idols in your heart.
I'm sending disaster to recapture your heart. There's one message. Here's a second from Ezekiel 16. We see God saying to his people our Relationship is broken. I'm reminding you. I'm alerting you and I'm preparing you for our future Together. Here's a third one from Ezekiel chapter 18 We see God saying the path you are on is dangerous.
It's Unsustainable. I want your attention so I can offer you Rescue and renewal. Here's a fourth one from Ezekiel chapter 20. God says you have loved all the wrong things and you have loved them too much. So I'm taking them away from you. That's another message God is sending in the fall of Jerusalem.
And here's a fifth one. This was from Ezekiel 24 and we see there, God say to his people, your future, your security and significance. It all depends only. on your relationship with me. Five messages God has sent his people by allowing Jerusalem to fall into enemy hands. Bottom line to it all, God's people had one job, going all the way back to their contract with God at Mount Sinai.
You remember Moses and all of that, right? Well, if the Israelites put in the effort to maintain their relationship with God by loving Him and loving each other, then God would handle everything else. They would have food. They would have family. They would have safety, everything they would need to enjoy a good life and extend God's God's goodness to the neighboring nations.
All of that would be theirs. Their job was to, to focus on their relationship with God, to just love and obey Him. That's it. But God's people, the Israelites, they chose to worry, war, and worship over so much else. They tried to carry it all in their own arms, and in the end, they lost it all because they forgot the one thing, the main thing, their relationship with God.
And so. Jerusalem Falls. It's punishment for sure, but it's, it's much more a rescue. For a thousand years since Sinai, God's people have loved what only hurts them and sacrificed their future. On the altar of the urgent and immediate, they've put their lives and their freedom in the hands of those who would only betray them.
And so, God steps in, because the unhealthy, unsustainable pattern of sin must end. God's love compels him to do whatever it takes to break his people free, even if that takes sending them in captivity to do it. He will let the Babylonians capture Jerusalem so that he can recapture his people's heart.
Well, that's the very definition of God's love. I mean, God himself has been working against you as a people, sending you these, these damning messages, allowing destructive events. And as much as you want to point fingers at him for being unfair, worst of all, you know he's right. He's just in what he has done.
You've gotten what he said would happen. You've gotten what you deserve and just like everything God does, when he does it, he does it right. He does it up big. He knows just what it takes to bring a rebel to his or her knees and he's done it. Done it. This time, he's really done it. And that's where we are this week.
We find Jeremiah, our old friend Jeremiah. Oh, he has been through so much. And now he's decided to stick it out in what's left of the land of Judah. So he lives like a refugee, defeated, defeated. Demoralized, abandoned, just to pick through the rubble of his war torn country. This is, this is rock bottom. In this place where the emotions run deep and they run hot, Jeremiah turns to art.
Jeremiah writes a poem because sometimes plain old words just aren't enough. He needs to pour out his heart. You know, and, and, and we might call it therapy. The Bible calls it lamentations. It's a short little, little book. It's beautifully crafted work of art and it's filled with ugly feelings, ugly feelings about the ugly world Jeremiah finds himself trapped inside.
He's filled with confusion, hurt, grief, and inside all of that, he also finds a tiny shining speck of hope. You gotta listen to this. Listen to Jeremiah's pain and hope weave together these moving lines from this book we know as Lamentations. Listen to this. It says God shot his arrows deep into my heart.
My own people laugh at me all day long. They sing their mocking songs. He's filled me with bitterness and given me a bitter cup of sorrow to drink. He has made me chew on gravel. He has rolled me in the dust. Peace has been stripped away and I've forgotten what prosperity is. I cry out my splendor is gone.
Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost. The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget this awful time as I grieve over my loss. Yet, I still dare to hope when I remember this. The faithful love of the Lord never ends. His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness, his mercies begin afresh.
Each morning I say to myself, the Lord is my inheritance. Therefore. I will hope in him. That's Lamentations chapter 3 verses 13 through 24. Did you catch that? Jeremiah dares to hope, dares to hope in a heap of rubble. See, where you and I might look around and see ruins. Jeremiah sees reasons to hope. He sees everything.
He has loved and worked to save his people, their beloved home. He sees it all come to an end and yet he dares to hope in the endless love of the Creator God and so he looks out past the rubble surrounding him to a future. When God's faithfulness and compassion brings renewal to his people, their land, and most of all, their heart.
And somehow he feels pain, hurt, and grief in the middle of, of an experience that will scar him for life. Yet, somehow, he still believes that even this is somehow an expression of the love and the compassion and kindness of God. For Jeremiah, hope is alive. Justice is coming. God's love never ends. All will be well.
Well, enjoy the journey this week, my friend. Take that warm cup of coffee with you as you go. Hey, how's it going for you so far? Of course, I'd love to hear from you. Let me know on Facebook. Send me an email if you got my address. If you're not already part of the word of the wild Facebook group, Hey, search for it and join or look for word and the wild on Insta and be sure you have subscribed to this podcast.
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And with that, we're out. I'm Owen, your host and your guide, and until next time, I'll be seeing you out there on the trail in the word and the wild. You have a great week.