One on One: Babylon

Saturday, February 1, 2025

The Biggest Move You Can Make

Series on “I am Joe’s Favorite Verses”
Jeremiah 29:11
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Jeremiah 29:1-23

[Many years ago, there used to be articles in the Reader’s Digest titled “I am Joe’s ___” with the blank being filled with a body part or organ. Over the years, I’ve written down verses that are meaningful to me on 3x5 cards. In this series we’ll be looking at some of my favorite verses. In other words, “I am Joe’s Favorite Verses”.]

What’s the biggest move that you’ve ever made?

For me, it was when we moved from Lansing, Michigan to Columbus, Ohio. It’s about 250 miles. We packed all our worldly possessions into a 26-foot U-Haul truck and drove it to what seemed like a foreign land.

But it wasn’t so much the logistics of packing and driving that made it such a major move. It was the fact that we knew only four people in Columbus. On top of that, my wife was born and raised in Lansing, and I had spent virtually my entire life in Michigan. We were leaving all our friends and everything that was familiar to us.

Basically, we were starting over. We had to find where to shop for groceries, a doctor, a dentist, a church, friends – everything was new. Even the culture was different. It was a much bigger city. And you had all those rabid Ohio State fans.

Over a period of twenty years, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, invaded Judah on three separate occasions. During his final invasion, he destroyed the city of Jerusalem including the Temple! Thousands of Jews were forced to leave their homes and move to a foreign land. It must have been traumatic!

Once in Babylon, the exiles were starting over. They had to learn a new language, find a job, a home, ways to meet their educational and religious needs - everything was new.

To make it even worse, they had been forced to leave the Promised Land. The land that the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, had promised when He made an eternal covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

However, Jeremiah prophesied that they would return to their homes after seventy years of living in exile. But there were false prophets who didn’t trust the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel. They tried to take control by making promises of a speedy return to their homeland.

Because of this, Jeremiah, who was still in Jerusalem, wrote a letter to the exiles in Babylon. His letter confronted the message of the false prophets. He gave the Israelites true hope. And he showed that they could trust the Sovereign Lord.

¹¹For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. NIV

Like the false prophets, there are times when I don’t trust the Sovereign Lord and try to take control of my life. At that point, the biggest move that I can make isn’t from Lansing to Columbus, but from my head to my heart to my knees.

This is what the Lord said, ¹²“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”. NIV

Following these verses, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, promised the people of Israel that he would return them to their homeland. The Sovereign Lord provided restoration for them. And through Jesus, he provides restoration for us today.

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Saturday, December 21, 2024

Within You

A series on Isaiah 9:6 – The Child of Prophecy
– King of Kings
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Daniel 2:24-49

[Jesus was a child of prophecy. The Christmas story in the Bible was predicted in many Old Testament prophecies but the centerpiece of these is Isaiah 9:6. It was written nearly six hundred years before Jesus’ birth. In this series we’re going to look at the meaning and implications of this amazing prophecy.]

In 1961 a movie titled “King of Kings” was released. It was an epic production about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

The person of Jesus came alive on the screen showing “the power, the passion, the greatness and the glory” of the King of kings. But there were many great and powerful kings before Jesus.

King Nebuchadnezzar was the second king of the Babylonian Empire. Early in his reign he had dreams that disturbed him so much that he was unable to sleep. His magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and astrologers couldn’t tell him what he had dreamed, let alone its interpretation. The king became furious and ordered the execution of the wise men which included Daniel, a Jewish exile in Babylon.

But the Lord revealed both the dreams and the interpretation of them to Daniel. Once he learned this, he went before Nebuchadnezzar and told him that his dreams were about the future. He explained that no man could do what the king was asking, but that the God in heaven had revealed it to him.

Daniel described what the king had seen in his dreams as an enormous statue of a man that was awe inspiring. Its head was gold, its chest and arms were silver, its belly and thighs were bronze, its legs were iron, and its feet were iron and clay.

Continuing, Daniel related that the king had also seen in his dreams a rock that was cut from a mountain, but not by human hands. And the rock smashed the statue to pieces which were then blown away like dust in the wind. Following this, the rock became a great mountain that filled the whole earth.

After describing the king’s dreams, Daniel interpreted them. The statue represented four successive kingdoms. The head of gold was Nebuchadnezzar. But after his kingdom comes to an end another kingdom will take his place, then a third and finally a fourth kingdom. Each kingdom will replace the one before it.

Finally, Daniel explained what the rock represented. The one that was cut from the mountain and had crushed the statue.

⁴⁴“During the reigns of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed or conquered. It will crush all these kingdoms into nothingness, and it will stand forever. NLT

For centuries, the Jews had been expecting a Messiah who would fulfill this prophecy of the rock by building a political kingdom. As Isaiah 9:6 states, “The government will rest on His shoulders”. But that wasn’t what Jesus did. Instead, he came to build an eternal kingdom… the Kingdom of God.

In Luke 17 we read that on one occasion the Pharisees asked Jesus when the Kingdom of God would come. Here is his answer.

^20bJesus replied, “The Kingdom of God can’t be detected by visible signs. ²¹You won’t be able to say, ‘Here it is!’ or ‘It’s over there!’ For the Kingdom of God is already among you.” NIV

In this verse the Living Bible translates “among you” as “within you”. Think about that for a minute. This means that as a believer in Christ that the King of king’s lives within you wherever you go and whatever you do. Paul put it like this.

²⁰I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. NIV