Welcome back to the Daily Bible Podcast! We're so glad you've joined us. And now your hosts, Pastor PJ and Pastor Rod.

Yes indeed. Welcome back. We are back on a Sunday morning or whenever you happen to be listening to this on Sunday with another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast and we're excited to be back. We're excited for church this morning. Hopefully you are too. Continuing in one Peter. We're in verses eight through 12 of one Peter chapter one this morning. Hopefully you're planning to join us or you already have and it was a great Sunday. I trust, I pray and you are. Resting now in the afternoon, maybe enjoying a little time on the couch, whatever it may be. We're grateful that you're tuning in. This is good. We were just talking about this, praying about this beforehand. It is our desire for this podcast, that it's not just, running commentary on a passage. You could get that by picking up an ESV study Bible or the Bible Knowledge commentary or something else like that. We wanna do some of that, but really we want to draw out some truths that are gonna be. Applicable and, direct and something you can take away from this and say, this is how this intersects my life. This is the difference it should make in my life today. And that's why we do this live live ish, I guess every single day. We don't put them in the can and once for all time be done with it and then roll 'em out and just say you can access the podcast over there. We wanna keep this fresh. Because we live in a dynamic world and a changing world. Your experiences are changing. Our experiences are changing, and yet the word of God never changes. And so we can come to this word all the time, every day, draw these truths out from it. And hopefully they are fresh. And the word relevant is a word that's kind, kinda gotten a bad rap because people have taken relevant and said we gotta change God's word to make it relevant. That's not what we're talking about here. But the application we draw from it can be relevant to our. Specific time and context, God's word is timeless. And that's what we mean by that. It's relevant for us today, just like it was for the original audience. In fact, perhaps I would argue more so for us than Jeremiah's original audience. And we're gonna talk about that this morning because Jeremiah's writing about things that now we understand in so much of a deeper manner, a deeper fashion than his original audience did, than he did as he was writing these things. So we truly do live in a privileged position. And our time in the word of God is not just meant to be well, now I know more, but what we learn and what we develop and the knowledge that we gain should then show up in our lives and how we live. It's really the same thing with preaching. When a sermon is preached, it's not just preached so that we understand the passage better. That's a goal of the sermon, but it's so that we understand the passage better and how our lives need to be transformed by the spirit to conform more to the word of God. That's what we're here to do this morning. And and we hope that we hit that target. I know we probably do it better some days than others, but that's our goal as we approach it every single time that we do come across it. That's right. And it's a good goal. We don't always hit it, but we're working toward it. Be patient. Please keep staying here and we'll try to keep it interesting and exciting for you. We will. Speaking of interesting and exciting, pastor Rod, you know my proclivity towards the beta software programs with the Apple products. I think you're crazy for it, but yes I do. Yeah, I don't, I'm still not sure it's the reason why, but my iPad crashed yesterday. Saturday, no Friday. I guess it, it was yesterday. Today is Saturday as we're recording this. So my iPad crashed on Friday. The screen went there, like some random line and distortion on the screen, cutting straight down the middle of the screen. You immediately pegged it as a problem with the beta software. I don't know. I don't know what it is. It's almost like somebody took a magnet and. Dragged it down the middle of my screen. Yeah. I think that there's, I know it can brick a phone, it can totally destroy the insides, so it doesn't sound farfetched to me that it can have some kind of impact on the screen. Overheating, battery issues, betas are notoriously bad on the battery. Yes, because. They're inefficient and they're still being ironed out. So I could see how maybe those interactions can somehow impact the screen itself and degradation issues. Maybe it was really hot in that one center section. I don't know. I just don't think it's too farfetched because my, these devices never have issues like that. It's a rarity and it's too coincidental that you're on a beta and it has that issue. I also have AppleCare Plus though, and as a result of that, they're gonna send me a new device and I send them that one back. And Bob's your uncle Transaction order. Yeah. Throwing tamales at the crowd. Yeah, I guess that worked out well for you. Yeah, if you're gonna do it, you better have the insurance. That's a good call. Yeah. So not convenient. And in fact, today I'm having to preach for an older device 'cause I don't have my main go-to device. So I guess that's a problem with first world problem when it comes to preaching. You should use some of that older old tech like paper. Paper. Ah, I don't know about that man. One thing I appreciate about preaching off of a device, off on an iPad is you don't get the distraction of the page turning. Which is not a major distraction, but it can be. I've seen it done sometimes where guys are like, it's like turning the page of a newspaper. They're flipping another page on the, that's true. Pastor Hayden has one sheet that's crazy and it's one large piece of construction paper. Yeah, so he has all of his notes on one page. If you ever go to Compass Bible, Churchill Country, I don't know if he still does it. This has been a while now, but he would put everything on one page, which I appreciate, but it's this massive. Piece of paper. It's not a regular eight by eight and a half by 11. It is A huge construction style, construction size piece of paper. It's really funny. Yeah. Yeah. We've got some listeners from down in Hill Country, so maybe they can let us know if he still does that. If he still, yeah, if he still does it, let us know. I think they have a special printer for it and everything. Yeah, they might have. Hey, let's jump into the end of Jeremiah. We're in Jeremiah 51 through 52 today and in 51 work. Continuing a theme that we have been already looking at, and that is the judgment of the nations, specifically the judgment of Babylon. And if you look down at verse five, the encouragement to Jeremiah's audience, the nation of Israel is seen here when it says, for Israel and Judah have not been forsaken by their God. So remember contextually Jeremiah is writing, not witnessing the downfall of Babylon, but. Witnessing the downfall of Jerusalem witnessing Babylon come and lay siege to the city and the people be carried away captive. And so he's writing to the nation of Israel under judgment and encouraging them, saying, the Lord is not forsaken you. The Lord is going to repay those that are punishing you, those that are judging you. And it's gonna ultimately be through the Meads and the Persians. And we read about them again in verse 11. The Lord has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Meads because of his purpose concerning Babylon to destroy it. He is coming after them. And notice here it says for the vengeance for his temple. And so that's. God had said that Jerusalem was gonna be the place where his name dwelt and the temple was gonna be the place with the arc and the presence of the glory of the Lord was going to be there. And so with the Babylonians coming in, they destroy the temple. And they don't just destroy the temple. They melt down a lot of the brass. And a lot of the metal works of the temple, they carry off the golden vessels. We're gonna find out in the book of Daniel, they're gonna use some of the temple vessels in worship of the false gods that they serve. And so God is jealous for his temple, and that's part of the reason that he's bringing this vengeance in Chapter 51. Continuing on in the chapter, beginning in verse 15 Yahweh is gonna establish his power over the, in contrast to the power of the idols, which is really nothing. He's gonna establish his identity as the creator of all things, the one that stretched out the heavens. Verse 15 the two mold of the waters and the heavens making mist rise. He makes lightning for the rain. This is similar language to what we read about in other. Portions of scripture that praise God as the creator. And then basically he says, Hey where are the idols? What can they do here? And what can those who follow the idols do? And the answer is really nothing. And so God is going to bring judgment against the nations, against Babylon, against their gods, and it's going to be complete. There's not gonna be any rebuilding. Verse 26, no stone shall be taken from you for a corner, no stone for a foundation. So there's not gonna be a Rebuild Babylon project. There's not gonna be any recovery from them. So the opening at least of 51 is continuing this focus on the downfall in judgment of God against Babylon. Yeah. This really is the end of Jeremiah's book. The last chapter that we're gonna look at together is. Retelling the story of Jerusalem's capture and demise. Here we're seeing the archetype enemy of Israel, of Judah, of all of the nation in Babylon. You're gonna remember that Babylon's gonna reoccur in a neo, neo Babylon in the book of Revelation as they represent really all of the evil nations and peoples that rise up against the Lord and his anointed him. Alluding to Psalm chapter two here. And so what we're seeing is not just what's happening to the present Neo Babylon, but to the future Neo Babylon as well. God will soundly destroy her. He's, what's funny is that people try to fight against God and it's. It's not even a battle. It's not even like he's struggling. He doesn't break a sweat, doesn't have to worry about whether or not he has the resources or the time to deal with this powerful enemy in God's side. These guys are nothing. They're amist. They're a vapor, and he's not gonna struggle to take care of them or, and take care of them, as in to do away with them. So here what is God encouraging his people. By saying, look, the people that I use to judge you are not gonna get away without being judged. And so take comfort in the fact that God is a just God who will care for his people one way or another. Even though initially he used them for judgment. Yeah, and that's I find it. The application that the correlation is difficult here for us because we've said this multiple times and we'll say it again. We are not Israel 2.0 here in the United States of America. So we can't look at the enemies of United States, let's say China or Russia or one of these other nations and say they're Babylon and so God's gonna go punish them for their crimes against us. It's, it doesn't work that way. We've gotta be careful not to nationalize our faith. But for the believer as an individual, we can draw the same principle for you. We can draw the same principle that justice is gonna be done, that God is a God of justice. There's not that the nations that you're gonna be able to specifically name eschatological there will be against God's people against Israel as he re regather them. But for the church is a multinational entity. It's not an entity with a flag, so to speak. And so because of that there, there's not a specific nation that God is gonna target. When we think about our current modern day context the God is not the God of America. God is the God of the nations. God is the God of the church, and he's a god of justice. But there's no modern day equivalent. We can't say China is like Babylon was, and so God's gonna punish China. Yeah, that's a great point and a helpful clarification. I would add on top of that. That it's very likely that most of America is Babylon. True. Yeah. It's not only, not that we're not God's people as those who are gonna be protected against the big bad enemies of China and Russia, it's far more likely that America, by and large is Babylon 2.0 or a 3.0 or whatever number we're on right now. And so I. Thank you for giving me the chance to clarify that for us as we read stuff like this, it's not another nation we're looking really at ourselves as the church is saying, how does a church remain pure such that we don't look like Babylon? Yeah. How do we ensure that we're not doing what Babylon does? We're not living how they live. And really what I think Jeremiah's partial answer to that is that we remain faithful to Yahweh through and through we serve the one true God. We don't turn to idols. We don't give ourselves over to false worship. And it's, again, we're not looking at little statues unless. Your neighbors do them. Don't do that. But we're looking more at the idols of the heart, greed, lust, power control, things like that. And here you have to be, especially on guard because you don't have a physical figurine that we can point to, to say, take that off of your shelf. You shouldn't be worshiping that. Instead, Babylon 2.0, at least in America, the manifestation here is far more. It's e ethereal, is that the best word for it? It's financial, it's power, it's control, the things that I just mentioned. Yeah. Those are the idols that run amuck in our neighborhood. Yeah. And that's why we're one of the reasons why we're going through one Peter as a church because of how easy it is as we've talked about back in week one, vacationing Church versus the Exile church. We can be the vacationing church and show up at Sundays and have those idols that are present in our life and we can. Coddle those idols and we can fool ourselves into thinking that we're fine. Because after all, I show up to church on Sunday. I carry the right Bible. My kids are in adventure club on Wednesday nights. Meanwhile, I'm giving my heart over to these other idols that are present in my life and not putting those to death, not realizing the dangers. They're not living like the exiled church that Peter calls us to. Chapter there, there's a few other things that are just unique here. Verse 34, for example. Jerusalem is personified here, so this is Jerusalem speaking. When it says, Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me. This is not Jeremiah speaking. I don't think at least it, it seems to be, as he says down there in verse 35, let Jerusalem say this. So the city is perfect. Personify it, talking about the destruction that's coming. Verse 48, the response of the nations to the judgment of God, the heavens and the earth, and all that's in them shall sing for joy over Babylon, for the destroyers shall come against them out of the north that clears the Lord. You mentioned the eschatological, Babylon. The heavens are singing. They're praising God when. The Neo Babylon empire is destroyed and struck down, and we've talked about the difficulty with that for us as Christians, to think about rejoicing in the presence of God's wrath being poured out on somebody else. It's sobering, and yet we will be rejoicing because of God's holiness being seen and displayed in the character of God on display during those times as well. Yeah, I wonder if it would be something like watching a movie in a movie. It's easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys. My girls will always say, oh, that, that's the bad guy. Especially Phoebe. She's learning about all this stuff right now. And so she'll say, oh, that's the bad guy. And I, and usually she's using the tells like music. The music becomes foreboding and dark colors. Maybe they talk with a funny an accent and they laugh. Maniacally. It's easy to see the bad guy in that. To say that's the bad guy, they deserve the punishment. Right now it's a lot more complex for us because it's harder for us to see each other as the bad guys. But when God shines in his glory and his splendor and in his majesty, I don't think it'll be hard for us to say He's the good guy. We're the bad guys and we deserve exactly what we're getting. And plural, we, all of us, as in, people who aren't on his side, we're gonna say they deserve it. God is in the right. There's not gonna be the pity that goes out because we're gonna say, yeah, this is justice is being served. That's a great way to think of it. Chapter 52, you mentioned this is a retelling of the downfall of Jerusalem and I think the. What Jeremiah provides for us is a little bit more on the destruction of the temple. It says in verse 13, he burned the house of the Lord, the king's house, all the houses of Jerusalem, every great house. He burned down the army, the Chaldeans who were with the captain, the guard broke down all the walls around Jerusalem. And that's significant because a city without walls was absolutely defenseless. And so that was the last draw that would say, this city is done there. There's no. Coming back from this, at least not temporarily speaking, without the city there. But this is where we get more into the fact that this was a desecration and a pillaging of the temple. The pillars of bronze were broken down. Some of this, these things were melted. The gold things were carried away. God's temple, his house, the place where he had caused his name to dwell was ransacked and pillaged. And he allowed it to happen, but he wasn't, this wasn't pleasing him. And he was gonna bring, as we read earlier in chapter 51, vengeance against Babylon for a lot of these actions. There's a final exile, and then we read in the end here about jehoiachin once more who was released from his prison in Babylon there and allowed to dwell at the king's table as the the book comes to an end. For your sake, as you read through this, I just want you to know that there are really three deportations, three exiles that take place upon the land, and there's also maybe a fourth that seems smaller. So 6 0 5 is agreed upon. That's the first one. 6 0 5 5 97. 5 86. 5 86 is the big one. It's the one where they lose everything. This is the one where they're the only, the porous stay there. Jeremiah is left there, but the land is largely decimated entirely. 6 0 5, 5 97 5 86. Maybe there's a smaller one in 5 82, and some of the numbers that you're reading here at the end of Jeremiah 52. We're not entirely sure what system of counting is being used here. In other words, are we just counting a certain demographic of people? Are we just counting males? Where do these numbers come from? It's hard to know with certainty what these numbers represent, but we do know that there's a lot of people here. In fact, these numbers seem small, all things considered. So we're trying to figure out, we're just talking leadership royalty, males. What are we seeing here? And that's hard to know. We don't know for sure, but we do know there are three major deportations. 6 0 5, 5 97, 5 86. Those are the big ones. Those are the ones that you'll wanna commit to memory. There might be one in 5 82, a smaller one that, yeah, I guess something happened, but we're not entirely sure all that took place. So even with all the history that we have, we don't have everything. But those are the big three to remember. That's yeah. Helpful helpful timeframe there. Yeah. Old Testament chronology is really. It gets sticky, it gets confusing, and that's where a good study bible or commentary or logos, something like that is, is helpful to help us understand those things. We're talking about something that happened thousands of years ago. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Yeah. Thousands amazing. And we can date it, we can know the dates for a lot of it. Yeah. At least, which is really awesome. So it's amazing. Yeah. Let's pray. God, as we started this podcast we wanna make this not just an exercise in increasing intellect, but something that results in lives that are changed. And so we pray that. We, meaning Pastor Rod and myself would be able to have insight and wisdom to bring to the table to show how these books matter still today to us because we believe that they do. You are a God who transcends time. Your word transcends time and context and circumstances. And so help us to know how to take these things and to figure out what we need to do with it today. And sometimes that's just standing back in awe of who you are and worshiping you or being a. Increasing our fear of you when we consider your judgment and your wrath rejoicing over Christ and the cross. When we consider these things these are all ways that we can take things that we read about in the Old Testament and say, how does this apply to where I am today? And so we're thankful for Christ. We're thankful for the cross. We're thankful that we don't fear your wrath coming against us the way that it came against Jerusalem, or the way that it will come against Babylon or the way that it came against Babylon in the past or in the future. And so help us to be grateful people for that and to live. Lives of gratitude and response. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Keep bring your Bibles tuned again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Bye.

Well, thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, folks! We're honored to have you join us. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about our Church at compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review, to rate, or to share this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, and we hope to see you again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said