Podcasts about m'cheyne bible

The superscription of Psalm 57 specifies that this psalm was written when David “had fled from Saul into the cave” (cf. 1 Sam. 22:1; 24:3). What we find, then, is something of the emotional and spiritual tone of the man when he could say, in efect, that “there is only a step between me and death” (1 Sam. 20:3). Some reflections:(1) Even as he cries for mercy, David expresses his confidence in God's sovereign power. The language is stunning: “I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills his purpose for me” (Ps. 57:2). The title “God Most High” is not very common in the Psalms. Perhaps David is thinking of another man without a home, Abraham, who was more familiar with this way of addressing God. Certainly David does not think that somehow circumstances have slipped away from such a God. He begs for mercy, but he recognizes that God, the powerful God, fulfills his purposes in him. This mixture of humble pleading and quiet trust in God's sovereign power recurs in Scripture again and again. Nowhere does it reach a higher plane than in the prayer of the Lord Jesus in the garden: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39). In some measure or another, every follower of Jesus Christ will want to learn the anguish and the joy of that sort of praying.(2) The refrain in Psalm 57:5 and 11—“Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth”—finds David not only in reverent worship, but affirming something believers easily forget, not least when they are under duress. Perhaps the clearest New Testament equivalent lies in the prayer the Lord Jesus taught us: “[H]allowed be your name” (Matt. 6:9). Here David meditates not on God's sovereign power, but on God's sovereign importance. More important, for David, than whether or not he gets out of the cave, is that God be exalted above the heavens. The passionate prayer that willingly submerges urgent personal interests to God's glory breeds both joy and stability: “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music” (Ps. 57:7).(3) Rather striking is David's glance at the orbit where he intends to bear witness: “I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies” (Ps. 57:9–10). No truncated vision, this. And today as countless millions sing these words, David's vow has been fulfilled far more extensively than even he could have imagined. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Three observations from Ezekiel 14:First, the peculiar expression “set up idols in their hearts,” repeated several times with minor variations in Ezekiel 14:1–8, reeks of duplicity. Publicly there may be a fair bit of covenantal allegiance, but heart loyalty simply isn't there. To set up idols in the heart is to separate oneself from the living God (Ezek. 14:7).That danger is no less treacherous today than in Ezekiel's time. Somehow we manage to adhere to our creedal profession, but if anything goes wrong our undisciplined rage shows that we maintain little real trust in the living God: our secret idol is comfort and physical well-being. We attend church, but rarely do we pray in private or thoughtfully read the Word of God. We sing lustily at missionary conventions, but have not shared the Gospel with anyone for years. And deep down we are more interested in our reputation, or in sex, or in holidays, than we are in basking in the awesome radiance and majesty of God. Meditate on Ezekiel 14:8, and ask for forgiveness and grace to become more consistent.Second, those who set up idols in their hearts are the very people most likely to seek out a prophet or a preacher to keep up appearances and secure a little help along the way. But God says, “I the LORD will answer [them] myself in keeping with [their] great idolatry” (Ezek. 14:4). He will “entice” the prophets (Ezek. 14:9–11)—the word might better here be rendered “deceive.” God's “deception” of the prophets is part of his judicial sentence. Yet it is a peculiar “deception,” for God's revelation is already there in public Scriptures to be read and studied; moreover, he now openly tells the prophets of his judicial hand upon them. If they had an iota of spiritual sensibility, the warning would drive them to self-examination and repentance. But no: the sentence is pronounced, and they are deceived. Such prophets lie to the people, and the people like the lies and listen to them (cf. Ezek. 13:19).Third, sometimes judgment becomes so inevitable that not even the presence of the most righteous would delay it any longer (Ezek. 14:12–23). The reasoning presupposes the theology of Genesis 18: God may spare a wicked city or nation for the sake of the just who reside there. But where wickedness overflows, not even the presence of Noah (spared from the Flood), Job (declared “blameless” and “upright,” Job 1:1), and Daniel (Ezekiel's contemporary, serving in the Babylonian courts, renowned for his piety) will stay the disaster that God ordains. Indeed, when the exiles see the revolting conduct of the new refugees, they will realize how right God was (Ezek. 14:22–23). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

In almost every generation there are both true voices and false. How can one discern between the two?The question cannot be comprehensively answered by referring to only one passage. For instance, Deuteronomy 13 provides one framework that should be carefully thought through, but it is not the only one. Here in Ezekiel 13 the matter is cast not so much as a set of points to help the righteous discern between true prophet and false, but as a denunciation of all that is false. In so doing God provides at least a partial profile of false prophets.(1) False prophets speak out of their own spirit, out of their own imaginations. They may think they have something from the Lord, but they do not. “Their visions are false and their divinations a lie” (Ezek. 13:6). This is not so much a principle that the onlooker can use, as a warning to the false prophets themselves. False prophets may deceive other people; they never deceive God. And it is to God that we will one day have to give an account (Ezek. 13:8–9).(2) They do not deal with the fundamental issues of sin, corruption, injustice, and covenantal faithlessness. To use the metaphor of a walled city, instead of repairing the “wall” they merely cover it with whitewash, so that it looks sturdy enough to the casual observer even though it is hopelessly compromised. “You have not gone up to the breaks in the wall to repair it for the house of Israel so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the LORD” (Ezek. 13:5), Ezekiel writes. A good storm strips away the whitewash and discloses the horrible weakness. The false prophets deal in omens and end-times fancies and promises of revival, but they do not declare the holiness of God and the odiousness of sin; they fail to bring people to repentance, faith, and obedience.(3) They are more interested in auguries, telling personal fortunes, serving as “prophetic” personal hope-spinners, than in conveying the word of the Lord. They are not really serious people—except for their seriousness when it comes to getting paid (Ezek. 13:17–19).(4) One of the larger effects they have is to discourage the genuine people of God. Too many false voices in a culture and many people become confused, disheartened, disoriented. Instead of maintaining a moral standard that reinforces righteousness, builds character, and encourages godliness, these people pronounce their curses and taboos on people God himself has not condemned, and exonerate the wicked so that they do not turn from their evil ways and so save their lives (Ezek. 13:20–23).Where in our culture do these characteristics thrive? Where do they thrive in the professing church? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

The substance of Ezekiel 12 is easy to understand.One can imagine the power in Ezekiel's symbol-laden actions. In full view of the exiles, he packs his meager belongings in exactly the same way he would if he were a Jerusalemite preparing for a seven-hundred-mile march into exile. What he could bring would have to be carried on his shoulders. At night he digs through the mud-brick walls of his own house. Probably this symbolizes the futile attempt at breakout made by Zedekiah and those immediately around him (2 Kings 25:4; Jer. 39:4): they fled, but they could not escape. All of this Ezekiel does without saying a word, and then the next morning he delivers his message: “I am a sign to you. As I have done, so it will be done to them. They will go into exile as captives” (Ezek. 12:11)—with further explanations following (Ezek. 12:12–16).The second symbol-laden action adds a layer to something already in place. So far as his public eating is concerned, Ezekiel is still restricted to the starvation rations imposed in Ezekiel 4:9–17. Now as he eats them, he shudders and puts on a display of terror and despair (Ezek. 12:17–20).And then the stunning application. The people have heard a lot of prophets, and they have grown so cynical that they are circulating a couple of proverbs: “The days go by and every vision comes to nothing” (Ezek. 12:22); “The vision he sees is for many years from now, and he prophesies about the distant future” (Ezek. 12:27). After all, not only are there false prophets around, but even the true prophets like Ezekiel and (in Jerusalem) Jeremiah keep promising the destruction of the city while years pass with its mighty walls intact. Jeremiah has been at it for decades. Doubtless God sees the long delay as powerful evidence of his forbearance and mercy, providing multiplied opportunities for repentance; the people simply grow cynical. So judgment will certainly fall, Ezekiel says—and the popular proverbs will be destroyed.Peter applies the same point to Christians, drawing from another Old Testament account. After the warnings began, the Flood was decades coming, and no one was ready for it except Noah and his family. So it is not surprising that in the “last days”—the days between the first and second comings of Christ, the days in which we live—new generations of scoffers arise and make a virtue of the same wretched cynicism: “Where is this ‘coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation” (2 Pet. 3:3–4). But the Flood came. And so will the fire. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

There are two highly symbolic actions in Ezekiel 11, one of them beginning in Ezekiel 10, the other entirely within the chapter at hand:(1) Although it is difficult to trace exactly the movement of the glory of the Lord, it is reasonably clear that this glory, once associated with the temple—especially with the Most Holy Place and the ark of the covenant over which the cherubim stretched their wings—abandons the temple and hovers over the mobile throne. The same mobile throne Ezekiel had seen in Babylon is now parked by the south entrance to the temple. The four living creatures, now identified as cherubim, transport the glory of the Lord to the east gate (Ezek. 10:18–19), and then to the mountain east of the city (Ezek. 11:23). Thus the presence of God judicially abandons the temple and the city. Nothing stands in the way of their destruction.(2) The picture of the cooking pot (Ezek. 11:3–12) conjures up the false sense of security that a strong, walled city could engender among its inhabitants. The Jerusalemites thought of themselves as the good meat within the “pot” of the walled city, nicely surrounded and protected. But God himself will drive them out (Ezek. 11:7). This city will not be a “pot” for them at all (Ezek. 11:11). The truth of the matter is that the Jerusalemites, whom the exiles were inclined to lionize because they were still there in Jerusalem, were extraordinarily arrogant. While the exiles pinned their hopes on them, the Jerusalemites themselves saw the exiles as so much rubbish, people rejected by God and transported far away from the land and the temple (Ezek. 11:14–15). Indeed, God says there is going to be a mighty reversal. True, God did scatter the exiles among the nations. But while they have been away, God himself has been their sanctuary (Ezek. 11:16)—which shows that the temple is not strictly needed for God to be present among his people, to be a “sanctuary” for them. Thus while the Jerusalemites will be destroyed (even as they dismiss the exiles as of no account), God will gather together a remnant from among them (Ezek. 11:17). Ultimately he will put into place a new covenant that will transform them (Ezek. 11:18–20). These themes are taken up in more detail later in the book (e.g., chap. 36).The vision of chapters 8–11 ends with Ezekiel transported back to Babylon, telling the people everything he has seen and heard. The first strands of hope in this book have been laid out, but not in the categories expected. Jerusalem will be destroyed, and God's purposes for the future center on the exiles themselves. How often in Scripture does God effect his rescue, his salvation, through the weak and the despised! This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

In light of the terrible judgments pronounced against Jerusalem in Ezekiel 8–11, with the beginning of the withdrawal of the glory of the Lord in Ezekiel 10, we should think through the bearing of such sins in our own framework:Why do we choose what can last but an hourBefore we must leave it behind?Why do possessions exert brutal powerTo render us harsh and unkind?Why do mere things have the lure of a flowerWhose scent makes us selfish and blind?The cisterns run dry, and sour is our breath;We dwell in the valley of death.Why is betrayal attractive to usWho often are hurt and betrayed?Why barter faithful devotion for lust,Integrity cast far away?Why do our dreams, then our deeds, beggar trust,Our guilt far too heavy to pay?The cisterns run dry, and sour is our breath;We dwell in the valley of death.Why do we stubbornly act out a role,Convincing the world that we've won?Why for mere winning will we sell our soul,In order to be number one?Why sear our conscience so we're in control—Despairing of what we've become?The cisterns run dry, and sour is our breath;We dwell in the valley of death.O Jesus—Why do you promise to quench all our thirst,When we have despised all your ways?Why do you rescue the damned and the cursed,By dying our death in our place?Why do you transform our hearts till they burstWith vibrant expressions of praise?The well flows with life—and we're satisfied—The fountain that flows from your side. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

If Ezekiel 8 describes the corrupt worship that was going on in Jerusalem in the years leading up to her destruction in 587 B.C., Ezekiel 9 describes something of what God does about it.There is both a negative component and a positive element. In his vision, Ezekiel hears God call for “the guards of the city” (Ezek. 9:1)—more precisely, the executioners of the city. Six men arrive, “each with a deadly weapon in his hand” (Ezek. 9:2). A seventh man, clothed in linen, has a writing kit at his side. God commissions him to put an identifying mark on the foreheads of those who will escape slaughter; he commissions the executioners to go through the city “and kill, without showing pity or compassion” (Ezek. 9:5), beginning at the sanctuary itself. “So they began with the elders who were in front of the temple” (Ezek. 9:6).As they proceed with their grisly task, Ezekiel cries out, “Ah, Sovereign LORD! Are you going to destroy the entire remnant of Israel in this outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem?” (Ezek. 9:8). The Lord responds with a devastating indictment (Ezek. 9:9–10) that includes a word-play: the people of Israel insist the Lord does not “see” (or “look”), so the Lord resolves not to “see/look” on them with pity or spare them. He is resolved to “bring down on their own heads what they have done” (Ezek. 9:10).The positive element has already been alluded to. Not everyone is destroyed. The seventh man, the man with the writing kit, goes through the city putting a mark on the foreheads “of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it” (Ezek. 9:4). The executioners are strictly forbidden to harm these people (Ezek. 9:5). Note well: those who are spared are not those who simply sit on the sidelines, but those who actively grieve over the spiritual degradation of the city. They may not have the power to effect change, but they have not sunk into the lassitude of careless indifference. And God spares them.Of course, all that is described here takes place within Ezekiel's visionary world. In the real world, we are not to think that all the righteous and only the righteous escaped all of the sufferings associated with Nebuchadnezzar's siege: the Bible is full of stories in which righteous people suffer (e.g., Naboth the vineyard owner). What this vision does mean is that God himself ordains the judgment, and God himself vindicates those who are covenantally faithful. Similar symbolism is picked up at the end of Revelation 13 and the beginning of Revelation 14 (see vol. 1, meditation for December 23). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Ezekiel 8–11 constitutes one long vision.The opening verse of Ezekiel 8 establishes the time at exactly fourteen months after the prophet's inaugural vision, and therefore after the 390 days when he was lying for some part of each day on his left side denouncing the northern tribes already taken into captivity, and during the 40 days when he was lying on his right side denouncing the sins of Judah and Jerusalem. By this point he has established his credentials as a prophet, so the elders of the exilic community come and consult him (Ezek. 8:1). Probably they are troubled by his symbol-laden actions, and are asking him what will happen to Jerusalem, and if and when they will get home.Ezekiel does not respond off the top of his head. Rather, he waits, and is granted another vision, the content of which he ultimately transmits to the exiles (Ezek. 11:25). In this vision, he sees something of God in categories reminiscent of those in the inaugural vision (chap. 1). Within the visionary world, Ezekiel is transported by the Spirit to Jerusalem, near the north gate. He is shown several horrible examples of idolatry and syncretism.First, he witnesses the idol that provokes God to jealousy (Ezek. 8:3–6). If it is by the north gate, it is by the gate the king and his retinue would use on their way to the temple. The king whose responsibility it is to lead the people in covenantal faithfulness is the leader in compromise and syncretism—and in line with his covenantal conditions, God is rightly jealous (see Ex. 20:1–17). Second, Ezekiel sees seventy elders actually worshiping creatures that were, according to the Mosaic covenant, unclean even for eating and touching (Ezek. 8:7–13). Third, he sees women profoundly engaged with Tammuz (Ezek. 8:14–15). The Tammuz cult was a fertility cult, ascribing agricultural bounty to a dying and rising god. Some of these cults were also terribly promiscuous. Finally, Ezekiel sees priests (for only they could be between the portico and the altar) with their backs to the temple, worshiping the sun—not only cherishing the created thing above the Creator (Rom. 1:25), but violating the covenant (Deut. 4:19), influenced perhaps by the Egyptian sun god Ra.Modern forms of idolatry are different, of course. Most of us have not been caught mourning for Tammuz. But do our hearts pursue things that rightly make God jealous? Do we love dirty and forbidden things? Do we ascribe success to everything but God? We may not succumb to fertility cults, but doesn't our culture make sex itself a god?Corrupt worship invariably replaces and relativizes God and ends up dulling moral vision (Ezek. 8:17). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

At one level Psalm 45 is a royal wedding song. The opening verse affords a glimpse of the psalmist's passions as he composes his lines (cf. similar introductions in Ps. 39:1–3; 49:1–4). The rest of the psalm is broken down into five sections.The first (Ps. 45:2–5) depicts the king's majesty and stature. “Gird your sword upon your side, O mighty one; clothe yourself with splendor and majesty” (Ps. 45:3)—and pursue truth, humility, and righteousness, even while displaying “awesome deeds” and military prowess (Ps. 45:4–5). In the second (Ps. 45:6–9), the psalmist reflects on the monarch's person and state, and addresses him as God (Ps. 45:6). The psalmist is not turning away from the monarch to address God. The next verse (Ps. 45:7) proves he is still addressing the king, and is perfectly able to distinguish between the king as “God” and God himself: “therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions.” Thus the address of verse 6 is extravagant: “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever”—in the first instance referring to a Davidic king, as the rest of the psalm demonstrates. In the third section the psalmist addresses the bride and encourages her lifelong allegiance (Ps. 45:10–12). That entails “forgetting” her father's house (the counterpart of Gen. 2:24), and focusing her affections and loyalty on her husband. The fourth briefly describes the bridal party (Ps. 45:13–15) leading up to the wedding itself, the details signaling the importance of the occasion. Scripture never trivializes marriage, least of all the marriage of a Davidic king. In the fifth section (Ps. 45:16–17), the psalmist returns to the king (the Hebrew pronouns are masculine). The focus is on the fruit of the marriage: heirs who displace their fathers. This demonstrates that the psalmist is thinking in terms of ordinary procreation and succession. This is not an oracular messianic psalm.Nevertheless Hebrews 1:8–9 quotes Psalm 45:6–7 to prove Jesus' essential superiority over mere angels. Only the Son is directly addressed as “God.” Why does the writer of Hebrews feel he can use Psalm 45 in this way? The surrounding verses show he has reflected long and hard on several passages and themes: 2 Samuel 7 (see vol. 1, meditation for September 12), which promises an eternal Davidic dynasty; several passages that link the Davidic king to God as his “son” (2 Sam. 7; Ps. 2—on which see meditation for August 4); an entire pattern or “typology” in which David is understood to be a shadow, a type, an adumbration of a still greater “David” to come. If Scripture (and thus God) addresses an early Davidic monarch as “God,” how much more deserving of this title is the ultimate David? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Psalm 44 is an important foil for the themes we have been digesting from the prophets. The major prophets keep drawing a tight link between the sins of Israel and the destruction that God inflicted upon them: the people get what they deserve. Of course, we have come across innocent suffering before, especially in Job and in some Psalms. But here in Psalm 44 is the suffering of an innocent nation.There were defeats and even deportations (Ps. 44:11) before the exile (see Amos 1:6, 9), so we cannot be certain when this psalm was written. Defeat was not unknown even to good kings (e.g., Ps. 60). Here the psalmist begins by reviewing the past. When the nation was called into existence, everything depended on God's strong intervention: “it was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you loved them” (Ps. 44:3). The psalmist is not looking back to national heroes and bemoaning their contemporary absence. He looks back to God's power in the past, and insists the nation still relies on God (Ps. 44:6–8). So why the disastrous defeats (Ps. 44:9–16)? Unlike the gross sin denounced by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, here fidelity still triumphs: “All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant. Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path” (Ps. 44:17–18).At least two hints toward the end of the psalm, though they do not provide “solutions,” invite the reader to reflect on the direction taken by later biblical writers. (1) Sometimes God's apparent sleep, his withdrawal (Ps. 44:23ff.), is not overt wrath poured out on our sin, but his own timing. He refuses to be hurried, and his “unfailing love” (Ps. 44:26) will triumph in the end. The ebbs and flows of Christian history support the same stance: they do not always correspond with differing degrees of loyalty or different methods. As one commentator (F. D. Kidner) has finely put it, “Although its picture of the sleeping Lord may seem naive to us, it was acted out in the New Testament, to teach a lesson which we still find relevant: cf. verse 23 with Mark 4:38.” (2) More stunningly, the psalmist says it is “for your sake [that] we face death all day long” (Ps. 44:22, italics added). That point is not fully developed until Paul quotes the verse (Rom. 8:36ff.). But already it embraces the notion that some suffering is not the result of our sin but simply the result of being faithful to God in a world at war with him. In such cases suffering is not a sign of defeat but a badge of fidelity and fellowship, even of victory: we are “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

In Ezekiel 5, Ezekiel extends by one more his list of parabolic actions and then reports God's words as to their significance.Ezekiel sharpens a sword and uses it as a straight razor. He shaves his head, beard and all. After tucking a few strands into his garments, he divides the rest into three piles. The first he puts into the city (i.e., onto the clay tablet that is the model of the city of Jerusalem, Ezek. 4:1), and sets the hairs alight, perhaps with a live coal. Another third he scatters on the ground all around the city, and then whacks them and whacks them with his sword until only tiny pieces are left. The final third he throws up into the wind, a few hairs at a time, until they have all blown away. A few strands tucked into his garments he now takes out and throws onto the smoldering coal and ashes within the model city, and they too burst into flame and are consumed.The significance of all this is spelled out in Ezekiel 5:12: a third of the people will die within the city (from the famine of the siege), a third will die by the sword in the final breakout, and the remaining third will be scattered into exile.The entire chapter emphasizes that it is God himself who is going to bring down this judgment on his people: highlight every instance of “I” in Ezekiel 5:8–17. This is what takes place when the Lord shoots to kill (Ezek. 5:16). “Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again” (Ezek. 5:9); the formula means that this judgment is as bad as temporal judgments get. Jesus himself uses virtually the same words with respect to the impending judgment on Jerusalem in his century (Matt. 24:21).God says his wrath must be poured out. Yet this wrath is not ungovernable temper. God insists that when judgment has been meted out, his wrath will subside and his anger will cease (Ezek. 5:13). This outbreak of wrath forms part of a list of punctuated outbreaks of wrath from the Fall on: the curse in Genesis 3, the Flood, Babel, slavery in Egypt, various judgments in the desert (including the wilderness wanderings for forty years), and so on. In cycles of judgment corresponding to cycles of particularly egregious sin, God pours out his wrath. All of this forms part of the necessary biblical theology behind Romans 3:20–26: there is no solution to the threat of God's righteous wrath upon his creatures who have rebelled against him—until in the person of his Son God himself bears the wrath we deserve, preserving his justice while justifying us. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

If we are to understand the reasons why Ezekiel is called to the powerful parabolic actions we find in Ezekiel 4, we must put ourselves in the place of the exiles. Like the people back home in Jerusalem and Judah, many of them could not imagine that the city and temple of the Great King could ever be destroyed. God simply would not allow it to happen. In general terms the exiles in Babylon respond to Ezekiel the same way that the Jews in Jerusalem respond to Jeremiah: they don't believe him. In fact, the exiles doubtless have added incentive to maintain their false hopes. As long as Jerusalem stands, they can nurture the hope that God will rescue them and bring them back home. If Jerusalem falls, there will be no “home” to which to return. One can imagine how desperately negative and even impossible Ezekiel's warnings sound to them.But Ezekiel does not flinch.(1) He begins by drawing a picture of Jerusalem on a large clay tablet—perhaps the profile or some other easily recognized perspective, so that onlookers can instantly see what he is doing. Around the city he erects siege works and the like, as if he were playing war games with homemade toys. Everyone perceives that this means Jerusalem will be besieged. Then he holds an iron pan over the model. As God's prophet he stands in for God, and holds the pan in such a way as to threaten to crash it down on the city and destroy it—picturing the fact that it is God himself who is threatening the city.(2) In the next section (Ezek. 4:4–8), Ezekiel spends some time each day lying on his left side. (He is not there all the time, of course, as the succeeding verses show he has other actions to perform.) If his head is toward the model of Jerusalem he has made, and his body lies on an east-west axis, then when he lies on his left he is facing north, toward Israel, the ten tribes that have already gone into captivity under the Assyrians. For 390 days (more than a year!) he does this, every day. Then one day the onlookers show up and find him on his right side—facing the south and thus threatening Judah with judgment and disaster.(3) Inside a besieged city in the ancient world, as supplies dwindled people were forced to make bread out of dried beans and lentils mixed with the tiny bit of flour that was left. They would eat their impossibly small portions (about eight ounces of “bread”) and sip their tiny quota of water, and waste away. They would cook their food on cow patties (as in the slums of India), because there was no more wood. All this, Ezekiel predicts, “because of their sin” (Ezek. 4:17). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Two of the themes of Ezekiel 3, intrinsic to the call of Ezekiel, may usefully be elucidated:First, the opening part shows how important it is for the prophet to empathize with God and his perspective. Trailing on from the closing lines of chapter 2 and into the beginning of chapter 3, Ezekiel in his vision is commanded to eat a scroll with “words of lament and mourning and woe” (Ezek. 2:10) written on both sides. Ezekiel eats it and reports that “it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth” (Ezek. 3:3). Why would a scroll full of “words of lament and mourning and woe” taste sweet? The point of the vision is that God's words become sweet to Ezekiel simply because they are God's words. God really does know best; he knows what is right. Therefore even when his words pronounce judgment and calamity, there is a sense in which the prophet must be empathetic to God's perspective.Similarly in the next verses (Ezek. 3:4–9): Ezekiel is not being sent to some foreign culture where the first step is to learn the local language. He is being called to speak to the people of his own heritage. Nevertheless he will find them unwilling to listen to him, precisely because they are unwilling to listen to God (Ezek. 3:7). So God promises: “But I will make you as unyielding and hardened as they are. I will make your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house” (Ezek. 3:8–9). So in this head-butting contest Ezekiel is being enabled to side with God unreservedly. God sometimes raises up strong and obstinate leaders who, regardless of personal popularity, hunger to side with God. None of this means that Ezekiel has no fellow-feeling for the exiles; both the next verses and the rest of the book contradict any such notion. Nevertheless his commission is a call to empathize with God's perspective and to be unyielding.Second, this chapter contains a call to utter warnings and to be careful (Ezek. 3:16–27). The theme of the watchman (Ezek. 3:16–21) recurs in the book (chap. 33), and can be explored later. But in the closing verses Ezekiel is forbidden to say anything—courtesies, greetings, political speeches, whatever—except for what God gives him to say. This state of affairs endures until the fall of Jerusalem, about six years away (Ezek. 33:21–22), when his tongue is loosed. This restriction adds weight to the times he does speak. It is also a challenge to everyone who speaks for God. All of our talk and our silences should be so calibrated that when we convey God's words our credibility is enhanced and not diminished. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

In some ways the first three chapters of Ezekiel hang together to describe Ezekiel's early call and commission—the commission of a prophet called to serve in declining times. In the Old Testament, not all prophetic calls are the same. Elisha served as an apprentice to Elijah; Amos was called while he was serving as a shepherd; Samuel first heard the call of God when he was but a stripling. But prophets commissioned to serve in peculiarly declining times have some common features in their call. We cannot trace all of those features here, but one of them emerges with great strength in Ezekiel 2.Here God tells Ezekiel what he is being called to do. He is being sent, God says, “to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me” (Ezek. 2:3). He is being sent to the nation of Israel, at least that part of it that is in exile with him—and that part, of course, comprised the most gifted, the most learned, the most noble, the most privileged. From God's perspective, they are merely “obstinate and stubborn” (Ezek. 2:4). Ezekiel is to tell them, “This is what the Sovereign LORD says” (Ezek. 2:4). So far God has not told Ezekiel what he is to say, i.e., the content of what the Sovereign Lord says. Rather, the rest of this chapter is devoted to making sure that Ezekiel understands that his ministry turns absolutely on one thing: passing on to this rebellious house the words of God. “You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen” (Ezek. 2:7).Of course, it is always important for prophets and preachers to speak God's words faithfully. But it is especially urgent in declining times. In periods of revival and prosperity, the preacher may be viewed with respect, his faithfulness and insight lionized. But in declining times, those who truly speak for God will be taunted and threatened. The pressures to dilute what God says become enormous. Clever exegesis to make the text say what it really doesn't, selective silence to leave out the painful bits, hermeneutical cleverness to remove the bite and sting of Scripture, all become de rigueur, so that we can still be accepted and even admired. But God is aware of the danger. From his perspective, success is not measured by how many people Ezekiel wins to his perspective, but by the faithfulness with which he declares God's words. Anything less participates in the rebellion of this “rebellious house” (Ezek. 2:8). This calls for godly courage that drives out fear (Ezek. 2:6–7).Precisely where are such faithfulness and courage most urgently demanded in the Western world today? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Ezekiel was Jeremiah's contemporary. Though he was born into a priestly family, Ezekiel was removed from the temple. In March, 597 B.C., he, young King Jehoiachin, the Queen Mother, the aristocracy, and many of the leading priests and craftsmen were transported seven hundred miles to Babylon. The young king was in prison or under house arrest for thirty-seven years. The exilic community, impoverished and cut off from Jerusalem and the temple, dreamed nostalgically of home and begged God to rescue them. They could not conceive that in another decade Jerusalem would be utterly destroyed. On the banks of the Kebar River—probably an irrigation canal swinging in a loop southwest from the Euphrates—the exiles tried to settle. And here, according to Ezekiel 1, when he was thirty years old and in the fifth year of his exile (i.e., about 593, still six years before the destruction of Jerusalem), Ezekiel received an extraordinary vision.Detailed explanation of this apocalyptic vision demands more space than I have here. But some observations are crucial:(1) In general terms, what Ezekiel sees is a vision of a mobile throne, the mobile throne of God. (I once preached on this passage to some hearing-impaired folk, and more than one thought I was saying it deals with the mobile phone of God!)(2) The throne is made up of four “living creatures,” each with wings outstretched to touch the adjacent two at the wingtips, so that together the four creatures make a huge, hollow square. Inside this space there are torches, flashes of lightning, and fire. Each of the four living creatures has four faces—probably a way of signaling that God's throne is intelligent (the human face), royal (the lion), strong (the bull), and compassionate (the eagle, cf. Ex. 19:4; Isa. 40:31). Beside each creature is a pair of wheels, intersecting each other so that they cannot fall over. The entire structure moves in straight lines, like a cursor on a monitor only in three dimensions, propelled by the wheels and additional wings of the living creatures, directed cohesively by the Spirit. Above the heads of the creatures, and supported by them, is a platform like a giant wok, sparkling like ice or hoarfrost. Above that is the throne of God.(3) The importance of this mobile throne becomes clear later in the book. Here we must grasp two things: (a) The closer the vision gets to God himself, the more distantly he is described. The culmination—“This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD” (1:28)—elicits not an artist's conception, but worship. (b) More broadly: visions of God always induce brokenness, humility, and worship (cf. Isa. 6; Rev. 1, 4–5). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

In this information-rich age, many of us have learned to be as brief as possible. That was one of the areas in which my own doctoral supervisor helped me a great deal: though my prose style is still too rambling, whatever leanness and precision it has owes a great deal to his thorough correcting of my work a quarter of a century ago. Efficient managers learn to be brief; computer programmers are rated on how briefly they can write precise code to do what needs to be done. Only a few contemporary authors (e.g., Tom Clancy and James Michener) get away with long, rambling books—and even then the editors have drastically trimmed them.Yet here we are, quietly reading through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, with Ezekiel to go, and we find ourselves circling around the same handful of themes again and again: sin in the covenant community, threatened judgment, then enacted judgment, first for the northern tribes, then for Judah. We recognize the subtle differences, of course: history, apocalyptic, oracle, lament, prayers. Here in Lamentations 5, the fifth dirge is cast as a long prayer: “Remember, O LORD, what has happened to us; look, and see our disgrace” (Lam. 5:1). But haven't you caught yourself saying to yourself more than once, “I know this is the Word of God, and I know it is important, but I think I understand now something of the history and the theology of the exile. Couldn't we get on to something else?” We live in an age burgeoning with information, we cry for brevity, and the Bible at times seems terribly discursive. So we scan another chapter as rapidly as possible because we already “know” all this.But that is part of the problem, isn't it? Read through this chapter again, slowly, thoughtfully. Of course, it is tied to Israel six centuries before Christ, to the destruction of her cities and land and temple, to the onset of the exile. But listen to the depth and persistence of the pleas, the repentance, the personal engagement with God, the cultural awareness, the acknowledgment of God's sovereignty and justice, the profound recognition that the people must be restored to God himself if return to the land is to be possible, let alone meaningful (Lam. 5:21). Then compare this with the brands of Christian confessionalism with which you are most familiar. In days of cultural declension, moral degradation, and large-scale ecclesiastical frittering, is our praying like that of Lamentations 5? Have the themes of the major prophets so burned into our minds and hearts that our passion is to be restored to the living God? Or have we ourselves become so caught up in the spirit of this age that we are content to be rich in information and impoverished in wisdom and godliness? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

The fourth dirge (Lam. 4) again casts up a variety of mental pictures to depict the suffering of the final siege of Jerusalem and beyond. It also lays out some of the reasons why the judgment was imposed, and ends in a whisper of hope.The dirge opens by likening the people of Jerusalem to gold that has lost its luster (Lam. 4:1). Like gold, they started off precious, but now they are treated like the cheapest clay pots (Lam. 4:2). Under conditions of siege and transportation, food becomes so scarce that mothers can no longer nurse their children; even baby jackals are better treated (Lam. 4:3–4). Proverbial for wickedness, Sodom was destroyed in a quick holocaust, “in a moment” (Lam. 4:6). But the punishment of the poet's people “is greater than that of Sodom” (Lam. 4:6); siege warfare is a wretched, drawn-out affair, and the exile that follows it goes on and on. The theological assumption, of course, is that there are degrees of guilt: those with most knowledge of God's ways have least excuse, and so they can expect severest judgment (e.g., Matt. 11:20–24). As for the nobility, they are as emaciated, degraded, and dirty as the rest, and therefore indistinguishable from the rest (Lam. 4:8–9)—which is another way of saying that the leadership of the little nation has been destroyed. They are so filthy that they are physically and ceremonially unclean, like lepers who must eke out their existence where no one wants to have contact with them (Lam. 4:14–15). “The LORD 's anointed” (Lam. 4:20)—here a reference to King Zedekiah—proves to be of no help. “We thought that under his shadow we would live among the nations” (Lam. 4:20)—that is, secure in the knowledge that he was in the Davidic line, the Lord's anointed. But as the Lord has destroyed the city and the temple, so also has he removed the Davidic descendants from the throne.Why did the Lord do this? “[I]t happened because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests” (Lam. 4:13). The writer does not mean to suggest that these were the only sinners, but that the religious leaders, who should have been doing the most to preserve the nation in covenantal faithfulness, led the nation instead in corruption and infidelity. Because of their own positions, far from staying the national decline, they abetted it and hastened it. Where is that true today?The story does not end here. In mocking derision the writer tells nearby pagans that they might as well delight in the moment, for their turn will come. God's justice will be imposed on them as well as on Israel—and one day the covenant community, though afflicted now, will put behind them every trace of the exile (Lam. 4:21–22). The Lord's Anointed will give them rest. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

It is difficult to decide whether the first part of Lamentations 3 describes the experience of an individual (perhaps Jeremiah), or if the individual is a figure representing the entire nation as it has been forced into catastrophic defeat, poverty, and exile. Several lines favor the former view (e.g., Lam. 3:14, where the individual has become the laughingstock “of all my people” rather than of the surrounding peoples). The book as a whole, and the plural “we” that dominates most of the second half of this chapter, slightly favor the second view.But more important than deciding this issue is the striking way in which hope or confidence twice break out in the midst of the most appalling distress. The first instance is in Lamentations 3:22–27. Despite the horrible devastation, the writer says, “Because of the LORD 's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail” (Lam. 3:22). Their sins merit more judgment than they are facing. They might have been wiped out. Only the Lord's mercy prevented that from happening. However great their sufferings, the fact that they still exist testifies to the Lord's graciousness toward them. God's mercies renew themselves in our experience every day (Lam. 3:23). Besides, the faithful will surely insist that what they want the most is not the Lord's blessings but the Lord himself: “I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him' ” (Lam. 3:24). This is a moral stance: it signals the end of the self-sufficiency and self-focus that thought it could thumb its nose at God. For this writer, the chastening is having its desired effect: it is driving people back to God.The second block of hope is a retrospective on the preliminary ways in which the Lord has already answered (3:55–57), and which then becomes a plea for vindication (Lam. 3:58–64). The stark simplicity of the first of these two passages is profoundly compelling, the heritage of many believers who have passed through dark waters: “I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit. You heard my plea: ‘Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.' You came near when I called you, and you said, ‘Do not fear' ” (Lam. 3:55–57). The prayer for vindication that follows (Lam. 3:58–64) must not be reduced to bitter vengeance. If God is just, then in the same way that he has chastened his own covenant people, he must mete out justice to those who have cruelly attacked others—even if it is that very attack that God has providentially deployed to chasten his own people. God himself elsewhere insists on this same point (e.g., Isa. 10:5ff.). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

This delightful hymn of praise (Ps. 33) focuses on what God is and what he does. It is so wonderfully fecund that here I can do no more than draw attention to some of its evocative themes.(1) The Lord is righteous, and “it is fitting for the upright to praise him” (Ps. 33:1). Faithful and thoughtful worship turns in part on adoration of God for his character. Those who reflect the same character, however feebly, will most hungrily worship him for his perfections. Thus godly praise is tied to the moral transformation of the worshiper.(2) The psalmist envisages creativity in music, consummate skill on the instruments, and fervor (Ps. 33:3)—a combination fairly rare in evangelical corporate worship.(3) God's character and God's work cannot be separated from his word (Ps. 33:4–9). This is not only because God's word is as righteous, true, reliable (“faithful”), and loving as he is, but because God's word is effective—something nowhere more clearly seen than in creation: “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth” (Ps. 33:6).(4) God is utterly sovereign. He foils the plans of the nations; no one ever foils his plans (Ps. 33:10–11): “the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.”(5) Although God is sovereign over the entire human race, and is the judge of all, yet he is peculiarly the God of his own covenant people (Ps. 33:12–15).(6) Nations are never saved by mere might, apart from the blessing and sanction of God. Of course, God might well use the big guns, and his sovereign providence operates even in the preparation of the mighty empires that chastened his own people. But to trust the big guns is to forget who gives strength and wealth and blessing. Moreover, the Lord is perfectly capable of overturning any nation of any size, of spiking the big guns. “A horse [or a tank] is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save” (Ps. 33:17). The ultimate hope is in the Lord: “But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love” (Ps. 33:18).(7) Granted that this is the sort of God who is really there, that this is the God we worship, the three closing verses are as inevitable as they are jubilant. Here is the proper grounding for godly hope: “We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you” (Ps. 33:20–22). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Before saying something about Lamentations 1, I should offer a few observations on the book as a whole.(1) In Hebrew, the first word of the book means “Oh, how [deserted is the city],” and this first word becomes the title in the Hebrew Bible. Later Jewish writers referred to the book either by this word or by another Hebrew word that means “lamentations.”(2) Early Greek and Latin translations of this short book assign it to Jeremiah the prophet. This is entirely possible, but strictly speaking, the work is anonymous.(3) Lamentations is made up of five poems, five dirges, each occupying one chapter. The first four are acrostics: i.e., the twenty-two consonants of the Hebrew alphabet introduce, respectively, each of the twenty-two stanzas in each poem (though there are slight irregularities in chapters 2, 3, and 4). In the first three poems, each stanza is normally made up of three lines in some kind of parallelism (with two exceptional four-line stanzas, Lam. 1:7; 2:19). In the third poem, each line of each stanza begins with the same Hebrew consonant that introduces that dirge. The fourth poem has only two lines for each stanza. Though it is poetry, the fifth lament is not an acrostic, but consists of twenty-two lines that resemble some psalms of corporate lament (e.g., Pss. 44, 80).(4) No linear flow of thought sweeps through each chapter or through the entire book. Certain themes keep reappearing, of course, but by and large the book is impressionistic, full of powerful images that reinforce a small number of burning truths.If Job deals with the calamity that befell a righteous man, and thus with the problem of innocent suffering, Lamentations deals with the calamity that befell a guilty nation. Those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind. While honestly and powerfully portraying the suffering of the nation, these poems vindicate God: God, not human beings, is in control of history, and God will not be mocked. Justice ultimately will prevail in the drama of history, because God is just.Two final challenges. (a) Read through this first chapter and identify each of the powerful images the writer casts up, asking what it contributes to the chapter and how it is related to other biblical passages (if at all). For instance, verse 10 calls to mind that only the high priest could enter the Holy Place—and now raw pagans not only have entered but have ravaged the temple. Theologically, this is tied to the fact that the glory of God abandoned the temple (cf. Ezek. 8–11), demonstrating, among other things, that the presence of God is more to be sought than the building. (b) What is godly about Lamentations 1:21–22? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

The historical appendix to the prophecy of Jeremiah (Jer. 52) imposes a “spin” on the book as a whole. Without it, certain points would be left hanging—that is, they would still be there within the body of the book, but they would not be highlighted as powerfully as they are with this appendix to flesh them out.First, it may be useful to offer notes on several of the historical details of this report. It is rather surprising that no mention is made of Nebuchadnezzar's instructions for the protection of Jeremiah. But in fact, the interest lies in the large historical movement, not in Jeremiah's personal circumstances. Some of the details complement the historical account provided by 2 Kings 25. Second Kings, for instance, does not mention Zedekiah's imprisonment (Jer. 52:11). Seraiah the chief priest (Jer. 52:24), one of the leaders who were executed, was grandson of Hilkiah, the high priest under Josiah, who traced his descent from Aaron (cf. 1 Chron. 6:13–15). The report of the numbers transported (Jer. 52:28–30) is much lower than the figures given in 2 Kings 24. Probably the figures in Kings reflect the total, while the figures here refer to adult males or adult males of a certain rank. The variation in dates between 2 Kings 25:8 and Jeremiah 52 reflects, respectively, the Judean and the Babylonian methods of reckoning years of reign. Nebuchadnezzar's son, Evil-Merodach (Jer. 52:31—Amel-Marduk in Babylonian sources) reigned only one year (561–560 B.C.). Babylonian records confirm that Jehoiachin was among those who enjoyed this emperor's largess.Second, we should isolate the theological effects of reading this chapter at the end of the book. Two elements stand out. (a) The historical details remind the reader that everything predicted by Jeremiah came to pass. Because Jeremiah is not named, the flavor is stronger yet: everything that God said he would do, he did. The sin of the people was persistent, unrepented, corroding, perverse. Far from softening the people, the promise of judgment, which God out of mercy delayed and delayed, merely bred hardness of heart. But the promised judgment finally fell. One is reminded of the reasoning in 2 Peter 3. (b) The closing verses of the chapter (Jer. 52:31–34) describe how the legitimate Davidic king was finally released from his imprisonment and treated with honor during the closing years of his life. Of course, he never returned to Jerusalem or to any part of the land of Israel. But thoughtful readers cannot help reflecting on the fact that the book does not finally end in judgment. There is still the whisper of hope. God is not yet finished with the Davidic dynasty. The first adumbration of the promises of the prophecy of Jeremiah fall across the horizon. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Many a Christian has experienced the almost ineffable release of being transported from despair or illness or catastrophic defeat or a sense of alienated distance from God, to a height of safety or health or victory or spiritual intimacy with our Maker and Redeemer. Certainly David had such experiences. Psalm 30 records his pleasure during one of those transports of delight.The psalm divides into three parts. In the first (Ps. 30:1–5), David depicts the marvelous transformation. In the second (Ps. 30:1–6) he describes the complacency that drove him down in the first place, whether prior to the first five verses or in another cycle of the same thing. In the last section (Ps. 30:11–12), he concludes with the same exuberant joy he displays in the first five verses, as he bursts the boundaries of language to depict the glorious transformation when wailing is turned into dancing, and sackcloth into the garments of joy.The list of contrasts in the psalm captures the heart and the imagination. Here we may reflect on one pair of such contrasts: “For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” (Ps. 30:5).David is writing from his perspective as a member of the covenant community. Almighty God is linked by solemn oath and covenant with them. If they sin, God does not write them off: “his anger lasts only a moment”; his punishments, however severe, are temporary. His basic stance toward them is gracious: “his favor lasts a lifetime.” And since the earlier verses show that David is thinking not of the nation but of his individual experience, what is true for the people of God as a whole is true for him in particular: God may punish him for various reasons, but God's fundamental stance toward him is merciful and gracious, lasting a lifetime. Basking in the conscious presence and blessing of God, David looks back on his recent experience and exults in the fact that “weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”There are many such contrasts in Scripture, not a few of them bound up with the new covenant. The apostle Paul can speak of “our light and momentary troubles” (though by our comfortable Western standards his troubles were neither light nor momentary!). These achieve for us “an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:17)—and on such a scale they truly are light and momentary. Paul is merely following Jesus, “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

The closing verses of Psalm 28 bring together several themes prominent in biblical theology:(1) The first and most obvious one is the unrestrained praise in 28:7: “The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.” Here is no faith of mere resignation; here, rather, is a faith that wells up from (or produces?) a heart that “leaps for joy” and expresses itself in thankful song. One cannot read the Psalms without recognizing that genuine faith does not produce a merely stereotypical emotional response. Given different sets of circumstances, genuine faith may be tied to an almost desperate trust and anguished petition, to quiet confidence and steadfastness, to praise that bursts the borders of exuberance into spectacular spontaneity. In this passage faith is closest to the latter, for the Lord has already heard David's cry for mercy (28:6).(2) Throughout the first seven verses of the psalm, David's petitions and praises are in the first person singular; they arise from his status as an individual. The last two verses focus on God's “people” (28:8–9), his collective “inheritance” (28:9). So far as language goes, this is effected in part through David's meditation on God's “anointed one” (28:8), the word that ultimately generates our “messiah.” As the king, David himself is of course the royal “anointed one,” the royal “messiah.” But as God has heard his prayers, shown him mercy, and called forth his joyous praise, so his individual experience ought to be a paradigm for the covenant community at large. He represents them, and there is a profound sense in which they are collectively God's “anointed one,” his “son” (cf. Ex. 4:22—another title applied both to Israel at large and distinctively to Israel's king). The expression “anointed one” in a Davidic psalm inevitably prompts us to think of the king; the parallelism in verse 8 shows that the expression here refers to Israel: “The LORD is the strength of his people, a fortress of salvation for his anointed one” (italics added). The thoughtful reader reflects on the ways in which David and the people are linked—and on the ways in which Jesus the Messiah (i.e., Jesus the Anointed One) not only springs from David's line, but shows himself to be both the ultimate Davidic king and the ultimate embodiment of Israel.(3) The last line calls to mind a delightful truth: “Save your people and bless your inheritance,” David writes; “be their shepherd and carry them forever” (28:9, italics added). Reflect on such passages as Psalm 23; Ezekiel 34; Luke 15:1–7; John 10; 1 Peter 5:1–4. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Psalm 27 shares some themes with its nearest neighbors (Pss. 26, 28) but is more exuberant than either.(1) The Lord is my light (Ps. 27:1–3). Light is an evocative figure for almost everything good: truth, knowledge, joy, moral purity, revelation, and more. Here the word is linked with “salvation” and “stronghold” (Ps. 27:1); light is associated with security. David faces enemies who attack him like a pack of wolves, but if the Lord is his light and salvation, David will not be afraid. With a God this sovereign, this good, this self-revealing, this delightful, how will he not also be our security?(2) The Lord is my sanctuary (Ps. 27:4–6)—in the double sense that the word has in English. On the one hand, the theme of the first three verses continues: God is David's sanctuary in the sense that he is David's protection, his stronghold: “in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling” (Ps. 27:5). But on the other hand, this “sanctuary” spells infinitely more than mere political security: “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life” (Ps. 27:4). This does not mean that David entertains a secret, impossible desire to become a Levite. Rather, he has a profound passion to live his life in the presence of the living God. That is the locus of security.(3) The Lord is my direction (Ps. 27:7–12). David does not envisage his relation with God as something static, but as his lifelong pursuit. Moreover, he understands that this pursuit simultaneously shapes him. If he seeks God's face as he ought (Ps. 27:8), if he begs for mercy so that God will deal with him in compassion and not in wrath (Ps. 27:9–10), then he will also learn God's ways and walk in a straight path (Ps. 27:11). This cannot be said too strongly or too often: to claim that one is pursuing God without concomitant reformation of life and growing conformity to the ways of God is wicked and dangerous nonsense.(4) The Lord is my hope (Ps. 27:13–14). However true it is that God is the believer's refuge, sometimes in this broken and fallen world it does not feel like it at the moment. The truth is that God's timetable is rarely the same as ours. Often he demands that we wait patiently for him: his timing is perfect. His vindication of his people often takes place in history (Ps. 27:13), but rarely as soon as we want; nevertheless his ultimate vindication is priceless. “Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD” (Ps. 27:14). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

One of the striking features of the Psalms, especially the psalms of David, is the theme of enemies. This makes some Christians nervous. Does not the Lord Jesus tell us to love our enemies (Matt. 5:43–47)? Yet here David prays that God will not let his enemies triumph over him (Ps. 25, especially v. 1), calls them “treacherous” (Ps. 25:3), and complains that they have increased and fiercely hate him (Ps. 25:19). It is inadequate to ascribe the two stances to differences between the new covenant and the old.Preliminary reflections include:(1) Even Jesus' teaching that his followers love their enemies presupposes that they have enemies. Jesus' requirement that we love our enemies must not be reduced to the sentimental notion that we all become so “nice” that we never have any enemies.(2) New Testament believers may have enemies who must at some level be opposed. The apostle Paul, for instance, says that he has handed Hymenaeus and Alexander over to Satan to teach them not to blaspheme (1 Tim. 1:20). Both 2 Peter 2 and Jude deploy pretty colorful language to denounce fundamental enemies of the Gospel. Even if his language belongs to hyperbole, Paul can wish that the agitators in Galatia would emasculate themselves (Gal. 5:12). The Lord Jesus himself—the same Jesus who, while dying on the cross, cries, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34)—can elsewhere denounce his enemies in spectacularly colorful language (Matt. 23). It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, unless we are to accuse the apostles and Jesus of hypocritical inconsistency, the demand that we love our enemies must not be reduced to the sentimental twaddle that merely smooths enemies out of existence.(3) A very good case can be made for the view that the primary concern of Matthew 5:43–47 is to overthrow personal retaliation, to eschew the vendetta, to overcome the evil we receive by the good we perform, to absorb the hatred of an opponent and return love. But none of this denies for a moment that the other person is an enemy. Moreover, those in leadership may, out of love, feel obligated to protect the flock by chasing out a wolf in sheep's clothing, by exposing the charlatan, by denouncing the wicked—without succumbing to personal venom.(4) One measure of whether one's response is the hatred of vengeance or something more principled that cherishes God's holiness and leaves room for forbearance and love, is the set of associated commitments. In David's case, these include trust (Ps. 25:1–3, 4–5, 7b, 16, 21), repentance and faith (Ps. 25:7, 11, 18), and covenantal fidelity (Ps. 25:10). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Though a short chapter, Jeremiah 47 is full of interest. It begins with a prophecy regarding the destruction of the Philistine city-states along the coast, and ends with one of the most thought-provoking bits of anguish in the latter part of this book.First, the prophecy (Jer. 47:1–5). Its precise timing is a trifle obscure: it came to Jeremiah “before Pharaoh attacked Gaza” (Jer. 47:1). This may have taken place when Pharaoh Neco of Egypt marched north to attack Haran in 609 B.C. Gaza, one of the Philistine city-states, was on the route. But although this shows the prophecy came to Jeremiah before the days of Egyptian ascendancy were past, it did not concern Egyptian aggression, but Babylonian: the waters that “overflow the land and everything in it” rise “in the north” (Jer. 47:2)—the direction from which the Babylonian might would come. The word picture of the subsequent destruction is not pretty. Panic will be so acute, Jeremiah insists, that fathers will abandon their children (Jer. 47:3). Verse 4 may be improperly translated. The Hebrew is literally “to cut off Tyre and Sidon,” and the expression may mean that any help from these Phoenician cities is prevented from reaching the Philistine cities farther down the coast. In any case it is the Lord who destroys the Philistines, whatever the agency (Jer. 47:4). Gaza and Ashkelon (Jer. 47:5) were two of their principal cities. “Caphtor” (Jer. 47:4) is the ancient name for Crete, from which the original Philistines came—so to say that the Lord is about to destroy “the remnant from the coasts of Caphtor” is a poetic way of saying that the Lord is about to destroy the Philistines.Second, the final thought-provoking anguish (Jer. 47:6–7). In colorful imagery, Jeremiah pictures the Philistines (according to the NIV) addressing the sword of the Lord: “ ‘Ah, sword of the LORD,' you cry, ‘how long till you rest? Return to your scabbard; cease and be still' ” (Jer. 47:6). This supposes that the Philistines recognize that it is Israel's God, the Lord himself, who has brought judgment on them at the hands of the Babylonians. Although it is possible to understand the Hebrew that way, strictly speaking the words “you cry” are not found in the text: they have to be inferred. But if they are simply omitted, then it is Jeremiah himself who is addressing the sword of the Lord. The Philistines may be pagans, and they may often have oppressed Israel, but now they are about to get pounded—and by the Babylonians, Judah's premier enemy. So Jeremiah intercedes for the Philistines. But the final verse shows that he understands perfectly well that he cannot command God's sword. The Lord himself has commanded it, the God of just judgment, and it will do its work. So also on the last day. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

A common theme among the biblical prophets is that God is sovereign over all nations. To most who read these pages that seems obvious. But in the ancient world, most nations had their own gods. So when a nation went to war, the people prayed to their own gods; if a nation was defeated, so were their gods. Clearly they were not as strong as the gods of the ascendant nation.But the God of Israel keeps telling her that he is the God over all the universe, over all the nations. He is not a tribal deity in the sense that they own him or that he is exclusively theirs. That is why in many chapters of Isaiah and Jeremiah God insists that he himself is the One who is raising up Assyria or Babylon to punish the people. In other words, the defeat of Israel does not signal the defeat of God. Far from it: this God keeps insisting that if Israel is defeated and punished, it can only be because he has ordained it—and he does this by utilizing the very nations Israel fears.But there is another side to the story. If God uses these various pagan nations, so also does he hold them to account. Of course, they cannot be expected to submit to the entire Law of Moses—after all, they are not part of the covenant community. Nevertheless God holds pagan nations to standards of decency and basic righteousness. So after using Assyria to chasten the northern kingdom of Israel, God turns around and chastens Assyria for her arrogance (Isa. 10:5ff.; see meditation for May 12). In the same vein, some of Israel's prophets pronounce words of judgment and warning, and sometimes of hope, against the surrounding nations over which their own God is utterly sovereign. That is what is found in Jeremiah 46–51 and elsewhere (e.g., Isa. 13–23; Ezek. 25–32; Amos 1:3–2:3).The chapter before us (Jer. 46) opens the larger section with a word from the Lord concerning Egypt. The first part (Jer. 46:2–12) details Egypt's decisive defeat at the battle of Carchemish in 605 B.C., when the Babylonians rose to supremacy in the region. The second part (Jer. 46:13–26) anticipates a further defeat of Egypt at the hands of Babylon, this time under Nebuchadnezzar. This almost certainly refers to the same assault predicted in Jeremiah 43:10—part of the reason why the Jews remaining in Judah were not to go down to Egypt (as they did, about 586). That assault is not reported in Scripture, but inscriptional evidence records that Nebuchadnezzar invaded Egypt in a punitive expedition in 568–567.Why is this chapter included in the book at this point? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

So far as we know, Jeremiah 44 contains Jeremiah's last prophecy. The prophecy of the next chapter is explicitly dated to an earlier period, and probably the miscellaneous prophecies against the nations, found in chapters 46–51, all stem from an earlier period as well. So far as the record goes, the words before us are Jeremiah's last public utterance.One cannot say that Jeremiah's ministry ended on a high note. We are all called to be faithful; some are called to be faithful in troubled and declining times. One dare not measure Jeremiah's ministry by how many people he convinced, how many disasters he averted, or how many revivals he experienced. One must measure his ministry by whether or not he was faithful to God, by whether or not God was pleased with him. And so, finally, it is with each of us. I doubt that many of us living in the West have fully come to grips with how much the success syndrome shapes our views of ourselves and others—sometimes to make us hunger at all costs for success, and sometimes, in a kind of inverted pseudospirituality, to make us suspicious at all costs of success. But success is not the issue; faithfulness is.What we find in this chapter is irretrievable rebellion. The Jews in Egypt—both those who have just descended there, and those who apparently had settled there earlier in an attempt to escape the troubled times back home—have merely replaced the Canaanite gods they used to worship at home with the Egyptian gods all around them. Their reading of their own history is entirely different from Jeremiah's. They hark back to the time when they “stopped” their pagan worship (Jer. 44:17–18): probably they are thinking of the reform under King Josiah. All the disasters that have befallen them have taken place since then. So what they must do, they reason, is serve the Queen of Heaven and the other pagan deities, and they resolve on this course.There are two important lessons to be learned. First, you can always read history to make it prove almost anything you want. This does not mean that we are not to learn anything from history, for God himself tells the people what they should have learned. It means that what the people of God should learn from history must be shaped by the lens of God's written revelation, by his prophetic word, by our covenantal vows. We cannot expect pagans always to agree with our reading of history. Second, this chapter demonstrates, in the harshest terms, that there is no hope for the covenant race, none at all, apart from the intervention of grace. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Psalm 19 is one of the precious gems of the Psalter. It has three sections. The first delights in the wordless disclosure of God in the universe (Ps. 19:1–6); the second exults in the clarity, perfection, and wealth of God's written revelation (Ps. 19:7–11); after a transitional verse (Ps. 19:11), the third section portrays the appropriate response of the believer, a response full of self-examination and godly resolve.If ancient Israel was sometimes inclined to worship the created order—sun, moon, stars—our generation is more inclined to marshal arguments that make them the product of impersonal forces and nothing more. Both stances are abominations. Owing to our culture's prevalent philosophical commitment to naturalism, the powerful evidence of intelligent design is marginalized until we can no longer see the obvious: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Ps. 19:1). The paradox of wordless utterance is delightful, as is the vision of irrepressible speech: “Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” (Ps. 19:2–4).But it is in connection with his written self-disclosure that the covenant name of God, Yahweh (“the LORD” in many of our English Bibles), appears seven times (Ps. 19:7–11). The six predications (Ps. 19:7–9) overlap somewhat, but together they project a vision of written revelation that anticipates the even fuller exposition of Psalm 119. One of the striking things about these six affirmations is that several of them are not merely abstract. The text not only says something about the words of God, but about their function in the lives of those who absorb them and follow them. For instance: “The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy” (Ps. 19:7): that is so, but the psalmist does not leave things there. Precisely because the LORD 's statutes are trustworthy, they serve to make wise the simple. Again: “The precepts of the LORD are right” (Ps. 19:8)—a point strengthened in the next verse: “The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous” (Ps. 19:9). But that is precisely why they give joy to the heart (Ps. 19:8): we are dealing with the Lord's righteous precepts and ordinances, so they are never corrupt or manipulative.What these two spheres of revelation demand is more than awe in the face of transcendent power, and more than personal delight in the personal, talking God—but both. Indeed, the appropriate response is repentance and faith, and zealous prayer that God himself would purify us within and make our words and meditations pleasing in his sight (Ps. 19:12–14). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

There is an old joke about a reprobate who absorbs just enough religion to think he should try to get his life in order. He goes to a minister, who tells him that the best thing he can do is turn away from his whiskey, his women, and his gambling. The old boy looks thoughtful for a few moments and then says, “You know, I don't think I deserve the best. What's second best?”One might have thought that in the wake of the disastrous destruction of Jerusalem, long predicted by Jeremiah, the prophet would have enormous credibility among the survivors. The sad reality is that he has enough credibility for them to consult him, but no more (Jer. 42). What they want is divine approval for the plan they themselves have already concocted. They do not want God's best, or God's will, but God's approval of their will. Jeremiah carefully seeks God, and ten days later (Jer. 42:7) the word of the Lord comes to him. The substance of the message is this: stay in Judah, and God will protect you; fly to Egypt, and God will take this as a further sign of rebellion, and God's wrath will pursue you and destroy you there, just as it recently destroyed so many in and around Jerusalem. Even as he is delivering this message, Jeremiah sees that it is not going down very well, and that the hostility against it—and against him—is deep. The next chapter (Jer. 43) records the sneering skepticism and the resolve of the leaders to disregard Jeremiah and his messages, to dismiss his words as outright lies, and to collect the remnant of the people and travel to Egypt. That is what they do, bringing Jeremiah with them.Most movements that spring up from the fertile soils of Christendom appeal, in one way or another, to the will of God. Few probe the will of God very deeply. God is for evangelism; therefore he is for the way we are proposing to do evangelism, and we invoke his will to sanction our methods. God is love; therefore he is against church discipline except in the most egregious cases (which either never arise, or, if they do, by the time they do they too are covered by the love of God), and we invoke God's will to sanction our determined niceness. God wants his people to be separate and holy; therefore we must withdraw into huddled isolationism and lob hateful barbs against all who disagree with us, and we invoke God's will to authorize our tearless harshness and ruthless condescension. These wretched pits are terribly easy to fall into. All it takes is resolution, and no more real interest in the will of God than what we need to sanction our preferences. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

The account of Gedaliah's assassination and its aftermath (Jer. 41) is brutal and ugly.(1) The man responsible for Gedaliah's death, Ishmael son of Nethaniah (Jer. 40:8; 41:1), was a man of royal blood, and may have been incensed because he was not the one the Babylonians appointed to rule the people. It is always shocking to see people scrambling for power even when there is nothing more than disaster and poverty over which to exercise power.(2) The depth of Ishmael's perfidy is powerfully portrayed. To kill people at a meal you are sharing was far more shocking in the sixth century B.C. than in our own, inured as we are by Agatha Christie novels and the like. Moreover, Ishmael's rage boils over so that others are assassinated, including the Babylonian troops left behind to keep an eye on things. The motive impelling the next atrocity (Jer. 41:4–7) is uncertain: Ishmael may still have been suspicious of anyone interested in serving Gedaliah (Jer. 41:6). Or in the still terribly unstable political situation following the war, he may have been intent on robbery and mayhem. The latter view is favored by the fact that some of the pilgrims save their lives by telling Ishmael of a food cache (Jer. 41:8).(3) Johanan son of Kereah was the one who first warned Gedaliah of Ishmael's conspiracy (Jer. 40:13–14). Now he is equally quick to put together a band and go after Ishmael and his men and those they have taken captive (Jer. 41:11–12). Even though Ishmael and eight of his men escape, the captives are rescued (Jer. 41:14–15).(4) Now Johanan must ask himself what to do. He and those with him are afraid that when the murder of Gedaliah and the others is reported back to Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar will be so filled with rage that he will send back powerful army units and kill everyone who is left. So Johanan starts south, heading for Egypt, stopping near Bethlehem (just south of Jerusalem) to gather together those who want to escape with him.(5) Theologically, all of this is part of the utter devastation befalling Judah. The city and temple have been destroyed. The Davidic dynasty has ended. All of the leaders, craftsmen, priests, and the like have been deported in waves (see Jer. 52:28–30). And now, just when it seems that a good man, Gedaliah, might somehow nurse this broken nation back through slow recovery to real economic and political health, he is assassinated, and the few remaining leaders fear the Babylonians and plan to flee to Egypt. Unaware of what they are doing, they thus bring to perfect fulfillment the prophecies of utter doom that Jeremiah has pronounced for four decades. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

When Jerusalem fell in 587 B.C. (Jer. 39), Zedekiah was punished horribly, though leniently by the standards of siege warfare of the day. As for Jeremiah, probably the reports of his prophecies about the fall of Jerusalem soon filtered through the captives to Nebuchadnezzar (who was not himself at Jerusalem, but maintained regional headquarters at Riblah, leaving the final assault to his commander Nebuzaradan). In consequence the emperor gave orders that Jeremiah was to be well-treated (Jer. 39:12). Initially that order was carried out, and Jeremiah was turned over to Gedaliah (Jer. 39:13–14), who became the new governor of the region after the imperial troops had withdrawn, taking countless captives into exile.That sets the stage for Jeremiah 40. The framework of the story is simple enough; the closing verses of the narrative evoke reflection on a terribly important theme. First, the framework: Those who were to be transported to exile were gathered at Ramah, which served as a rallying point about five miles north of Jerusalem. Despite Nebuchadnezzar's instructions to leave Jeremiah with Gedaliah, somehow the prophet was swept up in this group (Jer. 40:1). Anyone familiar with the confusion of war understands how easily this could have happened. The commander Nebuzaradan freed him and offered to take him to Babylon; probably it would have added to the commander's prestige back home to be the patron of a great prophet who had predicted Babylon's success. But Jeremiah was free to make his own decision, and he opted to stay with the remnant in Judah. Nebuzaradan provided him with food and a gift (Jer. 40:5)—one more instance of the principle that a prophet is often honored by everyone except those closest to him (cf. Matt. 13:57).But the account rushes on to describe the early stages of Gedaliah's governorship. On almost all fronts he did the right thing. He encouraged the poor to settle down and till the land and gather the harvest. He drew in the Jewish “army officers still in the open country” (Jer. 40:13), a potentially dangerous guerrilla force that might have broken out in the kind of anarchy that would have angered Babylon again. Even those who had fled to nearby countries began to return home (Jer. 40:11–12), reassured by the moves Gedaliah was making to ensure stability. But Gedaliah's great weakness was that he could not believe ill of people. Despite all the evil of the previous years, he still did not believe that evil happens, that evil people do evil things, that leadership must sometimes oppose evil. On so many fronts he was a good man. But he paid for his Pollyannish optimism with his life. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

A friend of mine once gave a university evangelistic address under the title, “Atheists Are Fools and Agnostics Are Cowards.” Needless to say, he drew a considerable crowd, even if the crowd was pretty hostile. Whether or not this was the tactically wise thing to do in that setting may, I suppose, be debated. What should not be debated is that my friend was being faithful to Scripture: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God' ” (Ps. 14:1). Indeed, if anything, the text of Scripture is stronger than the English suggests. The word rendered “fool” is in Hebrew a term of moral opprobrium suggesting perversity, churlish and aggressive perversity. Paul certainly understood the point: “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:22). After all, “what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them” (Rom. 1:19); and “since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind” (Rom. 1:28). The Bible's view is that in the last analysis atheism is less the product of misguided searching, a kind of intellectual mistake, than a defiant and stubborn rebellion.The fact that atheism is not widely seen that way is itself an index of our depravity. In fact, the best-informed atheists commonly acknowledge the connection between morality and belief, between immorality and unbelief. There is a famous passage in Huxley that acknowledges that one of the driving forces behind atheistic naturalism is the desire to tear away any sort of moral condemnation of otherwise condemned behavior. In a passage scarcely less famous, Michel Foucault, one of the theoreticians behind postmodernism, frankly acknowledges that it became important for him to destroy traditional notions of truth and morality because he wished to justify his own sexual conduct. A few years ago, Foucault died of AIDS.We must not misapply this text. Within the framework of their own presuppositions, there are many honest atheists. But the framework itself is wrong. That framework is never established by a single individual. It is built up piece by piece until certain beliefs are culturally possible, then probable, then almost inevitable—and each generation, each individual, has contributed to this massive rebellion, this lust for autonomy that refuses to recognize the rights of our Maker and our obligations to him. Atheism becomes not simply an individual choice but a social degeneracy. The ultimate result is the sweeping condemnation of Psalm 14:2–3. Compare Romans 3:10–18: sin is not merely ubiquitous but universal, and results in massive social damage (Ps. 14:4–6). At the end of the day, there is no help but in the Lord (Ps. 14:7). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

It is not easy to see how the events of Jeremiah 38 are tied to the events of Jeremiah 37:11–21. Some think they are two entirely separate episodes in the life of the prophet; others think Jeremiah 38 is an expansion of the previous chapter. However one resolves the issue, the final exchange in this chapter between Jeremiah and King Zedekiah demands serious reflection.The events themselves are easily understood. For several decades Jeremiah has been preaching the imminent destruction of Jerusalem. For the most part, he has been ignored or mocked. With Nebuchadnezzar's troops all around the walls, however, Jeremiah's credibility is doubtless at an all-time high. So when he reports that the Lord says that anyone who remains in the city will die by sword, famine, or plague, while those who surrender will survive (Jer. 38:2), he is much more likely to be believed than he would have been five years previously. The city's officials, however, not believing that these words are from the Lord, see this religious God-talk as nothing more than treason—treason with the pernicious effect of undermining the confidence of the remaining troops.The punishment Jeremiah faces is unpleasant. Most dwellings in Jerusalem in this period had cisterns, often bottle-shaped, for retaining drinking water. This one was unused, but had thick mud in its bottom. Left for very long in this place, probably without food and water, Jeremiah would die.What saves Jeremiah, humanly speaking, is the fact that King Zedekiah still seeks his counsel. Jeremiah does not pull any punches. Though it is politically inexpedient, Jeremiah tells the king that he should obey the Lord and submit to the Babylonians: the alternative is the route to disaster (Jer. 38:20–21). Perhaps Zedekiah found this hard to believe for historical reasons: the pattern of siege warfare meant that because he had resisted even this far, he was slated for execution even if he surrendered. Doubtless he also found Jeremiah's words hard to believe for another reason: he was still far too dependent upon his “friends”—who, Jeremiah insists, would one day be mocked as useless allies who led the king into the mud (38:22).The juxtaposition of chapters 37 and 38 (yesterday's meditation and today's) is no accident. Leadership of God's people can go disastrously wrong at the top, with the underlings being better but too weak or afraid to effect the desperately needed change (Jer. 37). Or leadership may be weak or corrupt throughout the hierarchy, with the top figure too indecisive or too much of a wimp to clean things up. Saddest of all are the Christian institutions where weakness or corruption prevails at both levels. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

We have seen again and again that the flow of the book of Jeremiah is rarely chronological. Here we jump from the reign of Jehoiakim in chapter 36 to Zedekiah (Jer. 37), the puppet monarch installed after the last legitimate king of Judah, Jehoiachin, was transported to Babylon in 597 B.C. The date is 589–588. The two incidents described in this chapter reflect the further degeneration of the leadership and illustrate yet again God's forbearance.(1) The first incident (Jer. 37:1–10) is apparently precipitated by the fact that Pharaoh Hophra of Egypt made a show of marching out to confront the Babylonians and relieve Jerusalem. The report was sufficiently troubling to the Babylonians that they temporarily lifted the siege of Jerusalem and turned to this new threat. Zedekiah sends some emissaries to Jeremiah, asking for his intercession—presumably to make this temporary respite permanent. Jeremiah responds with the words of Jeremiah 37:7–10: the reprieve is temporary, the Babylonians will return, Jerusalem will be destroyed. So do not be deceived into thinking otherwise.(2) During the reprieve, Jeremiah tries to leave the city by the Benjamite gate, apparently with the intention of inspecting his newly acquired property in Anathoth (Jer. 37:11–21; cf. Jer. 32:9). But he is arrested, beaten, and imprisoned under a charge of desertion. The officials do not believe a word the prophet says, so he remains incarcerated in an underground dungeon in the home of the secretary of state. The officials are very different from their predecessors under Jehoiakim (Jer. 26:19; 36:19), who seemed to be open to Jeremiah but who were under the thumb of a stubborn and wicked monarch. Here the officials are contemptuous of Jeremiah and frankly cruel to him, while King Zedekiah, more out of desperation and fear than principle, tries to keep in contact with Jeremiah and finally makes his incarceration less painful.All this suggests that in any hierarchy, including government and church, there are many different ways for things to go wrong. Sometimes there are a lot of weak, indecisive, but not profoundly amoral underlings being manipulated by a wicked leader. Sometimes there is an indecisive leader who is being controlled by a packet of incompetent, unfaithful, evil underlings.Reflect: “Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises. He boasts of the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD. In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God” (Ps. 10:1–4). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

These two chapters Jeremiah 36, 45, provide valuable insights into two realms: the relationship between Jeremiah and Baruch, and how Jeremiah's prophecies came to be written down.(1) Baruch, son of Neriah (Jer. 36:4) and brother of Seraiah, who was a staff officer serving King Zedekiah (Jer. 51:59), first appears in this book in chapter 32, where he serves as a legal witness. It now transpires that Baruch was Zedekiah's amanuensis (his scribe, more or less his secretary).(2) Clearly at some point Baruch thought that being attached to a prophet like Jeremiah would contribute to his advancement. He is deeply disappointed to find things not working out that way (Jer. 45). The import of the messages he has been transcribing sinks into his own soul, and he is terribly depressed. Jeremiah responds in two ways. (a) He rebukes the young man for thinking so narrowly of his own future when the entire nation is going down. That is a rebuke that many in the individualistic West need to hear. (b) He provides him with some assurance: despite the catastrophe about to fall on the city, Baruch will survive.(3) We are not always provided precise information as to how the revelation God gave to particular prophets reached the written form we have in the Bible. Here the information is wonderfully specific. God himself instructs Jeremiah to write the words down, and Jeremiah carefully dictates them to Baruch, who transcribes them. Since this was the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign (Jer. 36:1), it was 605/604 B.C., the year of the Battle of Carchemish when Babylon replaced Egypt as the regional power.(4) It appears that, at least at first, the written form of Jeremiah's prophecies carried more weight with the authorities than the oral form for which Jeremiah was incarcerated (Jer. 36:8–19). Even today a public medium—newspapers, radio, television—is more likely to be believed than mere word of mouth from a friend. The tragedy is that when the king hears the words read to him, he responds with cynical defiance, cutting up the scroll section by section and throwing it into the fire. His action provides an ugly foil to the response of King Josiah when the rediscovered law scroll was read to him (2 Kings 22:11). Worse yet, if what he is destroying really is the scroll of God's words, how utterly stupid to think that God's words can be overthrown and destroyed so easily. Is God's memory so short that he cannot remember what he has said? Can he not raise up human servants who will transcribe the material afresh and even include fresh revelation (Jer. 36:27–32)? So too with all the efforts across history to destroy the Scriptures: is God so impotent that he cannot defend his words and destroy those who mock them? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Psalm 8 is a priceless jewel that celebrates the glory and goodness of God disclosed in creation. With a wonderful brevity, David provides a heady mixture of awe and barely restrained joy. Without overlooking the evil in the world (Ps. 8:2), he focuses on elements of the created order that reflect God's majesty. Even the heavens are inadequate to the task (Ps. 8:1b), yet God has ordained that his praise should be on the lips of children and infants (Ps. 8:2). “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Ps. 8:1, 9); appropriately, the psalm begins and ends with God himself.In large part, the psalm focuses on the place of human beings in this God-constructed, God-centered universe. The central rhetorical question is, “[W]hat is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” Variations of this question carry different overtones, depending on the context. The question may beg for respite (Job 7:17), hide in shame in the face of human sin (Job 25:6), or undermine human arrogance (Ps. 144:3–4). In the context of Psalm 8, the question expresses stunned awe as the psalmist glimpses the surpassing greatness of the universe and reflects on human smallness and massive significance: astonishingly, God is “mindful” of “man,” which means much more than that he “remembers” us (as if Omniscience could forget!). Rather, the word has overtones of compassion, as the parallel line shows: he cares for us. What is glorious is the relationship. Indeed, here is one of these human beings addressing this great and majestic God personally: “that you are mindful … that you care.” One commentator reminds us that the appropriate inference Isaiah draws from the glory of God's ordered heavens is not his remoteness but his “eye for detail” (Isa. 40:26ff.). The universe was not designed to be vast and meaningless, but to be a vast home for God's people (Isa. 45:18; 51:16). Indeed, the vision of Psalm 8 harks back to the creation account (Gen. 1–2). This creature, this small being, this God-blessed human, is designed to serve as God's co-regent over the entire created order of this planet (Ps. 8:6–8).Two further reflections: First, this account of human beings is vastly removed from contemporary visions that picture us as the accidental byproducts of cosmogony, neither significant nor intrinsically good or evil. Second, the Epistle to the Hebrews, reflecting on Psalm 8, recognizes how far short we human beings fall from our purpose in creation, and finds hope in the fact that we see Jesus as the prototypical Man of the consummated order still to come (Heb. 2:5–13). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Both individuals and larger communities sometimes vow, under the pressure of desperation, to reform themselves and devote themselves to pleasing God. When the pressure abates, they rescind their promises and return to their self-centered sin. Their fickleness becomes transparent. The judgment or disaster threatening them does not really teach them the ways of righteousness or instruct them to turn from sin. They simply want relief, and if a vow before the Lord can achieve it, why, then they will vow. But that does not mean they really try to keep their vows.That is the sort of pathetic drama that unfolds in Jeremiah 34. Nebuchadnezzar is at the gates of Jerusalem (Jer. 34:1). Motivated by sheer desperation, King Zedekiah leads the people in a covenant that proclaims freedom for all slaves (Jer. 34:8). The Mosaic covenant had in principle greatly ameliorated slave conditions by limiting servitude to six years (Jer. 34:14; Ex. 21:2; Deut. 15:1, 12). A stream of prophets—Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah—excoriated the covenant people for their callousness, for their mercenary defiance of God's Law, especially in the matter of slavery. And now Zedekiah leads the Jerusalemites in this major reform.From other sources (see meditation for August 9) we know that news reached the armed forces of Babylon to the effect that an Egyptian army was advancing to relieve Jerusalem. So far as we know, this report was untrue. Nevertheless the Babylonian army withdrew to face this new threat from the south. To the citizens of Jerusalem, this must have seemed like almost miraculous relief. Stupidly, sinfully, wickedly, the former slave-owners “changed their minds and took back the slaves they had freed and enslaved them again” (Jer. 34:11). Their real hearts are thus completely exposed.Inevitably, the Babylonian forces discover there is no threat from Egypt, and the siege closes in again. There is no hope of relief this time. Who will believe any of their acts of “repentance” now? God declares, “But now you have turned around and profaned my name; each of you has taken back the male and female slaves you had set free to go where they wished. You have forced them to become your slaves again” (Jer. 34:16). They have not “proclaimed freedom” to their “fellow countrymen” (Jer. 34:17). So the only “freedom” they themselves will experience is the freedom to fall by sword, plague, and famine (Jer. 34:17).What hope is there for people who put on a show of “repentance” calculated to earn some mercy, but who return like a dog to its vomit and like a pig to its muck (2 Pet. 2:20–22)? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

In the vision of restoration provided by Jeremiah 33, the last half of the chapter focuses on the restoration of the Davidic throne and related matters (Jer. 33:14–26). Some observations:(1) Verses 15–16 largely repeat 23:5–6 (see meditation for July 27). The words are described as God's “gracious promise” (Jer. 33:14), i.e., the promise he made to Israel a little earlier through Jeremiah, and to which he again draws attention now that Jeremiah is imprisoned in the courtyard and the doom of the city is not long delayed. The destruction of the city is imminent, the exile of the people all but inevitable—and God wants both Jeremiah and the people to look beyond the impending disasters and contemplate his promises that await sure fulfillment. That is a substantial part of what it means to walk by faith.(2) On the whole, Jeremiah does not disclose as much about the coming of the Messiah as does Isaiah—or, more accurately put, what he discloses is more diffuse and less focused. Nevertheless he depicts the coming one as the good shepherd (Jer. 23:4; 31:10), the righteous Branch (Jer. 23:5; 33:15), and as David the king, the Lord's servant (Jer. 30:9; 33:21, 26).(3) The certainty of God's covenant with David is tied to the certainty of God's covenant with the day and the night (Jer. 33:19–21)—in other words, to the utter reliability of God to maintain his ordered universe. The stability of the Davidic monarchy is not likened to the morning mist that passes away, but to the daily cycle, whose regularity depends on the faithfulness and reliability of a powerful, providential God. Although all that will be seen of the Davidic dynasty for a while will be a poor stump, yet God himself will make “a righteous Branch sprout from David's line” (Jer. 33:15).(4) Slightly more surprising, and certainly rarer among the prophets, is the promise that the Levites will not fail to have a man stand before God and offer the prescribed sacrifices (Jer. 33:18, 21). This may refer to the postexilic years when the temple was rebuilt and the Levitical sacrifices were reconstituted. But this same Jeremiah has also foreseen a new covenant, an announcement that makes the Mosaic covenant obsolete in principle (Heb. 8:13). Indeed, four centuries before Jeremiah, David foresaw the rise of a Melchizedekian priesthood (Ps. 110) that anticipated the end of the Levitical system and a change in the Law (Heb. 7:11–12). From a canonical perspective, perhaps the ultimate typological fulfillment of this passage is in the kingdom of “priests” arising from the work of the great David (1 Pet. 2:5; Rev. 1:6). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

At one level, Psalm 2 can be understood entirely within the framework of the life of a Davidic king—even of David himself. He has conquered the surrounding nations. If they rebel, they are plotting together “against the LORD and against his Anointed One” (Ps. 2:2), i.e., his “messiah,” an expression that can refer to any anointed king of Israel, or to the ultimate Messiah. If they try to throw off the fetters of their obligations to Israel (Ps. 2:3), they must reckon with God: “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them” (Ps. 2:4). He rebukes them in his anger, for he is the One who has installed his King on Zion (Ps. 2:5–6).Now the king himself speaks. He testifies to this same installation, i.e., to his own installation as king, using forms of speech common in the ancient Near East. At the king's installation, he becomes the “son” of the god who extends primary sovereignty over that people. Yahweh himself uses that language: the king of Israel becomes God's “son” at his installation, committed to seeking his “Father's” glory and good, reflecting his character and will (Ps. 2:7). God is so much in control of all nations that the Davidic king need only ask, and God will give him absolute sovereignty over the nations (Ps. 2:8–9). The kings ought therefore to be wise, and warned (Ps. 2:10). “Serve the LORD with fear.… Kiss the Son [i.e., the Davidic king], lest he be angry” (Ps. 2:11–12).But there are at least two elements that warn us against thinking the psalm's meaning is exhausted in one of the ancient Davidic monarchs. First, early in the life of the Davidic dynasty David became a type or model of the ultimate “messiah” from this line, the ultimate “David.” One can easily find explicit references to this figure centuries later (e.g., Isa. 9; Ezek. 34). Typological reasoning might run like this: if the historical King David was God's agent to rule over the nations that surrounded him, how much more will great David's greater Son, the Davidic king par excellence, rule over the nations? Second, there are several hints in the psalm that suggest something more than an early Davidic king. He subdues the “kings of the earth” (Ps. 2:2), which sounds pretty comprehensive (though it could mean “the kings of the land”); this “Son” is promised “the nations” and “the ends of the earth” as his possession—a lot harder to dismiss. The final blessing (Ps. 2:12) sounds vaguely pompous for anyone other than the ultimate Messiah. Each of these expressions can be “explained” (or “explained away”): they might, for instance, be examples of hyperbolic language. But taken together, they do not so much point away from the historic David as point beyond him. Reflect on Acts 4:23–30. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Jeremiah 30–31 interrupts the biographical material on Jeremiah with a group of utterances about the restoration of Israel and Judah. Sometimes both of the kingdoms are named (Jer. 30:3); sometimes both are subsumed under “Jacob” (Jer. 30:7) or “Israel” (Jer. 30:10; 31:1). As in the prophecy of Isaiah, only the context determines whether “Israel” refers to the northern kingdom, already in exile for more than a century, or to all of “Jacob” (or, more precisely, that part that hears and returns to the land). The “incurable” wound and “injury beyond healing” that they have suffered is the result of their sin (Jer. 30:12–14)—an invariable reality this side of the Fall. “ ‘But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,' declares the LORD” (Jer. 30:17). Two high points:(1) Jeremiah 31:15: Rachel, one of the matriarchs, whose tomb was near Ramah about five miles north of Jerusalem (1 Sam. 10:2–3; Josh. 18:25), is here pictured weeping for her “children” who were transported in 722 B.C. (when the northern tribes went into exile) and again in 587 (when what was left of the southern kingdom was transported, Jer. 40:1). Matthew 2:17–18 insists these words are “fulfilled” (typologically) when mothers weep again in the wake of the slaughter of the innocents connected with Jesus' birth. For although the exiles returned to Jerusalem during the Persian period, the most magnificent features surrounding the end of the exile did not begin to unfold until the coming of the Messiah.(2) Jeremiah 31:29ff.: This promise of a new covenant is extraordinarily penetrating. Because of the tribal, representative nature of the old covenant, the people had coined a proverb: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge” (Jer. 31:29). Under the Mosaic covenant, special people—prophets, priests, kings, and a few other individuals—were especially endowed with the Spirit, and had the task of representing the people to God, and God to the people. “Know the Lord,” they exhorted them. And because of this tribal, representative structure, when the leaders fell into sin (“have eaten sour grapes”), the entire nation fell into corruption and suffered destruction (“the children's teeth are set on edge”). But under the new covenant the proverb will no longer apply (Jer. 31:30ff.). All those under the new covenant will know the Lord: God will put his law in their minds and write it on their hearts (Jer. 31:33). There will no longer be mediating teachers, for all will know him (Jer. 31:34); teachers will merely be part of the body, not mediators with an “inside” knowledge of God. And the forgiveness of sins will be absolute (Jer. 31:34).Identify where these themes are picked up in the New Testament. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

More than three thousand people were transported to Babylon (including King Jehoiachin) in the deportation of 597 B.C. (Jer. 52:28). Doubtless many of these people earnestly hoped for a speedy return to Jerusalem. Their longings made them easy prey for “prophets” who kept their hopes alive by promising them the sorts of things they wanted to hear. The prophet Ezekiel, himself an exile, repeatedly denounced these false prophets (as we shall see in the meditations for September). Back home in Jerusalem, Jeremiah heard of these developments and resolved to write a letter (Jer. 29), which was duly hand-delivered (Jer. 29:1–3).This letter begins with an exhortation to settle down, to seek the good of the city where the exiles are located (the largest settlement was close to Nippur, near the Kebar canal). “Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jer. 29:7). This is linked to a warning not to be deceived by the false prophets. Jeremiah then sets out the destiny of three groups:(1) Those already in captivity (Jer. 29:10–14): God plans to restore them to Jerusalem after the seventy years of Babylon's ascendancy. This is bound up with a transformation of heart: “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you … and will bring you back from captivity” (Jer. 29:12–14).(2) Those still in Jerusalem (Jer. 29:15–19): Far from being the means of the salvation of the exiles, they themselves will be punished. They are the “poor figs” (Jer. 29:17; cf. chap. 24). Those who are not destroyed will be scattered into exile themselves (Jer. 29:18). Location near the temple is inadequate protection. Regardless of their location and religious ritual, they will be destroyed, because “they have not listened to my words … words that I sent to them again and again by my servants the prophets” (Jer. 29:19). And then a warning for the recipients of the letter: “ ‘And you exiles have not listened either,' declares the LORD” (Jer. 29:19).(3) The false prophets in Babylon (Jer. 29:20–23): Two are specifically named: Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah. We know nothing more of them than what is written here. They are not to be confused with other Ahabs and Zedekiahs in Scripture. As is commonly the case, their false message about God went hand in hand with immorality in their lives. And God knows; he always knows (Jer. 29:23). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Eventually the clash between Jeremiah and the false prophets becomes concretized in one particular contest—that between Jeremiah and Hananiah (Jer. 28). The issue could not be clearer. Jeremiah insists that unless Judah repents, its capital city Jerusalem will be destroyed, most of its population will perish, and the remainder will be sent into captivity. Hananiah insists that within two years of his utterance, i.e., within two years of 594 B.C. (still seven years before the ultimate destruction took place), there would be a miraculous deliverance from God. The rightful king, Jehoiachin (who had already been in exile for three or four years), would be restored to his throne, and the treasures that had been taken from the temple would be returned. Both prophets speak in the name of the Lord. Whom should the people believe, and why?In this case, there are two useful time markers by which to test things. First, Hananiah stipulates that his prophecy will be fulfilled within two years (Jer. 28:3). When that does not occur, there are still about five years to the final catastrophe—plenty of time for the people to repent. Second, we are told that shortly after the dramatic confrontation between Jeremiah and Hananiah in the temple, the word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah regarding Hananiah's impending death, imposed by God himself: “This very year you are going to die, because you have preached rebellion against the LORD” (Jer. 28:16). Seven months later, Hananiah dies (Jer. 28:17). Should not the entire nation take notice and turn to the Lord?In fact, there is a more dramatic marker for those with eyes to see. Jeremiah insists: “From early times the prophets who preceded you and me have prophesied war, disaster and plague against many countries and great kingdoms. But the prophet who prophesies peace will be recognized as one truly sent by the LORD only if his prediction comes true” (Jer. 28:8–9). This is a remarkable insight. Jeremiah does not deny that a faithful and godly prophet, in a particular historical circumstance, might prophesy peace. But he treats the possibility as so improbable that implicitly he advocates a certain healthy skepticism until the predicted peace has actually come to pass. By contrast, the normal and expected themes of faithful prophets have to do with prophesying “war, disaster and plague against many countries and great kingdoms.” This is not because prophets are a dour and morbid lot. It is because faithful prophets deal with sin and its horrible consequences, and call people to flee from the wrath to come. Jeremiah insists that this lies at the heart of genuinely prophetic ministry. Does it lie at the heart of yours? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

If the prophecy in Jeremiah 27 takes place early in the reign of Zedekiah (Jer. 27:1), there are still years to go before Jeremiah is vindicated. At this point King Jehoiachin and the aristocracy have already been transported to Babylon, leaving behind Zedekiah and a ruling remnant. But far from being warned by these recent setbacks, Zedekiah and the ruling oligarchy want to be heroes and take on the Babylonian might. God instructs Jeremiah to provide both a verbal warning and an object lesson, not only to Zedekiah but also to the emissaries of the surrounding little nations and city-states (Jer. 27:1–3, 12). They are all in the same boat: if they submit to the Babylonian superpower, they will be spared; if they rebel, they will be crushed and destroyed. The God of Israel is sovereign over all the nations; the pagan states would do better listening to him than to all of their own diviners, pagan prophets, and mediums (Jer. 27:9–10). Of course, most listened to their own religious establishment. Nevertheless, after the tragic events unfolded, doubtless some individuals were a little more impressed by the God of Israel than before these events. He was the only one who had gotten the future right.For some years I have been keeping odd essays and books that predict the future. These are written by astrologers, various futurologists, and self-proclaimed prophets. Of course, they do not all work on the same premises. Futurologists tend to project current trends into the future and infer what will take place. The best of them also make some allowances for reactions to current trends. Astrologers and self-proclaimed prophets claim some sort of external perspective. I have been keeping these projections for enough years to know that their track record is not good. Inevitably they get some things right—they make many predictions, and they cannot always be wrong. Nevertheless, picking an essay at random out of my files, I consult what one expert predicted in 1968 regarding the state of religion in Canada in twenty-five years, i.e., 1993. Among his predictions: the Catholic Church will be ordaining women; church attendance in the nation will be down by about 60 percent; a new Billy Graham will appear, “more charismatic, more hypnotic in his sway over the masses, than Graham himself”; the crucial public ethical issue will not be abortion or capital punishment but sterilization of the mentally retarded and brain transplants. And much more of the same. Many of us are familiar with the widely disseminated prophecy that predicted massive revival in the West by a set date (now long past).Brothers and sisters, do not fear them, listen to them, or respect them. Fear and hear the words of the Lord. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Because devout readers think of the biblical writers as heroes of the faith, they sometimes overlook the fact that in their own day many of these writers were despised, treated as outsiders, viewed with contempt. Of course, some who contributed to the canon of Scripture grew rich or famous or both: Solomon comes to mind. Some who were powerful at one point in their life faced extraordinary difficulties and malice at other points: one thinks of David. But many of the prophets were despised; some of them lost their lives. As the Lord Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt. 5:11–12, italics added).Already we have seen that Jeremiah's lot was not a happy one. From here on (Jer. 26), the dismal picture becomes clearer. To his most robust critics, Jeremiah's message, especially his constant insistence that unless the people repented Jerusalem and its temple would be destroyed, sounds perilously close to treason garnished with blasphemy: treason because Jeremiah could be charged with demoralizing the people and therefore making them less able to withstand the Babylonian onslaught; blasphemy because he is saying in effect that God either could not or would not preserve his city and temple. So the officials try to organize a judicial execution.What saves Jeremiah, humanly speaking, is his strong insistence that if they kill him they will bring down severe judgment on their own heads. For “in truth the LORD has sent me to you to speak all these words in your hearing” (Jer. 26:15). Some therefore want to give him the benefit of the doubt; others recall that Micah of Moresheth (the biblical Micah) uttered similar words of denunciation. (The chronology of the prophets makes it probable that some of the oldest people standing before Jeremiah had actually heard Micah.) So Jeremiah is reprieved.Not so his colleague Uriah son of Shemaiah. We know nothing of Uriah except what is recorded in these verses (Jer. 26:20–23). Jeremiah was not the only prophet faithfully proclaiming God's word. When Uriah, like Jeremiah, was threatened with death, unlike Jeremiah he fled to Egypt. At this point Israel was still a vassal state of Egypt, and some sort of mutual extradition treaty pertained. Uriah was hauled back and executed. His flight had convinced his accusers that he really was some kind of traitor. So reflect again on Jesus' words, cited above. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

The prophecy of Jeremiah 25 is dated to the fourth year of Nebuchadnezzar, i.e., 605 B.C., the year when the Babylonians defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish, forcing Judah to switch its allegiance to the new and rising power. By this time Jeremiah has been prophesying for twenty-three years—from the reign of the last good king, Josiah, to this day (Jer. 25:3).The onset of Babylonian supremacy is an appropriate occasion for Jeremiah to reiterate some of his principal themes: a review of the chronic disobedience of the people, a review of the warnings not to follow other gods, the refusal of the people to listen to the words of the Lord (Jer. 25:4–8). But there are several elements in this chapter that either have not been mentioned before or have been given relatively light treatment up to this point.First, in language reminiscent of that found in Isaiah, Nebuchadnezzar is designated God's “servant” (Jer. 25:8). This is a way of saying that it is God himself who will be behind the destruction of Jerusalem, even though the temporal power that is doing the work is Babylon and its king.Second, service to the king of Babylon will endure “seventy years” (Jer. 25:11). There are different ways of calculating the duration of the exile. This one is a rounded-off figure that begins with the ascendancy of Babylon in 609 and runs either to the defeat of Babylon by the Persians (539) or, perhaps, from the first transportation of leaders in 605 to the first return of the Jews to the land under the regime of King Cyrus of Persia (536; cf. 2 Chron. 36:20–23; Zech. 1:12).Third, reminiscent of what God says he will do with the Assyrians after he has used them to chasten the northern kingdom (Isa. 10:5ff.), God here says that he will punish Babylon “for their guilt … and will make it desolate forever” (Jer. 25:12). “I will bring upon that land all the things I have spoken against it, all that are written in this book and prophesied by Jeremiah against all the nations” (Jer. 25:13).Fourth, in the following verses, Jeremiah is required, in a visionary experience, to compel the nations to drink the cup “filled with the wine of [God's] wrath” (Jer. 25:15; compare Rev. 14:10). The God of the Bible is not some mere tribal deity; he holds all the nations to account. Judgment may begin with the covenant community, but it finally embraces all communities without exception. “You will not go unpunished, for I am calling down a sword upon all who live on the earth, declares the LORD Almighty” (Jer. 25:29). And where shall we flee to escape judgment, except to the refuge that he alone provides? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

The vision of the two baskets of figs (Jer. 24), one “very good figs, like those that ripen early” (Jer. 24:2—the early ones ripened in June and were viewed as a delicacy, cf. Isa. 28:4) and the other basket full of figs “so bad they could not be eaten” (Jer. 24:2), is plain enough. The good figs point to the Israelites who have already been sent away into exile in “the land of the Babylonians” (Jer. 24:5). God will watch over them and bring them back. He will give them a heart to know the Lord. “They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart” (Jer. 24:7). By contrast, the poor figs point to Zedekiah and his officials and the remainder of the people in Jerusalem. They will become “a reproach and a byword, an object of ridicule and cursing” (Jer. 24:9). They will not remain in the land. They will be banished, and God will follow them with “sword, famine and plague” (Jer. 24:10).This analogy calls forth two reflections. First, it is a reversal of popular expectation, both in Jerusalem and in the exilic community in Babylon. The Jerusalemites were tempted to think that they were the elite, since they had been spared: God had not sent them into exile. The exiles were the rubbish; those left in the land were the faithful remnant. The exiles were tempted to think the same thing. They did not want to contemplate the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, for then there would be no “home” to go home to. So they tended to idealize the people who were left behind, praying that God would one day restore the exiles to the faithful remnant in Jerusalem. But God here says that the real situation is precisely the reverse. Those left behind in Jerusalem are disgusting and will be destroyed. The good figs are in exile, and God will bring them back to the land. In short, the remnant is in exile. The same theme (without the imagery of the figs) is developed in Babylon by Jeremiah's contemporary, Ezekiel: e.g., Ezekiel 11:14–21.Second, this is such an astounding reversal of popular expectations that it prompts the reader to think of a host of other reversals in the Bible. One thinks of the mighty Egyptian empire against the Israelite slaves; of the rich man and Lazarus; of the beatitudes of Jesus that promise the kingdom to the poor in spirit. Think of as many such reversals as you can, both within the pages of Scripture and in later history. God delights to exalt the humble and to humble the exalted. After all, our Redeemer died on a cross. So why should thoughtful Christians scramble for power and position, instead of for humility and faithfulness? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Much of Jeremiah 23 is a denunciation of the “shepherds” destroying and scattering the sheep of God's pasture (Jer. 23:1; compare Jer. 10 and meditation for July 14). The long section denouncing the lying prophets (Jer. 23:9–40) is one of the most penetrating presentations of the differences between true prophets and false in all of holy Scripture. Its pathos is deepened by the asides of the prophet Jeremiah, asides that not only disclose some element of the true prophet but expose Jeremiah's own heart: “My heart is broken with me; all my bones tremble. I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of the LORD and his holy words” (Jer. 23:9). The blistering condemnation of dreams that are enthusiastically passed around the circles of the prophets, while these same prophets fail to speak God's word faithfully (Jer. 23:25–39), has a contemporary relevance that only the blind could miss.But here I want to focus on the first six verses. In the light of the abysmally immoral and idolatrous kings condemned in the previous chapter, and in the light of the destructive shepherds introduced in this chapter, God presents the ultimate solution. It has three components:(1) God will destroy the destructive shepherds (Jer. 23:2). That is a theme we have seen before, and one that takes up a fair bit of this chapter.(2) More importantly, God himself will gather the remnant of the flock from where they have been scattered, and he will bring them back to their pasture. “I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing” (Jer. 23:4), the Lord declares. In other words, the promise of an end to the exile and a return of the remnant is now cast in the categories of a scattered flock being returned to its pasture. But there is also an element of expectation that transcends the historical end of the exile: the Lord himself will provide a quality of “pastors” (i.e., “shepherds”) who will transcend what the people have experienced in the past.(3) In particular, God “will raise up to David a righteous Branch” (Jer. 23:5). The Davidic line will be little more than a stump, but a new “Branch” will grow out of it, “a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land” (Jer. 23:5). His days will bring safety and salvation for the covenant people of God. “This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness” (Jer. 23:6). Just so: for by him, God will be both just and the One who justifies the ungodly, vindicating them by the life and death of the Branch from David's line (Rom. 3:20–26). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

All serious readers of Jeremiah know that the various oracles are not given in chronological sequence. Sometimes the sequence of the oracles is perplexing; sometimes it is clearly thematic. In Jeremiah 22, we find a series of utterances regarding the final kings of Judah, but the list is not in chronological order. Perhaps the most important thing about these utterances is that collectively they provide a foil for the prospect of a far more fruitful king, introduced in the next chapter.(1) The first nine verses continue the warning to Zedekiah, the plea to return to the covenantal stipulations to ward off imminent disaster.(2) Jeremiah 22:10–12 deals with Shallum, otherwise known as Jehoahaz. He was one of the sons of the last reforming king, Josiah, who was killed at Megiddo in 609 B.C. Shallum reigned a mere three months before he was deposed by Pharaoh Neco (during the final years when Judah was still a vassal of Egypt, before Babylon took over the role of regional superpower in 605: cf. yesterday's comments). Transported to Egypt, Shallum never returned to Israel—the first of the Davidic kings to die in exile.(3) Shallum's older brother Jehoiakim succeeded him (Jer. 22:13–23). Jehoiakim was forced to pay a heavy tax to Egypt, but laid on additional loads for his own glorification. He was oppressive, covetous, greedy, and foolish (cf. 2 Kings 23:35). Worst of all, he reversed all the reforming policies of his father Josiah, and sanctioned pagan rites, even those of the oppressing power, Egypt. His exploitation of workers defied the Mosaic covenant (Lev. 19:13; Deut. 24:14). Jeremiah's denunciation is scathing: “Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar? Did not your father have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him” (Jer. 22:15). The consequence of Jehoiakim's disastrous and evil policies was the destruction of the nation. As for himself, he would die an ignominious death, and his corpse would be taken out with the garbage (Jer. 22:19). “I warned you when you felt secure,” God says, “but you said, ‘I will not listen!' ” (Jer. 22:21).(4) His son Jehoiachin (also called Jeconiah [Jer. 24:1, note] or Coniah [Jer. 37:1, note]) took over in December, 598, when Jehoiakim died. By this time Jerusalem was already under siege. Jehoiachin was a mere lad, eighteen years old. He ruled for three months. Then Jerusalem fell, and he was taken to Babylon, where he lived out the rest of his years—in prison until 561, and then in the Babylonian court. None of his children or his grandchildren would sit on the throne of David (Jer. 22:30). “O land, land, land, hear the word of the LORD!” (Jer. 22:29). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Jerusalem became a vassal to Babylon from 605 B.C. on, after Babylon defeated Egypt at the Battle of Carchemish. Jerusalem revolted and was defeated in 597, when most of the royal family, along with the nobility, the wealthy, and the skilled craftsmen were transported to Egypt, leaving behind Zedekiah as caretaker monarch. Zedekiah was an uncle of the young King Jehoiachin, who was taken into exile. Despite God's strong warnings through Jeremiah that Israel should not rebel again against the Babylonians, the Jerusalem authorities preferred to listen to the false prophets. When Judah rebelled, Babylon's retaliation was implacable. Nebuchadnezzar's troops destroyed Judah and besieged Jerusalem, which was finally destroyed in 587.The prophecy of Jeremiah 21 takes place under Zedekiah, when the Babylonian troops are gathering for the final siege, probably 589 or 588. The Pashhur whom Zedekiah sends to consult Jeremiah is not the Pashhur introduced in 20:1. Massive destruction threatens, just as Jeremiah has been predicting for more than three decades. Desperate, Zedekiah consults with anyone he can, including Jeremiah, hungry for the slenderest thread of hope. Will the Lord perhaps do great miracles again, as he did in the past—at the time of the Exodus, for instance, or when the Assyrians were turned back during the reign of Hezekiah—and spare Jerusalem? God's answer through Jeremiah is in three parts:First, far from sparing the city, God is determined to destroy it (21:3–7). He will fight on the side of the Babylonians. “I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm in anger and fury and great wrath” (21:5). Zedekiah and his entourage will not be spared.Second, it follows that the only wise course is to surrender. Under the well-understood terms of siege warfare, the city that defended itself against a siege could expect no mercy. Those who surrendered might be enslaved or otherwise sent into exile, but at least their lives would be spared. These are the two ways that God sets forth (21:8–10): the way of life and the way of death. This choice is not exactly like other “two ways” choices in Scripture (e.g., Deut. 30:15, 19; Matt. 7:13–14), but it is like them in distinguishing between obedience and disobedience and their respective consequences.Third, like so many of God's promises of judgment, there is a way out—provided there is an immediate return to the social justice and personal righteousness at the heart of the Mosaic covenant (21:11–14). Without swift reformation, however, the little nation is doomed. And tragically, of reformation there is none—not the last time when somber warnings go unheeded. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.