Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - Jeremiah 30-36, Lamentations Part 1 • Dr. S. Michael Wilcox • Oct. 17 - 23

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I'm Hank Smith and I'm John by the way. We love to learn, we love to laugh, we want to learn and laugh with you. As together we follow him. Hello my friends, welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith, I'm your host, I'm here with my co-hosts who I will describe as Turning my morning into joy. Now, let me explain this John

Starting point is 00:00:33 John you turn my morning into joy because we usually record our podcast in the morning and I sit down I get ready and when I see your face here to record, it turns my morning into joy. Now that's not what the Lord meant here in Jeremiah. Morning is spelled a little different, but I just had to say thank you for turning my mornings into joy. Hank, I've got my improve appearance slider all the way to the right. It's it's taxing my laptop to the max, but the fan is really cooking this morning. Hey, we are in the book of Jeremiah and Lamentations this morning, John. Who is joining us today? Well, I'm so happy to have Dr. Michael Wilcox back again, S. Michael Wilcox, whom we've

Starting point is 00:01:18 had before, and our audience loves Brother Wilcox, and we do too. So a quick introduction. Mike Wilcox received his PhD from the University of Colorado and taught for many years at the Institute of Religion, adjacent to the University of Utah. He's spoken to crowds at Education Week, his host of tours to the Holy Land to China, to church history sites and beyond.

Starting point is 00:01:41 He also served in a variety of callings including Bishop, Counselor and State Presidency. He's written many articles and books, including House of Glory, Sunset, 10 Great Souls I Want to Meet in Heaven, Twice Blessed, Finding Hope. He and his late wife, Larry, are the parents of five children and 14 grandchildren. And I'm reading this introduction out of, I think, this might be your latest book, holding on, and the subtitle is Impulses to Leave and Strategies to Stay. This was published in 2021.

Starting point is 00:02:12 And we're just really glad to have you back and excited to have you help us through Jeremiah. Thank you. Appreciate being here. It's always fun. Can't think of two people I'd rather chat with about scriptures. Oh, that's so nice. Mike, you find yourself doing a lot of tours and traveling.

Starting point is 00:02:31 One of our listeners wanted to go on a tour with you or go traveling with you. How do they look that up? I always travel with a company called Fun for Less Tours. And we go all over the world. How do you want to jump into Jeremiah today, Mike? We're in the second half of Jeremiah and this book, Lamentations. We're not as familiar with it as we have been with the book of Isaiah

Starting point is 00:02:51 that we've been studying for so long. How would you want to approach this? There's a lot to try and cover. Nice thing about Jeremiah, we know a little bit more about his life than we know about the life of Isaiah, but maybe a couple of stories that will give the feel, the thematic power of Jeremiah. Just see this image up in heaven of God's God, four or five men lined up. He's going to call him to be prophets. We know from Jeremiah the first first part you would have talked about that last week. God knew him. So there's Jeremiah,

Starting point is 00:03:26 Ezekiel, Isaiah, Daniel, Lehigh, they're all standing there. And Jeremiah's last in line. And the Lord says to Isaiah, well, I'm going to give you this great gift of poetry. And you're going to write some of the most beautiful prophecies and descriptions of God. People will study you forever. You'll be a little confusing to some of them. And you'll get to work with Hezekiah, one of the great kings and Isaiah says, well, thank you. That's, I appreciate that. And then Lehigh. Well, Lehigh, I'm going to give you a whole new world. Now you'll have to wander in the wilderness for a while. And you're going gonna have a couple of sons that will give you a fits and a broken heart, but I'm gonna give you two other wonderful sons

Starting point is 00:04:09 that'll be prophets, and you'll have a promised land. And Elias says, okay, that's good. Ezekiel, Daniel, you're gonna be carried captive, but Daniel, you'll be in the court. You'll be counselors to kings. You'll have a lovely little time in a lion's pit other than that. Life's going to be pretty good for you and then Jeremiah steps up. And the Lord says, well, now Jeremiah, nobody is going to believe anything you ever say to them.

Starting point is 00:04:42 They're going to persecute you, they're going to drop you in pits, they're going to put you in the stocks. No matter how many times you're right, they're not going to listen to you. And eventually they'll haul you into Egypt and there they'll kill you. So I just feel a little bit bad for Jeremiah assignment wise. He gets a pretty tough assignment. And we learned quite a bit about prophets and the soul of a prophet. When I read Jeremiah, I think about the soul of a prophet. There's a Greek myth that would fit Jeremiah really, really well. And it's the myth of a woman, she's named Cassandra. So Cassandra is the daughter of the King of Troy during the Trojan War. She was loved by the God Apollo. You know, the Greek

Starting point is 00:05:32 gods were always falling low with mortal women. And in order to try and gain favor with her, he gives her the gift of prophecy that she will always be able to see the future and be correct in what she sees in the future. But Cassandra still resists after he's given her the gift, his amorous advances. And so when anger and frustration, Apollo says, well, I can't take the gift back, God's can't take gifts back. But I will add a curse to it. And the curse is that nobody will ever believe any prophecy that you give. So all through Cassandra's life, she's constantly correct in everything as she says, but nobody ever believes her. So it's for instance, when the Greeks

Starting point is 00:06:25 leave the Trojan horse to be pulled into a Troy, it's Cassandra that says, no, this is going to be the end, but of course nobody ever believes her. So in a sense Jeremiah is the Cassandra of the Old Testament. He's right again and again and again. He gives comforting things. He has kind of some major themes. He's a political prophet. He's a major message is certainly towards the latter half of the book of Jeremiah to the court. Don't fight the Babylonians. Submit to the Babylonians. Don't fight them. And you'll be all right. They take

Starting point is 00:07:14 some of the people captive. Ezekiel goes captive. Daniel and Meshach Shadrach and Abendigo go captive into Babylon. But Jeremiah's message is you can't fight the Babylonians, you can't win, trust in God, just submit to them, which is a political message. Not a very popular political message, but that's his message. And since he's a Cassandra, nobody's going to believe him, they will make alliances with the Egyptians hoping that the Egyptians can save them. And as a result of that, they'll be destroyed. The temple will be destroyed. Jeremiah is a very political prophet. Sometimes people don't like religious people fiddling with politics. It can be good and bad. Now a second theme has to

Starting point is 00:08:03 do since they're going to be carried away captive, you have to have hope. Always the Old Testament prophets have hope. They always give hope. There is forgiveness as the lesson title is, the morning will be turned to joy. So the second is that they will return. And that return has a lot of fulfillments. They'll be built back up again. We can talk about three or four different ways that that fulfillment comes in Jeremiah's second major message regarding gathering them back, returning to the land. I used to run cattle when I was a boy and we were branding one time and we used to separate

Starting point is 00:08:46 the calves and the cows from the bulls and the steers after we branded. I had just pushed the calves with their mothers up through a fence, up a little slope, and we'd kept the steers and the bulls and the corral. One of the bulls, anxious that his heron was being taken away from him, broke through the corral and started lumbering up the hill and my uncle, whom I idolized, he was the major male of my life, I had never disobeyed my uncle. We were about a hundred yards away and he started, he yelled at me, head the bull, my head the bull. So I started turning my horse down the hill. Now the smart thing to do would have been just to stay at the gate and not let him get through, but this was my John Wayne hero moment. I'm going to stop this rampaging bull who's lumbering up the hill towards me.

Starting point is 00:09:38 And so I got my horse going about as fast as you could get going down that hill. As I went down I could see my uncle at the bottom of the hill just frantically waving his hands back and forth and yelling, no Mike, no, go back to the gate, no, no, don't come down the hill. And I saw my cousins, there was always a little bit of a one-sided competition between me and my cousins for being real cowboys. And I thought he thought I couldn't do it. And he was sending my cousins because they were getting on their horses to come after the bull. And I was determined to get to that bull first.

Starting point is 00:10:16 So I ignored my uncle for the first time in my life. I disobeyed. And I just got that horse going down that hill as fast as I could with my uncle waving, no, Mike, no, stop. Now, my uncle wasn't worried about me proving that I could stop a bull. But he knew with the sagebrush and the rocks and the slope of the hill that anybody running a horse that fast down that kind of hill was liable to roll the horse. He was worried about my neck and being seriously injured.

Starting point is 00:10:55 But I'm John Wayne smelling sage and the wind blowing my hat off and I'm going down the hill full bore and I did roll the horse. And all of a sudden I couldn't get my my foot out of the stirrup and I am slammed to the ground and the horse rolls over me and slams me to the ground and rolls over me and when stopped the horse was lying on me and I'm sitting there and I can remember out of the corner of my eye seeing my uncle on those bowl legs that he had, running up the hill to pick up the pieces. Because of that, I've gave myself a

Starting point is 00:11:30 little phrase to remind myself and I tried to teach my children and classes. The phrase, old eyes see best. Old eyes see best, experienced. And as young people whose eyesight may not always be as good, we do call prophets seers, they're seers, they see things. And my vision of Jeremiah in one sense, I like him as a Cassandra, he's also at the bottom of the hill waving to the children of Israel. No, don't do this. Don't

Starting point is 00:12:07 re-bell against the Babylonians. Don't trust the Egyptians. Trust God. Don't keep on this destructive path. And it's not just their relying on the Egyptians and rejecting Babylon's a yoke for a while. It's their worshiping false gods and listening to the wrong voices and they're writing down the hill for a fall. So that is one way of looking at some of the thematic elements of what Jeremiah is. And he's the Cassandra of the Old Testament. The people are ignoring him. He's the uncle at the foot of the hill waving, trying to stop disaster. And he doesn't turn away after disaster comes and say, well, you stupid people, I told you so. He will weep, and that's what lamentations is all about. So that's one way of looking at Jeremiah. I'm still wondering what happens to a young man

Starting point is 00:13:06 with a horse on top of him. How did you come out of that event? Well, I was lucky. My cousin, she rolled a horse chasing a calf once, broke her back. So I was very lucky that I ended up with bruises and cuts. It was really sore, but not any permanent damage. I thank him.

Starting point is 00:13:27 It was a great lesson. And it helps him with Jeremiah now. It helps him with all the profits. They're all saying that. But nobody like Jeremiah is waving at the people in terms of turnaround because Jeremiah is going to witness the great disaster. Isaiah sees it in vision, I guess. He's equal. Here's about it and Daniel here about it. There are already in Babylon when the temple is burned

Starting point is 00:13:50 and the city destroyed. But Jeremiah sees it. And so it is probably appropriate that there is a little book attached separate to Jeremiah called Lamentation because they're going to rebuild that temple, and then the Romans will destroy it again. But if there is one thing that really defines the Jewish people in particular, it is the lamenting of the loss of their temple. At the moment of your greatest joy, a marriage, you know, is that very Jewish, this mangly and of sorrow with joy, they crush the glass to remind them that the temple is destroyed. And Jeremiah sees it, he sees it. We'll talk maybe a little later. They put in the Come Follow Me manual, a painting by

Starting point is 00:14:44 put in the Come Follow Me manual, a painting by Rembrandt. He captures something essentially in paint of Jeremiah. So that's one way of feeling Jeremiah and what's going on in Jeremiah. I love telling this story, it's a beautiful story. And it does capture a great element of chapter 31, the main verse that they've taken. It's one of the most important verses of Jeremiah. I will turn their mourning into joy, we'll comfort them, make them rejoice from their sorrow. And you get Jeremiah's sorrow in lamentations.

Starting point is 00:15:28 Jeremiah 31, 25 says, I have satiated the weary soul. I have replenished every sorrowful soul. Now, there is in the Jewish people and you're going to see it in all the prophets. Jeremiah's equal, Daniel, Jose, Hosea, Joel,

Starting point is 00:15:46 Micah, they all have this sense, this spirit of joy, hope, longing, yearning for a time of peace, where everybody will leave him alone. They'll rejoice that longing, hope, sorrow, mingling that probably Jeremiah among all the prophets is the best illustration of that strange combination of emotions that will define Judaism and the Jewish people from Jeremiah onwards, certainly from Rome onward. So I like to ask people, what was the number one song of the 20th century, the most influential song of the 20th century, voted by the National Academy for the Arts and the recording industry, the motion-pisterous screen-gilt, they all vote the same song. It's my favorite song sung by the Tabernacle Choir as the number one most important influential song

Starting point is 00:16:54 in the 20th century. You know, a hundred years, which one do you think got it? I'll give you number two. Number two was White Christmas, K. Irving Berlin, written by a Jewish son of an immigrant. Well, the number one, won the Academy Award for Best Music in 1940. An interesting year was written by a Jewish son of an immigrant family from Eastern Europe, named Isadora Hachberg. Now

Starting point is 00:17:28 nobody's ever heard of Isadour Hachberg. Nobody's even heard of his Americanized name. He Americanized his name to Edgar Harberg and he had a nickname from his youth Yipsel. So everybody called him Yip Harberg. And Yip Harberg was a second generation Jewish immigrant, between 1880 and 1920, two and a half million Jews from Europe, most of the Eastern Europe and Russia came to the United States. He wanted to be a songwriter.

Starting point is 00:18:01 Now he ends up selling appliances, parents are poor, and the depression comes, and he writes the anthem for the great depression. Everybody knows this song, nobody knows Yip Harberg, but everybody knows the song. If I start you, you'll finish it. Buddy, can you spare a dime, okay? That's Yip Harberg. A lot of people feel that song put Franklin Roosevelt in the White House. When 1939 the Jewish immigrants to America, I don't want to get too far off on this because I want to dive into Jeremiah. It's just if I get this song in your mind, it'll help you understand Jeremiah and all the prophets from this point on. And that mingling of hope and longing. The Jews very quickly could see that the motion picture industry was going to be very influential. And they wanted to raise the opportunity for middle-class Americans to have great works of literature. A lot of people can't afford to go to the theater, but television was going to be the

Starting point is 00:19:08 way of bringing edifying powerful entertainment to the American population. And so it's Hollywood is really begun by Jews. Every major Hollywood studio, Universal Paramount Fox, Warner Brothers, MGM, they're all started by Jews. Paramount Fox, Warner Brothers, MGM, they're all started by Jews. And in 1939, again, think of what's going on in Europe in 1939. Louis Mayor, MGM wants to take a children's book and make it into a movie with color for the first time. And what's that children's story? You had mentioned John the Wizard of Oz.

Starting point is 00:19:46 And they asked Yip Harberg, second generation Jewish immigrant, to write the lyrics first. And they decided to write the very first song, Judy Garland is going to sing, and now you know what's the most influential song of the 20th century? Somewhere over the rainbow. what's the most influential song of the 20th century,

Starting point is 00:20:07 somewhere over the rainbow. Now, when we listen to somewhere over the rainbow, we think of Judy Garland, and it was really hard to get that song into it because there's nothing in the Wizard of Oz about over the rainbow or wishing for lands over the rainbow. But Dip Harberg and Harold Arlen fought to keep that song and they took it out several times. Number of reasons. They didn't want Judy Garland and a barnyard singing a song for too long. They wanted to get her out of the barnyard. It wasn't in the book, it wasn't

Starting point is 00:20:41 in the novel. It slowed the beginning of the movie down, so they kept eliminating it in Harburg and Ireland, kept insisting, and finally Louis Mayer was a bit of a sentimentalist, said, we'll leave it in. And the rest is history. It becomes the single most influential song of a hundred years. Everybody knows somewhere over the rainbow. What they don't realize that it is a song

Starting point is 00:21:07 written by two Jewish boys in 1939, 1940, the Academy Award, the Oscar will be given to that song, and what's going on in Europe in 1939 and 1940. So if you think about the lyrics and I'll quote them here to you, you understand a whole new perspective on over the rainbow. If you understand that new perspective, you grasp something of the power of the emotional impact of Jeremiah and all the prophets. And something that all of us have in us, this yearning, longing in our mornings, in our sadness, in our imperfect worlds, whatever they might be for joy and rejoicing and an into those things. And it's just more powerful if you make somewhere over the rainbow, not about a little Kansas girl. What in the world would a little American Kansas girl be singing a song like that for? But a little Jewish boy fresh out of the stettles of Eastern Europe would

Starting point is 00:22:28 understand that song. So here's the lyrics somewhere over the rainbow way up high. There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby somewhere over over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true. Some day I'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me, where troubles melt like lemon drops, away above the chimney tops. That's where you'll find me Somewhere over the rainbow blue birds fly Birds fly over the rainbow Why then a why can't I If happy little blue birds fly beyond the? Oh, why can't I? And there's something in a harbourg

Starting point is 00:23:30 and Arlen-married Jewish yearning and longing that all of us feel in our own ways, but they especially could feel. They bonded Jewish longing and yearning for a better world, a happier world, with American in this case optimism and hope, and that mingling of longing, yearning sorrow with sorrow with the hope that that song catches and that we all love. And hopefully you'll love it more when you know the background behind it and who wrote it and the timing of the writing of it and what's going on when it's being written. That for me and I maybe will share that later why that song in a personal way has such power as it transfers into my life out of Jeremiah chapter 31. So I know that's a long introduction.

Starting point is 00:24:33 I'm sorry, I did too much Cassandra and Uncle Verland waving his arms and Yip Harberg's over the rainbow, but I can't think of any way to grab the power of what Jeremiah means and what all the prophets that spirit, you know, we're gonna be looking at some of the other prophets but especially Jeremiah because he had the greatest cause to mourn. He saw the temple burnt. He saw the nation destroyed. And he could have prevented it had they only listened to him, but they don't listen to him. So those are kind of some of the themes. I like that kind of backdrop of emotion and feelings about it. In the Come Follow Me manual, it begins when the Lord first called Jeremiah to be a prophet. He told him that his mission would be to root out and to pull down. And Jerusalem, there was plenty

Starting point is 00:25:32 of wickedness to root out and pull down. But this was only part of Jeremiah's mission. He was also called to build and to plant. What could be built or planted in the desolate ruins left by Israel's rebellion? Similarly, when sin or adversity have left our lives in ruins, how can we rebuild and plant again? And then it tells us the answer lies in the branch of righteousness, the promised Messiah. So with all of that that you're talking about, there's an answer. Chapter 8 verse 22, is there no balm in Gilead? There was a certain healing oil. Gilead was on the east side of the Jordan River. Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? So Jeremiah

Starting point is 00:26:31 writing the beginning, that's a question I suppose we get asked of all of our own challenges. We do have a physician and there is a ball in Gilead and Jeremiah, his prophecies of the branch, Jeremiah does not speak as much messianically as Isaiah does. Isaiah is the big messianic prophet. But you do have a little moment in it like this and other places. Our major image of understanding the Savior and what He did for us is a lawyer metaphor. The Eastern Orthodox, it is a physician metaphor. In Western Christianity, I can't remember if we did this once before. 10 is broken law and I'm going to be tri before the bar of God and I need a lawyer,

Starting point is 00:27:26 I need a defense attorney, I need somebody to plead for me. And Jesus becomes the advocate with the Father. But Jesus also is the great physician in the orthodorescia and orthodoxy, for instance. It's the physician image of Christ. We are created in the image of God and that image when we sin is marred. We're sick, we're disease, we have a wound and we need the wound to be healed and don't need a lawyer when I'm wounded. Alma says, do you have the image of Christ in grave and in your countenance? That's very Eastern Christianity. And Christ's job is not to plead for the Father or to take the punishment for me. His job is to heal me, to close up the wound, to end the disease.

Starting point is 00:28:18 That's why he heals so many lepers to give that idea. You know, the leper comes to Jesus in Mark 1 and he says, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus moved with compassion, touched him, and said, I will be thou clean. And that's what we all do. We all come to Jesus. I go to him every day and say, Master, if thou wilt, that can't make me clean. And he filled with compassion, touches us all and says, I will. Be thou clean. There is a balm in Gilead, it's mercy, it is forgiveness, it is compassion. And there is a physician there. If my health is not recovered, it's because I've not availed myself of that physician and that healing. If you want to jump to lamentations for a second, you get that

Starting point is 00:29:20 hope and longing sorrow that but always hope. All the prophets always give hope, always hope. So I go to the third chapter of lamentations. Now these are beautiful verses. I wish we looked at them more. I'm going to start in verse 21. He's mourns in chapter one and two of lamentations. And now he says, in his mourning, in his sorrow, in the ruins of Jerusalem, this I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassion's fail not. I mean, some of them are already in Babylon. I got Daniel's eql, the three brothers. They were Shadrach Meshach and Abangu were part of Zedekiah's family. They're safe and we hate to say safe in Babylon, but they're going to come out of Babylon, you know. And he says, we're not all consumed. And some of them stay in the land of Israel.

Starting point is 00:30:28 His compassion failed not. They are new every morning. So I can't tell you how much that's comforting to me that every morning, his mercy and compassion is renewed. Great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul. Therefore, well, I hope in Him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him to the soul that seeketh Him. It is good that a man should both hope.

Starting point is 00:31:04 I love the second part, and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It's every morning, it's renewed, and I just wait for him. I seek him. I hope in him. He has healing. He's the balm of Gilead. He's the physician who will close up my wound and make the image of God that's in my countenance, shine out again. Then I'm going to skip a few

Starting point is 00:31:36 verses, verse 31, for the Lord will not cast off forever. But though he caused grief, sometimes he lets the consequences of our actions fall upon us. Yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies? For he death not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of man, He doesn't want to see us sorrowful. He wants us joyful, but we make decisions that bring unhappy consequences to honest. But he is not. And Jeremiah becomes a wonderful personification of God because Jeremiah, he's never happy and they're downfall. I mean, ever since I told you, so you guys, I told you so. I'm glad this happened to you. He does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. Then I skip again a little bit. What does happen in our lives in verse 39

Starting point is 00:32:46 Wherefore, Doth, a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sins It's the American way to blame somebody else. It is the modern way All these bad things these I'm having trouble now a lot of challenges in our life come because this is life I'm having trouble now. A lot of challenges in our life come because this is life. Life is opposition. It is better for us to pass through sorrow each says that we may learn. We're going to learn from things. We're down here to learn. But we complain about it. And after that beautiful talk in lamentations about mercy and God forgiving and and they're renewed and the multitude of his mercies. And he doesn't want to cause grief. He doesn't afflict willingly, but we do sometimes pay the price of our own decisions. And then we complain about him. Where for death a

Starting point is 00:33:38 living man complain a man for the punishment of his sins. And then Isaiah, Jeremiah gives this counsel instead of complaining, let us search and try our ways and turn again to the Lord. Let's figure out what went wrong and why and change and turn. And I don't need to make excuses and I don't need to complain. I just and I don't need to make excuses and I don't need to complain. I just go to the Lord and he forgives. And then I'd go right across the column in Lamentations to the 58 verse, Jeremiah now prays, Oh Lord, thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul. Thou hast redeemed my life. If I will not complain, I'll search, try my ways, turn, know how merciful he is. Sometimes wait quietly for salvation, hope in him. He will now I do have the image of the pleader, I do have the lawyer image, plead the cause of my soul, he will redeem my life. Jeremiah does have a lot of beautiful things to say and I didn't know if last week you were going to talk about is there a ballman Gilead? I can say it's in spiritual, very beautiful, soft.

Starting point is 00:35:07 So that's kind of part of that spirit, I guess, in the land over the rainbow. There is the dream that I dare to dream that I can be forgiven, that I can be healed of whatever is problem really does come true, really does. Jeremiah is a prophet full of hope and he had a lot of pain in his life. Wow. So you spoke of a physician, metaphor, and a lawyer metaphor, a healer, and an advocate. Those are coming from different, did you say, Eastern Christianity? Is that just, we use them both? Well, we use them both. They're all justified. Different religions have, you know, what I call different connecting places. Different parables that hit them stronger, different miracles that hit them stronger.

Starting point is 00:36:02 You can't explain the redemption of Christ without metaphorical language. You just can't do it. It's as Frederick Farah said, it's wrapped in a mystery and a shroud. We're just not gonna understand it. We have faith in it. We'll believe it. It works. And so we people try to explain it. And one of the ways they explain it, and Jesus himself does it he uses metaphorical language and the Western Christianity gravitated to the lawyer and Protestantism gravitated to the lawyer image. There's a judgment

Starting point is 00:36:38 We break laws. There's a punishment of fix to the law We will be before the bar of God. You see all that legal language. And so I need someone to plead for me. And I get that in lamentations. He says, you've pleaded the causes of my soul. But we also get the physician in Jeremiah is there. And it's one of the most beautiful in all the Old Testament of the healer image of Christ. Is there no balm and gillied? There is a medicine. There is a soothing and balm soothes it. That image of balm, it's a soothing thing. Is there no physician there? There is a physician. Jeremiah will call him the branch capital B because he's an offshoot of David's house. And that image of a family tree in that off of David's house, a branch, you will have

Starting point is 00:37:38 hope in the branch capital B. Yeah. That will come from David. The branch is going to have the balm of Gilead. The branch is going to be filled with mercy. The branch is going to plead the causes of our soul. The branches, mercies are renewed every morning. And so don't lament, tube deeply, Jeremiah says to us, don't stay in a state of sorrow because there's always hope, something, and for the Jewish people, for Israel, and for us, we can apply Jeremiah to the Restoration, there's ways we can apply it. But it's part of the power of Jeremiah. And all the prophets, you're going to get it in all the prophets.

Starting point is 00:38:26 Yeah. There isn't over the rainbow land for all of us. I'm thinking of, used to confuse me as a kid, the book of Mormon saying, what was him that says, all is well and Zion. And we will now see income, come, you say, it's and really sell it in the last verse. And it just used to confuse me as a kid until I could see what you're talking about. There was an all as well. And should we die before our journeys through? There was a eternal perspective. A song was asking us to have we are in the midst of we're burying people every morning on the plains. And we're trying to say all as well because we have the expectation trying to say all as well because we have the expectation of redemption and God and forgiveness and healing. But boy, right now we're really in a hard place and I didn't. It took me

Starting point is 00:39:13 a while to see, oh, I see what the book Mormon is saying. When you're in temporal security, don't go around saying, oh, as well, as well, and Zion. But on the plains, what they were singing was this mixture of deep trials, but there's hope in the midst of all of this. We have to learn to live with a bit of ambiguity and paradox. All of our lives have that mixture. There is sorrow, but there is always the hope. And I mean, sometimes the Lord does say, well, you know, I, he speaks pretty strong in Jeremiah occasionally. But there's that softness, that surfaces again and again and again. If you look at that painting, it's in the Come Follow Me manual, this painting is in the right museum in Amsterdam. Just Google Rembrandt Jeremiah morning over in the original painting. It's not very big.

Starting point is 00:40:15 You can see that that lighting that's coming from the left is from the fires of Jerusalem. So Jerusalem is being burned as Jeremiah sits there and actually in a very good quality copy of that painting on the left hand side, you can actually see in miniature on the left Jerusalem burning and a tiny tiny little figure with his hands over his eyes, which is Zedekaya fleeing, morning also or he's going to have his eyes put out, okay, by the Babylonians. And you look at the face of Jeremiah in that Rembrandt, just had a power of capturing the emotion of scriptural stories. He catches a beautiful painting of Bashir, but when she gets the letter from David saying to come and see me and she knows what's going to happen. Just he does one of Delilah,

Starting point is 00:41:13 just as they're coming in to capture Samson and she has this look on her face of what have I done. Then he does another painting that has a look of exaltation. He just had a power. And I can't think of an artist who captures Jeremiah in paint quite like that painting does. If you get a really good copy and you realize that he is sitting in front of the destruction of Jerusalem. And does he look happy? No, is this And does he look happy? No, is this a I told you so? Is this a you guys should have listened to me? You know the Babylonians when they take over because they know he's been trying to get the Jews not to rebel. They reward him. There's a minute a minute, a little verse we might miss. It's in Jeremiah 40 It's in Jeremiah 40 when they've taken them captive most people, but they've left some. I'm in chapter 39 now 11 and 12.

Starting point is 00:42:18 Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, gave charge concerning Jeremiah to the captain of the guard. Take him, look well to him, do him no harm, but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee. So Jeremiah is in good stead with the Babylonians because he had counsel, don't rebel. So he's not taken into captive. He stays. He's given the choice. You can go where you want. And he's in prison. he chooses to stay with his people. And Rembrandt catches that moment, he's loose. He's out of the prison where he's been held during the siege of Jerusalem. And he is told in chapter 40, verse 4, I loose thee this day from the chains which were upon my hand. If it seemed good unto the come with me into Babylon, Daniel's the hair, Ezekiel's there. I will look well unto thee, but if it seemed ill

Starting point is 00:43:10 under thee to come with me into Babylon, for bear behold, all the land is before thee, whether it seemed good and convenient for the to-go, Thither go. And then this tiny little idea at the bottom of verse 5, so the captain of the guard gave him rituals, food, and a reward and let him go. Now that's the verse that Rembrandt decided to paint. The fire's lighting is face from the

Starting point is 00:43:41 destruction of Jerusalem, Zedekiah, a tiny little figure off in the left with his eyes put out, going into captivity. And can you see in that painting the reward the Babylonians gave him? All that little pile You'll see him. He's got the reward. Does he look happy to have it? No. He is filled with sorrow and you sense that sorrow. And in that Jeremiah becomes, as I say, kind of a personification of God for us. Chapter 13 verse 7, for instance, if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride. And mine eye shall weep sore

Starting point is 00:44:37 and run down with tears because the Lord's flock is carried away captive. Now that's not only the morning of Jeremiah, that is also the morning of God and the Savior. If I go to Jeremiah 17 verse 16, as for me, I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow the I've not given up. He says I'm not going to talk about God anymore. That's it But it was like a fire in the bones. I'm guessing you talked about that last week Verse 16 asked for me. I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow the neither have I desired the woeful day thou knowest. I didn't want this. I'm not happy with my reward from the Babylonians. I'm not glad I'm right. I'm mourn and I weep over you. Sometimes humanity, we're kind of glad. I was well,

Starting point is 00:45:40 you deserve it. Not Jeremiah or God, you go to Lamentations and you get that same thing in Lamentations chapter 1, verse 16, after he talks about the destruction of Jerusalem. Again, in that painting, the fire's lighting lighting Jeremiah's face. Verse 12, is it nothing to you all ye that pass by? Can you see people passing by looking at Jeremiah there in that painting? Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me. sorrow, like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me." Then I jump down a little bit. Again, he talks about what the Lord is allowed to happen to his people.

Starting point is 00:46:31 Verse 16, For these things I weep, mine I, mine I runeth down with water because the comforter, that should relieve my soul is far from me, my children are desolate because the enemy prevails. And that's not just Jeremiah. That's Jeremiah's God. That's kind of how he feels. It's not joyful to be right.

Starting point is 00:47:02 God has no joy in it. Rembrandt captures that. I'm really glad they put that painting in there. Rembrandt's painting really, really captures the spirit of lamentations. And you look at, you see it and you understand, here's my rewards, people are walking by, I'm weeping, they're not going to listen to him, they're going to come to him again and ask him for counsel, he's going to give it, but Easter Sandra,andra, and nobody ever believes him in the latter part of Jeremiah's life. They're going to say later on, you know, they'll be a rebellion. The Babylonians put a man named Gidalia in charge of the residue they've left. Not everybody's taken captive. And a man named Ishmael, a murderers assassinates Gidelea. It's a real political book.

Starting point is 00:48:09 A man named Johanna now comes and chases Ishmael off the throne, but they're all afraid. Now my gosh, we killed the governor, the Babylonians, appointed. Now what do we do? They're going to come and kill us all. Let's go to Jeremiah and ask Jeremiah what we should do. And you'd think, okay, but now they're going to listen to him. Aren't

Starting point is 00:48:30 they going to listen now? But he's Cassandra. He's Uncle Verl and waving his hands down at the bottom of the hill. And they say, what should we do? And he says, stay here. Don't go to Egypt, stay here and you'll be all right. You didn't kill Gidelea, Ishmael killed him. Stay here. And then Jeremiah says, but I know you're not going to listen to me. You asked me for counsel. You're not going to listen to me, which is exactly what happens. These are in the latter chapters of Jeremiah. I mean, I'm not reading them to you, but you can read that story in the latter chapters of Jeremiah. And they come to them and they say, God didn't tell you, tell us not to go to Egypt.

Starting point is 00:49:16 We are going to Egypt and you're coming with us. And so they take him to Egypt and tradition has that he is killed in Egypt. They never learn to listen to him. Even when he's been right so many times. What I appreciate what you've done here is I feel like for so much of my life trying to learn the gospel, I've just heard the phrase, the Babylonian captivity. This sounds like the moment, the most crucial moments of that captivity, where it began. This is where it begins. Yeah. And what we usually think of as a bad thing, and if you are using Babylon as an image of the world, which people do, you are

Starting point is 00:50:02 taking captive. They've been worshiping the gods of the world, so the world takes them captive. That's what happens to you. You worship the gods of the world, you, the world takes you captive, you get lost in the world and you're taking captive. But at the moment of the captivity, the Lord's chosen prophet is telling them, submit to the Babylonians, and it'll be all right to you. Submit to the Babylonians, and they won't destroy your temple. They've taken some captive. Eventually, they'll come back. It's Jeremiah who says in 70 years, they'll come back, but they don't listen. You do have another kind of theme through here. When you look at a single prophet's book or writing or life, sometimes you're looking

Starting point is 00:50:54 for repetition. When you see repetition, that is a little flag waving that this is important. I want you to get it. So let me give you some repetitions about prophets since we're in 30, let's go to Jeremiah 32 verse 33 and then I'll back you up a little bit on this. Jeremiah 32, 33, they have turned unto me the back and not the face, though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not harkened to receive instructions. The idea is that prophets are always ahead of the times. Prophets never go with the times, not because they're

Starting point is 00:51:45 behind the times, there's a lot of people want to think they are, but because they're ahead of the times. They are see it. I speak unto you, rising up early and speaking, but you heard not. Now we go to verse 25 in Jeremiah 7. Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt. Then to this day, I have even sent unto you all my servants, the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. So that's the third time he says it. He goes to chapter 25 of Jeremiah.

Starting point is 00:52:40 I don't want to beat this too much to death, but it's sometimes good to see it. 25, 4, the Lord has sent unto you all His servants, the prophets, rising early and sending them, but she have not harkened nor inclines your ear to hear. So now I go to chapter 26 just a few pages away verse five To harken to the words of my servants the prophets whom I sent unto you both rising up early and sending them But she have not harkened Well, I turn a few pages to chapter 29 now and sending them, but she have not harkened.

Starting point is 00:53:25 Well, I turn a few pages to chapter 29 now, verse 19, they have not harkened to my words, say, at the Lord, which I send unto them by my servants, the prophets, rising up early and sending them, but you would not hear. And then finally, after it's all over, and he's been right about absolutely everything, and they're asking him about going to Egypt, and they're not going to follow. They're going to listen to him this time either, because, like I say, he's Cassandra. And so in 44, Jeremiah 44, they've just accused them. God didn't tell you to tell us not to go to Egypt. Verse 4 chapter 44, how be it? I send unto you all my servants, the prophets,

Starting point is 00:54:18 rising early and sending them saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate. But you see that. It's a powerful theme in Jeremiah. It's a theme that we need to think about in our own lives. You see that, in, for instance, the word a wisdom where the Lord says, I warn you on for warn you. I'm giving you the word a wisdom before alcoholism and drugs and all these problems are going to really be a problem for you.

Starting point is 00:54:46 The 50s was the best time of the last century in 1950. Well, what a lovely time. You know, morally ethically was a great time. That's David O'Macay's prophet. And what's he saying in the 50s constantly? He's talking about the family, the family, the family, the family. And sometimes I think, what do you mean? The family, this is leave it to be ver. Father knows best decade. What is this massive emphasis on the family

Starting point is 00:55:11 that David Olmake is giving? And then what happens in the 60s hit and the 60s, we wipe out American morality pretty much from the ground up. They're always ahead. President Kimball, what's his great message? Lengthen your stride missionary, missionary, his great vision of how the gospel is going to be spread throughout the world. And that's in the 1970s. And then what happens in 1989, the Berlin wall comes down all of a sudden massive areas of the world are ready for the preaching of the gospel. Even COVID for heaven's sakes, we could say, before we had to zoom our classes and what's the great message of President Nelson? It's home-centered church supported now. He gave that before COVID.

Starting point is 00:56:10 He gave that before COVID. And what happened in COVID? Well, in COVID, it's home-centered church-supported. And we could do that with every prophet. We could talk about when the seminary program started in family home evening, and all, they're always rising up early. And they're always rising up early. And they're ahead of the times. So I look at something, if I just picked up the proclamation on the family in light of Jeremiah, given back in President Hinkley's time, it ends with a warning. Yeah. It ends with a warning.

Starting point is 00:56:44 It has all this emphasis on society and marriage and children and the roles. And then in the very last part, with Jeremiah in mind, with Cassandra in mind, with my uncle waving his hands at the bottom of the hill and me running down the hill on my horse Certainly going to roll it They say we warn that individuals who violate covenant subchastity who abuse spouse are offspring or fail to fulfill Family responsibilities will one day stand accountable for God. That's a warning to individuals.

Starting point is 00:57:30 Then they give a societal warning. You can almost say it's a political warning. Jeremiah is a very political prophet. He's in politics. I don't want to talk about politics. It's a great deal, but his message in the latter part is about who to make an alliance with, how to solve a political challenge of his day. That's the big part of his latter part. So further, we warn, I'm back in the proclamation. Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring

Starting point is 00:58:07 upon individuals, communities, and nations, the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets. That's a sobering, sobering thing to read about, and I have to say with the idea of profits rising up early, what is it that they see? We certainly see the family and traditional values attacked a great deal. I just picked this up on the way, I didn't know if we'd get to this, I never know where we're gonna go,

Starting point is 00:58:42 totally. Can I bring a little Confucius in here? So as we've got Yip Harberg, some others will put a little Confucius in here. Confucius is kind of the main prophet of China. And notice what he warns. I mean, this is six centuries before Christ. The ancients who wish to bring order to their states would first regulate their families. And those who wish to regulate their families would first cultivate their own personal lives.

Starting point is 00:59:21 And those who wish to cultivate their own personal lives would rectify their minds, they would control their thinking, and make their intentions sincere. And those who wish to rectify their minds would extend their knowledge. And that's kind of a step-by-step situation. And then he says, only when the personal life is cultivated, the family will be regulated. And when the family is regulated, the state will be in order. And when the state is in order, there will be peace throughout the world. That's a prophetic vision as anybody can get by the greatest sage or thinker in Chinese history.

Starting point is 01:00:11 The state will take care of itself if the family is solid. And so I look at the proclamation of all about family and the emphasis on family in the latter day's St. Church. And my testimony level goes really high. They see something. Please join us for part two of this podcast.

Starting point is 01:00:40 you

Follow Him: A Come, Follow Me Podcast - Jeremiah 30-36, Lamentations Part 1 • Dr. S. Michael Wilcox • Oct. 17 - 23

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