Israel ended up in captivity because they refused to surrender to God’s plans. This refusal led to their seventy-year captivity. It was their stubborn refusal to believe that led them into captivity but it was God’s grace that freed the remnant. Jeremiah 29:10 “This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” It is important to include verse ten when quoting this scripture passage as this is what happened after the remnant came out of captivity. Daniel 9:2 “I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. 3 So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed.”
The church is in captivity for the same reason Israel and Judah ended up in captivity. Disaster came because the church rebelled against God’s word and refused to surrender to God’s plan for the church as laid out in scripture. Disaster came to Judah even though Jeremiah tried to warn them. God told Jeremiah to Jeremiah 18:11 “say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’ 12 But they will reply, ‘It’s no use. We will continue with our own plans; we will all follow the stubbornness of our evil hearts.’” Jeremiah 19:15 “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘Listen! I am going to bring on this city and all the villages around it every disaster I pronounced against them, because they were stiff-necked and would not listen to my words.” They were even warned ahead of time what would happen. God even said to Jeremiah, Jeremiah 36:3 “Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about every disaster I plan to inflict on them, they will each turn from their wicked ways; then I will forgive their wickedness and their sin.” They still did not listen just as the church was warned and like Israel and Judah, the church did not surrender and stubbornly carried on in their own evil ways. As we saw above, God’s plan is to prosper you, but as we just read God’s plan could also destroy you if you rebel against Him. Jeremiah 19:3 “Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Listen! I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. 4 For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods.” God said He does not change, so when the church follows other gospels it is the same as following foreign gods with the same results.
The people absolutely refused to listen to Jeremiah. They called him a liar. They tried to kill him. They threw him in prison, but he had to speak God’s word to the people. Jeremiah 25:3 “For twenty-three years—from the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah until this very day—the word of the Lord has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened. 4 And though the Lord has sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention. 5 They said, “Turn now, each of you, from your evil ways and your evil practices, and you can stay in the land the Lord gave to you and your ancestors for ever and ever. 6 Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them; do not arouse my anger with what your hands have made. Then I will not harm you.” 7 “But you did not listen to me,” declares the Lord, “and you have aroused my anger with what your hands have made, and you have brought harm to yourselves.” 8 Therefore the Lord Almighty says this: “Because you have not listened to my words, 9 I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon,” declares the Lord, “and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. 10 I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. 11 This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 12 “But when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation, the land of the Babylonians, for their guilt,” declares the Lord, “and will make it desolate forever. 13 I will bring on 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. 14 They themselves will be enslaved by many nations and great kings; I will repay them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.” Just like Babylon, the spiritual enemies of the church will pay a price. Revelation 14:8 “A second angel followed and said, “‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great,’ which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.”
Daniel warned us about the abomination that causes desolation as did Jesus and Paul. The church was deceived and did not listen. They carried on with their plans and refused to surrender to God. Like Israel and Judah were destroyed, God allowed satan to decimate the church. 2 Thessalonians 2:4 “He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God. 9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie 12 and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” All this happened because the church was and is too stubborn to turn from their wicked ways. This refusal has brought deception and delusion to the church.
After Jesus rose from the dead, He appeared to them. Mark 16:9 “When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. 11 When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it. 12 Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. (Jesus has said to those two disciples Luke 24:25 “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken!) 13 These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.” Jesus had already told them Luke 18:31 “Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. 32 He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; 33 they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.” Then Jesus appears to the disciples Mark 16:14 Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.” You may think, how is it they could be filled with so much unbelief but those that Jesus appeared to have also appeared to us through the word of God and people still do not believe. Jesus told Thomas who had doubted, John 20:29 “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” The question is, do you believe?
Most in the church don’t actually believe what they read, so in essence they are not believing those who reported that Jesus is alive. Therefore, Jesus is rebuking the church for their stubborn refusal to believe. We must surrender to God’s word and believe. Yes, the foundation of the church is built on the fact that Jesus rose from the dead and is alive. Almost everyone will agree. I say almost because there are the small percentage in the church who falsely say He did not. They really can’t call themselves the church. They are Sad you sees. Acts 23:8 “The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection”) For the rest of the church who does believe in the resurrection, the church sure doesn’t act like it, so really, they might as well not believe in the resurrection. If we believed Jesus rose from the dead, we would believe in the power that raised Him. As Paul said Ephesians 1:18 “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.” If Jesus is alive, the church would believe Matthew 8:16 “When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.” Do you really believe Jesus took up infirmities with all the sick people in the church? The church would also believe John 14:12 “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” Most don’t!
After Jesus rebuked the disciples for their unbelief, Jesus described the power available to all who believe. Mark 16:15 “He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes (not snake-handling churches but Acts 28:5 “Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects.”) with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” 19 After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. 20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.” James 5:14 “Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.” In Luke 24:46 ““This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” At Pentecost the church would be clothed with power from on High at least until they rebelled.
Since then, the church refuses to surrender their plans. Galatians 1:6 “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.” They continue in their refusal to believe. Jeremiah 5:3 “Lord, do not your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain; you crushed them, but they refused correction. They made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.” Revelation 16:9 “They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him. 11 and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done.” Hosea 11:5 “Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent?” Millions have died refusing to turn from their wicked ways. In deceit and delusion, they think the path they chose was the right one, only to find out the dead are there. Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.” Proverbs 16:25 “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.” Proverbs 9:16 “Let all who are simple come to my house!” To those who have no sense she says, 17 “Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!” 18 But little do they know that the dead are there, that her guests are deep in the realm of the dead.”
It doesn’t have to be this way. Don’t be stubborn and refuse to repent. Romans 2:5“But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.” God gave us the option to choose life or death so choose life. Mark 1:14 “Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” The prophet Zechariah said Zechariah 1:2 “The Lord was very angry with your ancestors. 3 Therefore tell the people: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Return to me,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ says the Lord Almighty. 4 Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.’ But they would not listen or pay attention to me, declares the Lord. 5 Where are your ancestors now? And the prophets, do they live forever? 6 But did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your ancestors? “Then they repented and said, ‘The Lord Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as he determined to do.” Ezekiel 18:30 “Therefore, you Israelites (church), I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. 31 Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel (church)? 32 For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent and live!”
