"Egypt, Babylon, and the Palm of God" - The Word of the Lord (page 4 of 12)

The Word of the Lord

Now notice that it was the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah; the Hebrew word for “word” is “dvar”, which is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek word “logos”. As we speak about on the When They Burn the Scroll tape, this is not about “having a word, having a word, having a word”. It is an encounter with Christ in the Old Testament. The same Jesus active in the New Testament is in the Old Testament, and the same Holy Spirit that communicates Him to us in the New Testament communicated Jesus in an Old Testament sense to the prophets of Israel. The Word – it was a Christological encounter. False prophets will always give you “a word”; true prophets will point you to The Word.

Everyone knew now that Jeremiah was right. All the false prophets with the big talk and the big mouths were gone. Nothing they had said came to pass; they were proven wrong. However, in spite of the proof that they were wrong, people still continued to believe them. "The prophets prophesy falsely and My people love it so." (Jer. 5:31) This applies today; we have men such as Michael Brown, Rick Joyner, Benny Hinn, etc. – you know who they are – who prophesy falsely. Yet people will follow these men in an act of direct rebellion, and a time will come when they will reap the consequences of that; the Captivity will take place. It is a remnant – and only a remnant – who do not go into captivity. The remnant, we see in verse seven, was in fact comprised of the poorest of the land.

Do not expect the high and mighty - the mega-churches – do not expect the Christians who are caught up in affluence, who are caught up in doctrines designed to produce material benefit, do not expect the big figures you see on what is erroneously referred to as "Christian" television, to survive; they will not survive. They will go to Babylon. It will be the poorest of the land who survive. However, when this happens, God is taking care of His people, though the king of Babylon never loses sight of his designs. He wants to dominate and rule everything.

This was a time of tremendous famine; there were severe food shortages. The Babylonians imitated the Assyrians in that they made war by siege. They would starve people into submission. The idea of food shortage, or famine, in both the Old and New Testaments, is what the prophet Amos describes as a “famine for the hearing of the Word of God” (Amos 8:11). The physical famine becomes a metaphor for a spiritual famine, but for the faithful remnant, we see in verse 12, there will be great abundance.

The kinds of sermons heard in small, faithful churches every Sunday, the kinds of Bible studies conducted by faithful Christians, are increasingly rare. There are people who would come to these churches or studies from other churches or studies never having heard anything like their teaching before. There are people who have been in the Charismatic movement for 30 years who have never been to a Bible study. It may seem ludicrous to us, but it is true. A few verses out of context and a lot of hype and pop-psychology is the extent of the Bible teaching they have had. They have never even heard exposition of Scripture. In their extrabiblical reading you will find nothing but more pop-psychology and hype-artistry; they have never read any good teaching, such as A. W. Tozer's work.

The faithful, however, though they may be a minority and they may be the poorest of the land, will have an abundance of food. These faithful, in terms of spiritual things, have a lot to eat. They know things about the Antichrist, the Last Days, and other concepts of which most Christians have no idea. The majority is being set up for the Babylonian Captivity and they don't even know it. But the few, the poor, the small, the faithful – they will survive. Knowledge is power; the majority has no food. They have no people who are capable of teaching them.

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