God has had enough of Judah’s disobedience, disrespect, and bad behavior. Through Jeremiah, God has revealed a future that few will survive. Here is how events will play out for the people and their families. 15: 8-9. I will make their widows more numerous than the sand of the sea. At midday I will bring a destroyer against the mothers of their young men; suddenly I will bring down on them anguish and terror. The mother of seven will grow faint

Last Sunday at the end of the service, we sat in the pews for the Postlude, as we always do because we have a wonderful organist. The organ rang with a rather bombastic song, so I looked to see what he was playing. It was the March from Athalia by F. Mendelssohn. Now, any other time in my life I probably would have shrugged my shoulders, said “That’s nice,” then walked back to greet the pastor. Instead, when I got up and walked toward the front, Teresa said, “Where are you

15: 1-2. Then the LORD said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence! Let them go! And if they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ tell them, ‘This is what the LORD says: Those destined for death, to death; those for the sword, to the sword; those for starvation, to starvation; those for captivity, to captivity’. Jeremiah’s sermons and the prophecies given to him directly from t

Judah is in trouble. The lineage of King David is about to be extinguished. God had promised King David that there would always be one of his descendants on the throne (I Kings 8: 25, 9:5; II Chronicles 6: 16, 7:18). If the lone descendant, Joash, is discovered and killed, then this prophecy will be difficult to fulfill. Still, we know that the Kingdom of Judah eventually fell to the Babylonian Empire and the people were taken captive in exile. Those who returned never reco

The English term ‘disinformation’ came into everyday use in the 1980s (though it has a longer history). Its origin seems to be with the KGB who used it to describe government-driven campaigns to spread false reports in order to mislead or confuse the people. The Germans under Hitler tended to use a similar term, ‘propaganda’, which has a more neutral understanding in the long history of the Catholic Church where it means to ‘spread’ or ‘propagate’ the Gospel. Disinformation

This is a complex story about intrigue at the seat of power. We see stories like this in novels and movies, on TV in news and shows, and in real life right before our eyes. Judah’s kings have died, first the husband Athaliah, and then their son. Athaliah was close to power in the northern kingdom of Israel because her parents were King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. They arranged a marriage to Jehoram, King Jehoshaphat’s son, in order to seal an alliance with the Kingdom of Judah.