========================================================================
  WIERWILLE, V.P.-THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH
  by Wierwille vp
========================================================================

V.P. Wierwille's exegetical study of the Book of Jeremiah, examining the
prophet's divine call, the meaning of his name, and the prophecies he was
commissioned to deliver.

  Chapters: 4

------------------------------------------------------------------------
  TABLE OF CONTENTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    1. 1 THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE BOOK OFJEREMIAH
    2. 2 PART I
    3. 3 PART II
    4. 4 PART III

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 1: 1 THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE BOOK OFJEREMIAH
========================================================================

THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE BOOK OFJEREMIAH by VICTOR PAUL WIERWILLE This book is in
the public domain. For more teachings by V. P. Wierwille, E. W. Bullinger and
others, go to: www.eternallyblessed.org The Scripture used throughout this study
is quoted from the King James Version unless otherwise noted. Any explanatory
insertions by the author within a Scripture verse are enclosed in brackets [ ].


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 2: 2 PART I
========================================================================

PART I

Jeremiah 1:1: The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were
in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin. The word "words" literally means
"prophecies." They were Jeremiah’s prophecies, his words. It was his vocabulary,
but since he spoke God’s Word they were the prophecies of Jeremiah. The name
"Jeremiah" means "one raised up by Jehovah." He was not raised by Elohim, but by
Jehovah. One raised up by Jehovah and sent forth. You might use the words
"commissioned, ordained." That’s the meaning of the word "Jeremiah," the son of
Hilkiah. Time and time again, the Bible will give you a rundown of their family.
Now here you have "the son of Hilkiah, of the priests"; it puts information in
there for you. So many times for people they’ve just been names that they pass
over quickly, and they wonder why in the world they’re ever in the Bible. It
seems you can hardly pronounce half of them, and why all that trouble? I have no
scripture to prove all of this except my knowledge of the Word and the whole
general pattern of the Word. The Bible says that not all that are Abraham’s
children are Abraham’s children, and yet it says that we are children of
Abraham. Abraham had a child by Hagar, remember? His name was Ishmael. Ishmael
was Abraham’s child, but he was not a believer. He was an unbeliever. The other
child he had by Sarah. That’s the believer. So not everybody that was of Abraham
bloodline-wise was Abraham’s child believing-wise.

Now it says that we who believe are the children of Abraham. In genetics,
biochemistry and other related fields, they’ve done a lot of work. But the one
thing nobody has ever traced, that I know of, anyplace in our times, is what is
there in a bloodline that somehow or other makes it so you are a believer?
What’s in your background? Where did you come from? What genetically is back
there that makes it so that when you heard the Word, you believed it? Someone
else, coming out of the same family with the same mother, the same father,
doesn’t believe. What is it? You see, the Bible says that God knew us before we
were even conceived. So God, being God Almighty, He knew the beginning and the
ending before the beginning ever started. There is, in the genetic field,
something about spiritual awareness and perception and believing, in the genes,
that nobody has ever traced. It’s there. Now I don’t know if they’ll ever be
able to trace it. I don’t know if it’s physical or spiritual. One’s genetic
makeup is an important factor in whether or not a person believes. This is why
this man Hilkiah is named here. Now, there are two Hilkiah’s to be concerned
about here. This Hilkiah of the priests was not of the high priest line through
Aaron and Eleazar. Let me show some of this to you.

I Chronicles 6:3: And the children of Amram; Aaron, and Moses, and Miriam. The
sons also of Aaron; Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. The high priest line
came from Aaron through Eleazar. This high priest line is recorded in the
following verses.

I Chronicles 6:4-13:

Eleazar begat Phinehas, Phinehas begat Abishua, And Abishua begat Bukki, and
Bukki begat Uzzi, And Uzzi begat Zerahiah, and Zerahiah begat Meraioth, Meraioth
begat Amariah, and Amariah begat Ahitub, And Ahitub begat Zadok, and Zadok begat
Ahimaaz, And Ahimaaz begat Azariah, and Azariah begat Johanan, And Johanan begat
Azariah, (he it is that executed the priest’s office in the temple that Solomon
built in Jerusalem:) And Azariah begat Amariah, and Amariah begat Ahitub, And
Ahitub begat Zadok, and Zadok begat Shallum, And Shallum begat Hilkiah, and
Hilkiah begat Azariah.

Verse 13 gives the Hilkiah of the line which came from Aaron through Eleazar.
This was the line God originally set up to be the high priest line. But the
Hilkiah of Jeremiah was of a different line. He was descended from Aaron through
the line of Ithamar.

I Chronicles 24:1-6:

Now these are the divisions of the sons of Aaron. The sons of Aaron; Nadab, and
Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. But Nadab and Abihu died before their father, and
had no children: therefore Eleazar and Ithamar executed the priest’s office. And
David distributed them, both Zadok of the sons of Eleazar, and Ahimelech of the
sons of Ithamar, according to their offices in their service. And there were
more chief men found of the sons of Eleazar than of the sons of Ithamar; and
thus were they divided. Among the sons of Eleazar there were sixteen chief men
of the house of their fathers, and eight among the sons of Ithamar according to
the house of their fathers.

Thus were they divided by lot, one sort with another; for the governors of the
sanctuary, and governors of the house of God, were of the sons of Eleazar, and
of the sons of Ithamar. And Shemaiah the son of Nethaneel the scribe, one of the
Levites, wrote them before the king, and the princes, and Zadok the priest, and
Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, and before the chief of the fathers of the
priests and Levites: one principal household being taken for Eleazar, and one
taken for Ithamar. This Hilkiah, father of Jeremiah, came out of the Ithamar
line by way of Ahimelech and Abiathar. This family of priests settled in
Anathoth (I Kings 2:26). Jeremiah’s father was not the high priest line from
Eleazar. All the priests came out of the tribe of Levites. Some of them,
including Jeremiah’s family, lived in Anathoth, a Levitical city approximately
three miles northeast of Jerusalem. This is where Jeremiah lived. In chapter 11
of Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 11:21:

Therefore thus saith the Lord of the men of Anathoth, that seek thy life,
saying, Prophesy not in the name of the Lord, that thou die not by our hand.

Later on you will find out that Jeremiah moves out of that town and he goes to
Jerusalem and a few other places. Anathoth was in the land of Benjamin, and as
you know Benjamin was one of the two tribes of the southern kingdom of Judah.
Judah and Benjamin made up what is referred to as Judah. The other ten northern
tribes made up what is referred to as Israel, and its capital was Samaria. The
capital for the two tribes of the south was in Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 1:2: To whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of
Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. The words of Jeremiah,
the prophecies of Jeremiah, were the Word of the Lord. The word "Lord" is
Jehovah. Jehovah gave these words to Jeremiah in the days of Josiah who was the
son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign (Jeremiah 1:2).
Look at the documentation. By the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign he had
brought about a great reformation. Let’s put this together with Chronicles.

II Chronicles 34:1:

Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign [so by the thirteenth year of
his reign, he may be twenty years old. Still can’t be too smart, but he’s
smartened up a little since he was eight.], and he reigned in Jerusalem one and
thirty years [31 years]. So it was in the thirteenth year of his reign that
Jeremiah started prophesying. Now you subtract thirteen from thirty-one and you
get the balance of years Josiah was king in Jerusalem. This puts some of the
facts together. verses 2-33: And he did that which was right in the sight of the
Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the
right hand, nor to the left. For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was
yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the
twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the
groves, and the carved images, and the molten images. And they brake down the
altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them,
he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he
brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them
that had sacrificed unto them. And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their
altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. And so did he in the cities of
Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round
about. And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the
graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of
Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.

Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the
house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the
city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord
his God. And when they came to Hilkiah the high priest [now this is a different
high priest, remember?], they delivered the money that was brought into the
house of God, which the Levites that kept the doors had gathered of the hand of
Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and
Benjamin; and they returned to Jerusalem. And they put it in the hand of the
workmen that had the oversight of the house of the Lord, and they gave it to the
workmen that wrought in the house of the Lord, to repair and amend the house:

Even to the artificers and builders gave they it, to buy hewn stone, and timber
for couplings, and to floor the houses which the kings of Judah had destroyed.
And the men did the work faithfully: and the overseers of them were Jahath and
Obadiah, the Levites, of the sons of Merari; and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the
sons of the Kohathites, to set it forward; and other of the Levites, all that
could skill of instruments of musick.

Also they were over the bearers of burdens, and were overseers of all that
wrought the work in any manner of service: and of the Levites there were
scribes, and officers, and porters. And when they brought out the money that was
brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law
of the Lord given by Moses. [They’re cleaning up the place.] And Hilkiah
answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book [the scroll of
the law] of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah delivered the book to
Shaphan. And Shaphan carried the book to the king, and brought the king word
back again, saying, All that was committed to thy servants, they do it. And they
have gathered together the money that was found in the house of the Lord, and
have delivered it into the hand of the overseers, and to the hand of the
workmen.

Then Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me
a book [scroll]. And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass, when
the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes. And the king
commanded Hilkiah, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Abdon the son of Micah,
and Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah a servant of the king’s, saying,

Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in
Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found: for great is the wrath of
the Lord that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word
of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this book. And Hilkiah, and they
that the king had appointed, went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum
the son of Tikvath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelt in
Jerusalem in the college:) and they spake to her to that effect. And she
answered them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Tell ye the man that sent you
to me,

Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place [word of
knowledge, word of wisdom], and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the
curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of
Judah:

Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other [what?] gods,
that they might, provoke me to anger with all the works of their hands;
therefore my wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not be
quenched. And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, so
shall ye say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel concerning the words
which thou hast heard; Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble
thyself before God, when thou heardest his words against this place, and against
the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before me, and didst rend thy
clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the Lord.
Behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy
grave in peace, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon
this place, and upon the inhabitants of the same. So they brought the king word
again. Then the king sent and gathered together all the elders of Judah and
Jerusalem. And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men of
Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and
all the people, great and small: and he read in their ears all the words of the
book [scroll] of the covenant that was found in the house of the Lord. And the
king stood in his place, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the
Lord, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with
all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant which
are written in this book. And he caused all that were present in Jerusalem and
Benjamin to stand to it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the
covenant of God, the God of their fathers. And Josiah took away all the
abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel,
and made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the Lord their
God. And all his days they departed not from following the Lord, the God of
their [what?] fathers.

See the man responsible for ruling? If he didn’t walk for God and didn’t demand
it of the people, it became like laws today in our lands. When the laws are not
properly written or if there are not judges and people to carry out the law of
the land, sin just runs rampant. That’s what happened to the children of Israel.
Well, back to Jeremiah where it is the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign.

Jeremiah 1:3-9:

It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah [There are
two guys you have to watch. The one is "kim"; the other is "chin." Jehoiakim and
Jehoiachin. Two entirely different fellows so don’t get them mixed up when you
read about them.], unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of
Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth
month. Then [in the thirteenth year] the word of the Lord [Jehovah] came unto me
[Jeremiah], saying,

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou earnest forth out
of the womb I sanctified thee [set thee apart], and I ordained thee a prophet
unto the nations. [Even before he was conceived God knew.]

Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. [He said he
didn’t want to talk. He wasn’t fluent in speech. It’s like when Moses said the
same thing and God told him Aaron would be his mouthpiece.] But the Lord said
unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee,
and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces [in
other words, when men stand up to you and yell at you, don’t pay any attention
to them]: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord [Jehovah].

Then the Lord put forth his hand [condescensio; figure of speech], and touched
my [what?] mouth. And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto me, Behold, I have put my
words in thy mouth.

It was God’s Word he spoke, but it was spoken in Jeremiah’s vocabulary. verse
10:

See [and here is the first prophecy], I have this day set thee over the nations
and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to
throw down, to build, and to plant.

Second prophecy, verse 11. verse 11:

Moreover the word of the Lord [Jehovah] came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what
seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. The "rod of an almond
tree." The almond tree is the first to flower or to bloom in the spring. What
God was saying to Jeremiah he understood beautifully. A rod of an almond tree
meant vigilance. A vigilant watchman would carry such a rod for striking people.
Jeremiah was to be the first one that would really stand vigilant, striking as a
watchman. That’s what God was showing him. verse 12:

Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to
perform it.

It’s simply telling him that He’s going to do it very quickly. verse 13: And the
word of the Lord came unto me the second time, saying ["the second time" is the
third prophecy, meaning "again"], What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething
[boiling] pot; and the face thereof is toward the north. The oldest text has the
word "was." King James has "is" in italics. A seething pot. A boiling pot. The
truth is much deeper than that. In order for a pot to boil you have to have a
fire under it. It just doesn’t boil on its own. The face of this boiling pot was
toward the north, and what he was seeing was the fire being blown underneath
from the north. That just made that old pot boil up like crazy. Understand? He
saw the face. The face was that underneath side of the pot which was tilted
toward the north. The fire was right under it. What God was showing him is the
north wind blowing that fire until it was just a raging fire underneath that
boiling pot. It just kept boiling it up. That’s that verse of scripture. verse
14:

Then the Lord said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all
the inhabitants of the land.

Most have never understood the Bible, because they never understood word of
knowledge, word of wisdom. They never see these things. They can read it a
lifetime. It’s just words to them. To us it’s the Word of God. Word of knowledge
and word of wisdom are in here so beautifully. An evil shall break forth. The
word "evil" again is not strong enough. "Catastrophe" would be good, but I think
that if I were to translate it literally, I’d say "destruction." That would
communicate to my mind. Maybe to you the word "catastrophe." It’s not just an
evil, you know: chewing tobacco and spitting up in the wind kind of thing. It’s
not just an evil, but it’s an evil that is like a great catastrophe, a
holocaust. It’s destruction. That communicates to my mind. As we shall see, the
whole temple will be destroyed. That’s what God is showing him. Destruction
shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. verse 15:

For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the
Lord; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the
entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round
about, and against all the cities of Judah.

"The entering of the gates of Jerusalem" is where the king of Judah would sit to
judge. The revelation is that God will bring the families of the kingdoms of the
north, that are going to be hotter than crazy like a great fire. They are going
to sit on the throne where the king of Judah was supposed to sit, because he’s
copped out. God is telling him these other countries are coming and those men,
those kings, are going to sit on your throne and do the judging; "...and against
all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah." They
are going to sit outside of the gate of the city of Jerusalem where the king of
Judah is supposed to sit. Then they are going to sit at all the gates of all the
cities of Judah. This prophecy is fulfilled in Jeremiah 39.

Jeremiah 39:3 and 4: And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat
in the middle gate, even...with all the residue of the princes of the king of
Babylon. And it came to pass, that when Zedekiah the king of Judah saw them, and
all the men of war, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night [and
they were caught the next morning].... That is the fulfillment. Back to chapter
one.

Jeremiah 1:16: And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their
wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and
worshipped the works of their own hands.

God did not forsake them. They forsook God. "And have burned incense unto other
gods and worshipped the works of their own hands." You will find out as you work
the Word of God that most of the things that people think God gets upset about,
don’t bother God very much. But the very things they never give a thought make
God madder than crazy. They burned incense unto other gods and worshipped the
works of their own hands. That was a real insult. verses 17 and 18:

Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I
command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.

For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and
brasen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the
princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the
land.

"Gird up thy loins." God is telling Jeremiah what to do. That doesn’t mean wrap
his mantle around his hips. It means to gird up the loins of the mind. It means
to stay his mind because he’s going to be dealing with a bunch of tough cookies,
a mass of unbelievers. If I were doing a literal translation I’d say,
"Therefore, set your mind and arise and speak unto them all (not two-thirds, not
ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths; all) that I command thee; be not
dismayed at their faces (He told him once and tells him again. You know why?
Because men of God need that information in difficult situations like this and
God has to take care of His man of God by briefing him; talking to him;
informing him.) lest I confound thee before them. For, behold, I have made thee
this day a defenced city."

There are pillars made out of iron that have stood outside for thousands of
years, yet bear no signs of rust. I don’t understand them and have not asked the
right people to get an answer. Now, what kind of iron is it, you metallurgists
and brains in the universities? You figure it out and then we’ll both know. You
can still see some of these iron pillars in India today. They have the Buddhist
scriptures written in them. They have stood there ever since Buddha came on the
scene, and they still haven’t rusted. I don’t know what they put into it. Iron
we have in the United States rusts the first day. "And brasen walls." The oldest
text that I am able to find says a wall of bronze. Bronze is not strong like
iron, but bronze is beautiful, tender. I guess if you have a hammer you can take
bronze and dent it very easily, but iron you can’t. Look at this man of God,
what God says he’s going to do with him. He’ll make him a defenced city with an
iron pillar and a wall of bronze. All true men of God are like that. They’re
like an iron pillar. You know, Craig said the other night that people in the
senses world look upon us as being narrow-minded. We’re not narrow-minded; we’re
just God-minded. That’s "iron pillar." They say, well, you don’t have any love,
you’re very "dogmatic." I guess that’s the word they use in religious circles.
Sure we are. Very simple. Somebody says to me "You’re dogmatic." I say,
"Wonderful. I am. Do you want to go to the bank? You’re dogmatic about your
check." We know what we believe and why we believe it. But on the other hand,
men of God are also like a wall of beautiful bronze: tender and gorgeous.
"Against the whole land, against the kings of Judah." Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and
Zedekiah. Wasn’t that who we read of a little while ago? "Against the priests."
He’d also have to stand against the religious leaders as well as the people of
the land who have been following those false religions, priests, princes and
leaders. verse 19: And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail
against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.

"And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee."
That does not mean they’re not going to throw him to the dogs. It simply means
that the dogs are not going to eat him. Because you will see later on they threw
him down in a well that they used to dump their dung in. The King James says
"mire." They dug these out and put their dung in there; then in the spring of
the year they dipped it out and put it on the land as fertilizer. While normally
such wells were outside of the city limits, they had converted old wells within
the city for this purpose because they were under siege. So they dumped old
Jeremiah in there. He sank into it until the dung was right up to the bottom of
his chin. They left him in there for a period of time to see how he liked it. So
I want you to complain tomorrow about all the obstacles with which you are
confronted. Tell us how much you believed God and had to sacrifice to know a
little of the Word. Yeah. "They shall not prevail against thee; for I am with
thee, saith the Lord" and I’m going to what? "Deliver thee." These are the
prices men of God pay, but so what. It’s worth it. Now the fourth prophecy
begins with chapter 2, verse 1.

Jeremiah 2:1 and 2:

Moreover the word of the Lord [Jehovah] came to me, saying, Go and cry in the
ears of Jerusalem....

"Go and cry in the ears of" what? Jerusalem. You’ve just now changed. The first
chapter was cry unto Judah. Now he gets directly to the city and it mentions
Jerusalem. verse 7: And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit
thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and
made mine heritage an abomination.

"And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the
goodness thereof." These words, "a plentiful country," are "a land of a Carmel"
meaning a "garden land." Now one of the great mountains in the holy land is
called the Mount of Carmel. Why? Because it was beautifully green like a garden
at the top. That’s what the name Carmel means: a garden land, a land of
beautiful gardens.

You see how we read the Word and we work this Word with all of our stayed mind
and all of our ability to get as much out of it. It’s like I was telling Craig
today, no matter how hard I work the Word it always still is elusive to the end
I never know it all. I never quite get to the place that I’m convinced that
there’s no more to learn. But I sure thank God for the little light we do have
and the accuracy of it. That should help you a little bit on chapter one. Now
all the rest of the chapters can be done just as minutely, even more so if we
took more time and had more knowledge of God and His Word, or more ability. We
will continue with Jeremiah in the next section.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 3: 3 PART II
========================================================================

PART II Have you ever been to the Bible lands to Baalbek, the old Roman summer
capital? Many of you recall seeing the pictures of Baalbek in the temple with
the Corinthian pillars which people still use. Sometimes you see the picture of
it on bank calendars in the country. I think it has four of the pillars still
standing with the main stone over the top. When you understand Romans, and
especially chapters 1 and 2 in Romans, and you understand Paul’s ministry to the
Corinthian church, the Book of Jeremiah just sort of all fits together. It’s a
very, very wonderful, yet very down-to-earth and
right-down-to-where-they-were-living truth. The 16th verse of the first chapter
sets the great apostasy of Israel, which will keep coming up. It talks about
burning incense unto gods and worshipping the works of their own hands. We
covered the first two verses of chapter 2 already. The first part told Jeremiah
to go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem. Jerusalem represented the spiritual
seat. That’s where the temple was. You see, from the very beginning I can trace
at least three different wills of God in the Genesis record. There’s what I call
a primary will of God which is really what God wanted. Then there is a secondary
will of God, and finally there’s the third will of God which is basically what
we’ll see coming up in Jeremiah. You see, God never wanted the sacrifices that
they have in the temple in Jerusalem. He didn’t want those sacrifices, but the
people wanted them. They asked for it by their actions, so God went along with
it and then He gave the law on how they were supposed to do the sacrifices. God
is Spirit and God wanted His people to worship Him via spirit and truth all
along, but people didn’t move that way. They wanted sacrifices. So God says,
well, if you’re going to have a sacrifice, this is the way you’re going to do
it. It’s really something. Even to this day, in the Church of the Body, the
greatest thing God ever did, from the day of Pentecost on almost every
denomination wanted some sense-knowledge thing they could hold on to, like water
baptism or counting the rosary. Anything they can see, taste, handle or touch.
It’s really very beautiful when you put the whole Word together. Well, it says,
"Thus saith the Lord; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth." This verse
two is written from God’s point of view.

Jeremiah 2:2:

Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord; I remember
thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest
after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.

There’s a record, where it just literally says God closed His eyes. That means
He knew what Israel was doing, but He refused to see it. He said, "They’re my
kids; I refuse to see it; I’ll just close my eyes." God closed His eyes. It
reminds me of a man in the New Knoxville area. He blew all the money Dad had
made and Dad kept bailing him out all the time. One thing after another and he
turned to my father and he said to him, "Well, if my son gets as much fun out of
spending it as I did out of making it we’d both have a lot of fun." So, I
thought that was sort of a wholesome attitude. Sort of fatherly. This is from
God’s point of view. "Thus saith the Lord; I remember thee, the kindness of thy
youth." That is referring to when they were a young nation coming out of Egypt.
That’s the youth part. "The love of thine espousals," in other words, then you
were real hot on me. You (Israel) liked me very much and when you went after me
in the wilderness (as when they had to hang in there and eat quail or manna), in
a land that was not sown (in other words, a land that did not produce its own).
That was the wilderness. God says, "My mind goes back to when I babied you and
you were my kids. You were espoused to me. You were my wife, my husband. You
were real sweet on me, a real honey with me. I fed you when you could not feed
yourself."

Jeremiah 2:3:

Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the firstfruits of his increase: all that
devour him shall offend; evil, shall come upon them, saith the Lord.

Israel was holiness unto the Lord, Jehovah, and they were the firstfruits of His
increase and all that devour him shall offend. That goes for anybody that really
touches God’s person who’s walking. Here it’s talking about Israel. The word
"offend" literally is "are going to be held guilty." The word "evil" is
"destruction." "Destruction shall come upon them, saith the Lord." This was the
promise. It’s from God’s point of view, what God did. In the Old Testament you
read records where the children of Israel went out and had a big battle. Not one
Israelite died at the edge of a sword. Not one. Oodles of the enemy they chopped
to smithereens. Then when Israel sinned and blew it, they died just like the
enemy or worse. But as long as Israel walked, there was not a sword made to kill
them. As long as they walked in the wilderness, even their clothes didn’t wear
out; their shoes didn’t wear out. You see, God’s fantastic, but everybody lives
so far below par generally. He is still the same God. The Psalmist said, "A
thousand will fall on one side and ten thousand on the other but it’s not going
to come nigh you." How many Christians even believe that? All that devour him,
Israel, shall be held guilty. Destruction shall come upon those people who do
it. Another place in the Old Testament it talks about the man of God being like
the apple of God’s eye. It also says in the Old Testament that God has
engravened us upon the palms of His hands. I suppose that if some of you men
took your shirts off you might have engraving’ on your body. Tattoos, that’s
what an engraving is. I haven’t seen any tattoos in the palms of the hands.
People don’t tattoo there, because the hand is so delicate, so sensitive. You
just couldn’t stand it when they would burn it in there and cut it with the
needle. So you put the tattoo someplace where you have fewer nerve centers to
cause pain. God says you’re like the apple of His eye. Well, poke yourself one.
Hit your eyeball and find out how sensitive it is. In the Old Testament it says
your walls are constantly before God because He has engraven us. He looks at us
like this and we’re constantly before Him and we’re tattooed in the palms of His
hands. Fantastic, beautiful illustration. If you and I are walking for God, we
have God’s protection. We have God’s care and anybody that hurts us is going to
be held guilty, and destruction shall come upon them. In the New Testament when
somebody was really out of alignment and harmony, Paul just gave him up to
Satan. We just don’t think that way anymore because we don’t see God that big.
You can’t see God, you can’t hear Him, can’t smell Him, taste Him or touch Him.
Therefore, even the greatest Christians you usually run into, what you’d think
were real fantastic believing Christians, still don’t really come to the
greatness of walking with the power of God that’s there. verse 4:

Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the
house of Israel.

"Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob." House of Jacob. I love that.
His other name was Israel. Jacob means "sup-planter." One who cheats everybody
he can, as quickly as he can. That’s what the word Jacob means. Jacob, if you’ll
remember, had a wrestling bout one night and God gave him a new name. He called
him Israel, which means "one favored with God." The man changed. Jacob changed
and God gave him a new name. The first church I had in my denomination was St.
Jacob’s. They sure lived it. I often think about that. I’ve always wanted to do
a teaching on what’s in a name. I’ve never done it. The title of it would be
"What’s in a Name," and I’d pick names from the Bible. I might use yours. I know
I’d use Jacob, some of those names, just to show people what’s in a name. I
don’t know how much time families spend today picking names for their children,
but I’d like to say to you if you’re going to have any kids, pick a good name
for them. Give them something to live up to, not live down at. They have an old
cliche in the United States about giving a dog a good name and he’ll live up to
it. Give him a bad name and he’ll go down to it. It’s just as easy to give
someone a wonderful name that means something as it is to give him something
like Jacob. I think many times names are given to children by daddy and mommy
for poor reasons. They maybe had somebody they heard about, they liked the name,
sounds good to them so they give it to him. But the words in the Word are not
here by accident. These are words which the Holy Spirit speaketh and there’s
great learning in them. Jacob’s brother was Esau. As twins Esau was born first
with Jacob coming out grabbing his heel. Then, if you’ll remember, Jacob really
worked a dandy with his father-in-law and his father-in-law worked a dandy on
him. He made him work seven years for a woman and then he had to work another
seven years. Then Jacob got back at him by believing that all the sheep would be
the kind Laban said he could have so Jacob would get all the sheep. Those guys
really lived it up. Here in Jeremiah the house of Jacob is the name of the
nation, because they’re back to flipping out. They’re cheating. "Supplanter" is
the meaning of the word Jacob. That’s what He calls them here. He could have
called them Judah, Israel, or a lot of other things, but the Word calls them
Jacob, because the people are crooked again. Not everyone, but the vast
majority. This statement, "O house of Jacob," is used 20 times in the Book of
Jeremiah. That is significant. verse 5:

Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are
gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?

What iniquity have your fathers found in me? It’s Jehovah’s asking the people
via the prophet. What iniquity? What shortcoming? How have I, as God, mistreated
you that you have gone far from me? You don’t have your love for me; you don’t
have the kindness of thy youth when you went after me in the wilderness. You’ve
gone far from me and walked after vanity. Vanity is the vainness of the human
individual which here equals idols. They walked after idols and are become vain
idolaters. verse 6:

Neither said they, Where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of
Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of
pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that
no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?

They no longer say, "Where is Jehovah? Where’s our wonderful Jehovah who brought
us up out of the land of Egypt? We love Him." They don’t say that anymore. "Who
led us through the wilderness." People, I’ve lived long enough to know that you
can do a thousand good things for somebody, but if you do one bad thing, they
will remember the bad and forget the thousand. Israel was like that. God dug
them out time and again. He took care of them. Then when they got a little
money, so to speak, a little freedom, instead of staying faithful to the true
God, they forgot His greatness. They started worshipping other gods and going
down the drain. verse 7: And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the
fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land,
and made mine heritage an abomination. An "abomination" literally means "stinky,
rotten, putrefied." verse 8: The priests said not, Where is the Lord? and they
that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and
the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit. The
priests said not, "Where is the Lord?" In other words, the priests did not even
look for Jehovah. The nation had gotten so far off that the spiritual leaders
were not looking for the true God, Jehovah. They that handled the law, the Word
of God, "knew me not." The word "pastors" is "shepherds." It refers to the
kings. They were shepherds, they were pastors of the people as were other older
men called elders in the Old Testament. The word "elders" in the Old Testament
is the same word as the word "bishop" is in the New Testament. Only one is
Hebrew and the other is a Greek word. The pastors, shepherds, also transgressed.
The word transgressed is "revolted." They revolted against God and the prophets
prophesied by Baal. Baal is a devil spirit, a big one. I’ll hold on telling you
more, because I’m going to tell you a lot about Baal after a bit. They
prophesied by Baal and "walked after things that do not profit." Those words
mean they walked after that which led them to ruin. That’s the text. What you
follow is where you’re going to end up at, right? You follow Castle Road, you
get someplace where Castle Road goes. They walked after Baal, so they ended up
in ruin. verse 9:

Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the Lord, and with your children’s
children will I plead.

"Wherefore I will yet plead with you; I beg you: I implore you. I cry my eyes
out for you," saith the Lord. And I’ll do this with your "son’s sons" is the
correct translation. verse 10: For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and
send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing.

Chittim literally is the island Cypress. Chittim is the name for Cypress, but
He’s talking about passing over the "isles," plural, which Cypress represented.
The maritime countries are what He’s talking about. Shem was the second son of
Noah. He was not the oldest. It says so in the Word. Japheth is the oldest, then
comes Shem, and then comes Ham. Shem is spelled "She" and later on they dropped
the "h," spelled it "se" and that’s where the Semites are from. Semitic people
are shemites. Chittim was out of Japheth; he was Japheth’s grandson. Genesis
10:4 says so.

Genesis 10:2-4: The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and
Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and
Togarmah. And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.

Here Chittim is spelled with a "K" instead of a "Ch."

It refers to Cypress which stands for those maritime countries. So God is
saying, "You pass over the maritime countries to the north and send unto Kedar,
which is in Arabia, to the south and consider diligently and see if there is
such a thing. See if there’s anybody left that really believes. What He’s saying
is, "Look, go all the way up north, come all the way down south, look at all the
people; anybody around believing? NO."

Jeremiah 2:11:

Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have
changed their glory for that which doth not profit.

"Hath a nation changed their gods? Which are yet not gods, but they worship them
as gods. But my people have changed their glory." There are some thirty places
that Ginsberg listed in the Massorah where they deliberately changed a word in
scripture. The Massorah gives it to you. They deliberately changed the word in
scripture marking the change in the fence around the outside of the text.
Instead of "their glory" it should read "my glory." It was God’s glory they had
turned away from. They didn’t want God to be disgraced. That’s why here they
changed "my" to "their." They didn’t want God to be associated with this
degradation so they put "their" there. In other words, the glory that belonged
to God and God’s glory that they had, they changed for that which doth not
profit. verse 12: Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid,
be ye very desolate, saith the Lord. Be astonished, exclamation point, O ye
heavens at this and be horribly afraid. Shook up. Be ye very desolate. The root
word means "dried up." In my mind, I get the picture of 3 years and 6 months
with no rain. That’s dry. Not even dew. That’s desolate. The picture in my mind
is the wind blowing and the dust just flying all over the place. Nothing
growing, not even cactus. Then the great 13th verse you use in the Foundational
Class, I believe. verse 13: For my people have committed two evils; they have
forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken
cisterns, that can hold no water. For my people, God’s people, have committed
two evils, they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters. Then secondly,
as I teach in the Foundational Class, whenever man moves away from the true God,
he always hews himself out his own religious systems, and they’re cisterns.
They’ll always be broken cisterns, no matter how beautiful they look to the
senses man on the outside. They have cracks in them, and they will not hold the
truth of God or the truth of His Word. verse 14: Is Israel a servant? is he a
homeborn slave? why is he spoiled?

"Is Israel a servant? A slave born in other people’s homes? Why is he become a
spoil?" That’s the text.

Israel was never to be a servant to other nations. The Assyrians and the
Babylonians were never to come in and capture Israel and make the men their
slaves, the women their women. That wasn’t God’s plan at all. He never meant for
an Israelite to be born in an unbeliever’s home to be the slave in that home.
Israel was meant to be a servant to God, a slave to God. In our day and time
we’re to be slaves for the Lord Jesus Christ. The epistles tell us this. We have
the mark of Christ upon us. We are douloses for him, slaves for Jesus Christ and
the true God. We are not to be slaves to other fellowmen. Why then is he become
a spoil? You know what a spoil is. It’s what the enemy that captures you takes
from the army. The army comes in and captures the land and they get the spoils,
which means they take everything that’s there. Isaiah had said they’ll take your
women to be confectioneries, cooks and that kind of thing. verse 15: The young
lions roared upon him, and yelled, and they made his land waste: his cities are
burned without inhabitant.

"The young lions roared upon him, and yelled." What are the young lions?
Countries like Babylon, Egypt and others. These were the younger countries.
Maybe not younger historically as far as time, but younger in development. They
attacked like young lions. They roared and yelled. Do you know why the lion
roars? It is to freeze the prey. The lion never jumps its prey until it freezes
it. And he does it by "HEH!" Only worse. That’s why it says in here, "the young
lions roared." They scared the living daylights out of the children of Israel by
their roar. Froze them. Then they could jump them and eat them as their prey.
Then they made his land waste. The cities are burned that there are no
inhabitants left. They did one of two things. They either killed them all, or
they transported them, took them out of one location and moved them to another.
If women were pregnant with babies, they ripped them up. Because if they’re
going to let them have babies, then they’re going to get pregnant by their
captors. So they wouldn’t have any. And the older men, who couldn’t work, they
chopped their heads off, too. That was the lenient side. Sometimes they would
come in and kill the whole city, men, women, children, the whole bunch. Cities
burned, you understand, without inhabitants. Nobody would be left. verse 16:

Also the children of Noph and Tahapanes have broken the crown of thy head.

"Also the children of Noph." Noph is Memphis, the southern capital of Egypt. I
have never been there. I’ve seen the pictures, I’ve read about it, but every
time I’ve been in Egypt I’ve been stupid and never took the time to go south. I
someday ought to. But Memphis is the southern capital. The northern one is
Tahapanes. The children of Egypt in the capital in the south and the capital in
the north have broken the crown of thy head. In other words, Egypt just socked
it to them. Egypt took you captive, Egypt outwitted you. Tahapanes has been
discovered archaeologically, and it really shut the mouths of the higher critics
and the unbelievers, because of what it says in other places in Deuteronomy and
the Old Testament about this particular place. The critics always said it
couldn’t have been there. Well, they have found it, archaeologically, and it is
exactly what the Old Testament said. It was a very, very exclusive place.
Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses. Right? She brought him into the palace. Then she
got a Hebrew woman to nurse it, and the Hebrew woman was Moses’ mother. This is
in secular history I read this, not in the Word. But one of the Pharoahs got
real sweet on a Hebrew gal. The name of this palace at Tahapanes is "the palace
of a Hebrew daughter." That’s the name. It was one of the British archaeologists
who uncovered this in northern Egypt. "The crown of thy head" means they beat
him. verse 17:

Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the Lord
thy God, when he led thee by the way? The reason they got it laid on them by
Egypt is because they had forsaken the Lord, who had led them out of captivity
into that green territory, that land flowing with milk and honey. verse 18: And
now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? or
what hast thou to do in the way of Assyria, to drink the waters of the river?

"What hast thou to do in the way of Egypt?" Drink the waters of Sihor, and Sihor
is the Nile. "What hast thou to do in the way of Assyria?" You drink the waters
of the river, and that specifically refers to the Euphrates. In the Mesopotamia
area, there are two great rivers. One is the Euphrates, one is the Tigris. In
between these two great rivers, the Euphrates over to the west and the Tigris to
the east, lived God’s people long before Jacob. They spoke the language of the
area which was Aramaic. The characters in which the Aramaic was written were
Estrangelo. When they crossed over the Euphrates to the west, they brought with
them their language. Suppose we who speak English today go to Russia tomorrow.
Do we bring our language along? Sure. They did too. When they crossed over the
Euphrates to go to Palestine, they were called Hebrews. The word Hebrew does not
come from the word Heber, one of the sons mentioned in the Old Testament. Heber
comes from the fact that he was born at the time or shortly after they crossed
over. The word Hebrew means "cross-over." They crossed over the Euphrates. The
Aramaic word for crossing over is habor. That’s where they got the name Hebrews.
And for many, many years, of course, they carried Estrangelo Aramaic. Aramaic is
the language. Estrangelo is the type of script in which it was written. Then as
they got mixed up with the Assyrians and others, there were other words
introduced into their language, and they began writing a different type of
script. The script changed and the old square characters came into existence,
which is called old Hebrew. Then of course, many, many years later, the
Estrangelo characters of script were slightly changed in Aramaic. As a result we
have extant what we know as the Jacobite script of Aramaic, the Nestorian script
of Aramaic, and Estrangelo. The great scholars of the world can read Jacobite
and Nestorian. Most cannot handle Estrangelo. There is a great library in
England, one of the greats. It is John Rylands at Manchester. I was in the
archives there one year looking at some manuscripts in Estrangelo Aramaic. They
still had not yet cataloged it. Nobody could read it. So we went down to look at
it. I could read it. They had never had a man that could read it. They had these
books stacked in a real sloppy manner. You don’t stack good books like that. You
should stack them carefully, catalog them, and then put a bloodhound on them and
a shotgun next to them so nobody steals them. They had them stacked like this.
Some they had tilted over in the corner. They had a great collection of
Estrangelo Aramaic. The following year, I was at Duke University in North
Carolina, and I met with a man by the name of Charlesworth, who is head of the
Old Testament theological work at Duke. I had heard that he was a fine Hebrew
scholar, and that was one reason I wanted to meet him. We talked about Aramaic.
I told him about our research and our interest in Estrangelo Aramaic. It was new
to him. He knew Jacobite. He knew Nestorian. But he did not know Estrangelo.
Shortly after I left he got very, very interested in Estrangelo, and the last
three or four years, in the summer, he has been at John Rylands and has
cataloged all the Aramaic work that is at John Rylands. They have changed
curators since the time he and I were there. Not long ago somebody took me to
the library there again. I went over and asked the curator if I could go down
and see the Aramaic stuff, and he said no. I wasn’t in the mood to argue with
him, so I never went down to see what Dr. Charlesworth did and how it was
cataloged. You know, he’d go down and get me a book, but that’s an insult to me.
I just got mad and didn’t pursue it. I just didn’t go down. He didn’t know that
I’m the man that got it cataloged for him. I didn’t tell him who I was or what I
did, so he doesn’t know that I’m the fellow that influenced Charlesworth, so
that he came over and cataloged it all for him. But that’s life. I suppose I
could have spent a half hour pulling out all my credentials and telling him how
I influenced Charlesworth to catalog it. But there wasn’t much sense in it. By
the way, we do have at The Way International perhaps the best in the world today
in Aramaic. We are working on an analytical concordance in Aramaic, which will
be the first one that’s ever been done in Estrangelo. We are putting all of this
on computer. We have developed and produced an Aramaic typing ball for the IBM
selectric typewriters. We had it made. We produced it, we laid out the letters,
we drew them, we had them drawn, and we had them put on the ball. So at least
one place we got on the ball. Dr. Charlesworth found out that we had one. He
called long distance, I think to Bo Reahard, and asked Bo if we had it. Bo said
yes; he said, "Well, what do you want for one?" Bo said $500. The next day there
was a check in the mail for that ball of $500. I think we’ve got something like
$4,000 invested in the ball. But if we sell 20 of those for $500, we’ll have
$10,000 back. And I expect to get that back. They have to buy it, because we
hold the copyrights on it. We own the thing. So if they want to buy one, they
have to get it through The Way Ministry.

Greek was not the language in which the New Testament was originally written.
Every academic institution and most scholars (including Manchester’s F. F.
Bruce, Metzger in Princeton, Aland in Germany) teach that it was. That’s what
they were taught. That’s why they believed it. They are all Protestant teachers
too. They were taught that the original texts were in Greek. All three of them
should know better today, because we made them sit up and pay attention. If the
New Testament was in Greek and they translated the New Testament into English,
then the words they did not translate in the King James should be in Greek.
They’re not; they’re in Aramaic. The words talitha cumi are not translated.
They’re Aramaic words. Eli, Eli, lamana sabachthani are not Greek words. They’re
Aramaic words, left untranslated to this day! Boy, God sure did us a favor.
Greek was a translation from Estrangelo Aramaic. Greek was very beautifully
done, fantastically done. Some of those men who translated into Greek were
absolutely men filled with the holy spirit, and men who called upon God for
revelation when they needed it. Some very, very great fine work in Greek. That’s
why I believe if you’re going to do research in depth, you must not only know
Estrangelo Aramaic, you have to be able to handle Jacobite script and Nestorian
script, as well as Hebrew and Greek. Latin, forget it. You know, as far as
research in the Word is concerned, Latin came out of Rome. The Roman Catholic
boys had little accuracy. But the other languages I’ve given you are excellent
for research. Arabic would not be bad to know, because there’s such a close
resemblance between many words in Arabic with words in Estrangelo, Nestorian and
Jacobite. Do you know why they came up with Nestorian script? Because, for
example, you are Christians in Manchester, you are Christians in Bristol. You
are both Christians, but in order to show that you are Manchester Christians you
put a little different type of curve on a word, for instance, than they do.
That’s how they told where they came from, language-wise. You still do the same
in the United States. English in Boston is different than English in Minnesota.
In Minnesota it is English much like I talk, but in Boston it’s Boston English.
I have as much trouble understanding the Bostonians as I do the English English.
I said the other day that I wouldn’t mind riding on that boat that keeps running
around the river over here. It must be a tourist boat. I said I’d do it just so
long as you give me an Englishman that I can understand. It took us three weeks
to figure out why Mr. Hooley in the army was in the pie office. And one day I
figured out that meant pay office. When I finally figured out the pie office was
the pay office, I finally figured out where he worked. It’s good to understand.
Well, that’s a little background on Estrangelo Aramaic and other Biblical
languages. In our next section we will continue with Jeremiah 2.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 4: 4 PART III
========================================================================

PART III

We are now ready for Jeremiah 2:19. Before this chapter is over with, it’s
really going to blow your mind. You will see how far people walk away from God,
yet how religious they are, how sincere and how many statues they have.

Jeremiah 2:19:

Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove
thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast
forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God
of hosts. The word "backsliding," of course, you learned in the Foundational
Class. As servants, you could do that; as sons you can’t. Here He’s speaking to
Israel and the wickedness was that they had forsaken God. God did not forsake
them. They forsook Him, and that is always the road down. "The Lord God of
hosts." This particular usage is used six times in Jeremiah. The word "Lord" is
Jehovah, "God" is Adoni and "hosts" is sabaoth. Six different times it’s used
and the number six should speak loudly to anybody who works the Word. You have
to check its usage each place in its context and see the greatness of it. verses
20-22: For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou
saidst, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green
tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot.

Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou
turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me? For though thou wash
thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before
me, saith the Lord God. For of old time, all these many years, God says, "I’ve
broken the yoke that you had on your neck and I’ve burst your bands." The bands
were like handcuffs. To "not transgress" here literally means I will not serve
other gods. A "noble" vine is a "choice" vine. How then are thou turned into the
degenerate plant of a degenerate vine? A "strange" vine is "degenerate." Nitre
is soap that has a lot of cleansing power in it. "And though thou take thee much
soap." You just wash and wash and wash. Yet thy iniquity is marked before thee,
saith the Lord God. You can do the outside of the body, but that won’t clean it
up on the inside. No matter how strong a soap you use, it just can’t penetrate
deep enough. Put all of this together and these verses really set the wickedness
of their idolatry.

I’m thinking of the record in Matthew 15, where God says they worshipped Him in
vain. Think of Malachi, where they had brought all second-rate offerings and yet
they said, "Lord, we don’t know what we’ve done wrong." They always look good on
the outside.

People always go through the machinery. They bow at the right time. They count
their beads at the right time. They go to pray at the right time. They do
everything right except the one great thing: an inside job. Their hearts are
rotten.

They put on the outside to make it look good, but inside they’re, as Jesus said,
dead people, stinking. They wash the outside of the platter. "Every high hill"
in verse 20 means that every little hill that you could look at, they put a
statue on. "Under every green tree thou wanderest," they set up statues. "Yet
thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God." verse 23:

How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see thy way
in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift dromedary traversing
her ways.

"How canst thou say, I am not polluted." God is telling them they are so
polluted and yet they say they’re not polluted. You say I’m not going after
Baalim. Look at what you’ve done. You’re like a swift dromedary traversing,
entangled in her ways. Look at what else verse 24 compares them to. verses
24-27: A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind at her
pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not
weary themselves; in her month they shall find her.

Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst: but thou
saidst, There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I
go. As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed;
they, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets,

Saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me
forth: for they have turned their back unto me, and not their face: but in the
time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us. Their kings, their
princes, their priests, and their prophets were speaking to a stock, an idol. Of
course this word here is again in the feminine gender, which you don’t see in
English. This makes it agree with the previous statement of "loved strangers and
after them" in verse 25. Those words are all feminine, because the goddess that
they were worshipping here is called Asherah. This word Asherah comes from the
word Asher, which means erect. Every time, by the way, in the King James when
it’s translated "grove" or "groves," it is the word Asherah. See they said in
verse 27 to Asherah, "Thou art my father; and to a stone...." All of these gods
were either made out of wood or stone; and they’re idols. And they said to these
gods, "Thou hast brought me forth." But you and I know it was the true God who
brought them forth, out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. For
they have turned their back upon, or unto me, the true God; they turned their
back to me and not their face. They didn’t stay looking at my face. But, in the
time of trouble, they’ll yell at me again and say, "Oh, God, arise and save us."
verses 28-33: But where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise,
if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: for according to the number of
thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.

Wherefore will ye plead with me? ye all have transgressed against me, saith the
Lord. In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction: your
own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

O generation, see ye the word of the Lord. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel?
a land of darkness? wherefore say my people, We are lords; we will come no more
unto thee? Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people
have forgotten me days without number.

Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love? therefore hast thou also taught the
wicked ones thy ways.

"But, when that time comes, where are those idols, those gods, that you made?
Let them get up, save thee in the time of trouble. For according to the number
of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah." They had gods every place. They were
surrounded with religion like we are at every street corner today. But no truth.
A lot of idols were in every city. "Wherefore will ye plead with me," God says.
"What do you want to come back to me for; try the gods that you said were so
terrific. You’ve all transgressed against me," saith the Lord. "In vain have I
smitten your children." In other words they walked away from God, and God had to
take his hand off. Therefore we see the Oriental way of saying it, "I have
smitten your children." They didn’t learn anything in that correction. "Your own
sword devoured your prophets, your men of God, like a destroying lion." "O
chosen but now perverse generation" is the text. "See ye the word of the Lord.
Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? Is that how I treated Israel? A land of
darkness? Then why do my people now brag and say, ’We are lords, we’ll come no
more unto thee, the true God.’ Can a maid forget her ten pieces of silver? Her
ornaments?" Ten pieces of silver or the silver cord placed around her neck by
her husband. "Yet my people have forgotten me day after day after day after
day." Sounds like this was written this morning. verses 34-37:

Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents: I have
not found it by secret search, but upon all these.

Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me.
Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest, I have not sinned. Why
gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? thou also shalt be ashamed of
Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria.

Yea, thou shalt go forth from him, and thine hands upon thine head: for the Lord
hath rejected thy confidences, and thou shalt not prosper in them.

"Also, in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the helpless and
innocent." What they were doing is like what happens in every culture; the older
people were leading the younger people and the children into the worship of the
same idols and the same destruction. That’s why your skirts is the evidence. It
is in your skirts meaning it’s evident in your walk. It’s evidenced. I’ve not
found it by secret search, but upon these, your skirts, it is evidenced. Yet
thou sayest, "Oh, I’m innocent, surely his anger will turn from me." "Behold, I
the true God will judge thee, because thou sayest I have not sinned." Imagine
that. Here they were sinning like crazy, but in their minds they were convinced
they weren’t sinning. We’ve been just like that in our culture. We’ve been so
far off God and His Word and yet we say, "Oh, we’re God’s people, we’re walking
for God, we go to church, we do this." A bunch of junk! It’s just as far off.
"Why gaddest thou about?" You know what it means to gad about? They were running
from idol to idol to idol, that’s the gadding about. "Why gaddest thou from idol
to idol? Thou shalt be ashamed, by Egypt, as well as by Assyria. Yea, thou shalt
go forth from Egypt and thine hands upon thine head." "Hands upon your head" is
like when you arrest somebody, you make him put his hands on top of his head or
behind his back. It means you’re under arrest. You haven’t got anything to pull
out of your pocket to use on anybody else. You can’t kill anybody. You are all
done in. "For the Lord hath rejected thy confidences and thou shalt not prosper
in them."

Deuteronomy 16:21 and 22:

Thou shalt not plant thee a grove of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord
thy God, which thou shalt make thee.

Neither shalt thou set thee up any image; which the Lord thy God hateth. The
word "grove" there, again, is Asherah. God had told his people, very plainly,
they were not to set up any idols. Specifically this idol of Asherah was not to
be set up and very especially, they weren’t to pay any attention to it. It was
never to be near to the altar of the Lord thy God. In Jeremiah as you will read
it, you will find out they not only had them on every hill and in all the cities
of Judah, but they had them right in the temple. Look at Kings.

I Kings 15:13: And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being
queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and
burnt it by the brook Kidron.

She had put an idol up of Asherah. And Asa, the king, destroyed his mother’s
idol, Asherah, and burnt it by the brook Kidron. Yet the high places were not
removed. Still Asa’s heart was perfect with the Lord.

I Kings 15:14: But the high places were not removed: nevertheless Asa’s heart
was perfect with the Lord all his days. In II Chronicles it talks about an
identical situation. Maachah was the mother of Asa the king. Asa removed her
from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove, and Asa cut down her
idol and stamped it and burned it at the brook Kidron.

II Chronicles 15:16: And also concerning Maachah the mother of Asa the king, he
removed her from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove: and Asa
cut down her idol, and stamped it, and burnt it at the brook Kidron.

Now an idol of stone, you can’t burn. You can crush it to pieces, but you cannot
burn it. Asherah, sometimes it is called Ashtoreh, was the goddess of life.
Production. Baalbek, that I mentioned yesterday, was the great Roman capital for
their summer houses. The big religious temple there was to the god Jupiter.
Whenever they would go to worship, the first place they’d go was to that
fantastic temple. And that was supposed to be their spiritual worship, Jupiter.
After they finished that, they went to the temple of Baachus, which, by the way,
still has the keystone in the front of it. It has never fallen down after all
those centuries, and everybody beating the place down. Baachus is the god of
stuffing, overeating, like we’ve been doing. Breakfast, dinner and supper. First
they worshipped god, then they went to eat. Then after they left that, they went
to the temple of Venus to lay women. Great order of events. Get your spiritual
food first, then feed your body, and then go sex it up. The Romans really had a
system. They met every need of every man or woman by doing just that. Israel
wasn’t far behind. Ashtoreth was the goddess of life that they were worshipping.
This particular statue, the way it was arranged, was as follows: They laid out
in the statue all the genitalia of the woman, with the outer labia, the inner
labia, the vagina, and then through the middle of it, coming up out of it was an
erect penis. That’s why I gave you that word Asher, meaning erect. It came right
out of the vagina. The male penis was in the vagina, only it was inverted. They
didn’t want to show the male penis down in the ground, or in the rocks, so they
turned it upside down and brought it up out of the vagina. They showed the whole
area of the genitals of the female, and then the erect penis coming up out of
it. This is what they had set up as gods all over Judah, all over the land.
That’s what they were worshipping as that which had brought them light and gave
them their deliverance. That’s what Israel was doing, and time and time again
they will call it Baal or Baalim. Baalim is the plural of Baal.

I could take you today to a place in India where they still have the same
structure, the same gods today. Mrs. Wierwille and I have been there. For those
of us who love the true God, it is sort of nauseating to say the least. And yet
there are hundreds of thousands of people who come to worship at that location.
The greatest amount of people who come to worship there are first of all
virgins, who are betrothed and are going to get married. Secondly, there would
be women who are married and are barren, who have no children. Because, in
Eastern culture, it is a disgrace for a woman not to have a baby. She is made to
have one, and if she doesn’t have one, Eastern culture has considered it a
disgrace. That’s why the Bible has that type of thing in it. Biblical culture
had arranged that if you couldn’t have a baby, then you would be allowed to take
your maid and give it to the man. Then whatever baby she would have would be
legally yours. It’s in the Word, Old Testament. I think it got somebody in
trouble with Hagar. You see, the same gods, the same idols, the same devil
spirits are behind these things, and every idol has a devil spirit behind it.
Every idol has a devil spirit behind it. It isn’t the idol per se that’s bad,
it’s what it represents and the spirit behind it. Inside of this temple in
India, before you walk in you ring a bell. That tells the god you’re coming. It
wakes him up. That bell was ringing all the time. The old fool was awake all the
time.

We didn’t have to ring it because there were so many women and men in there.
Before you come to the bell, there’s a tree. There you take a lock of your hair
and tie it on that tree. Then you ring the bell and walk in. Inside it’s
arranged very gorgeously with the altar where the worship is. In the center of
the room is this whole genitalia of the female with the erect penis coming out
of it surrounded by about two feet of water, rolling around. Water is indicative
of the flow of it, of pregnancy, of life. The women come in with their garlands
and hang them over the head of the penis. Then they kneel to pray. Some of them
come in with precious oils, go to the head of the penis, put oil all over the
head of the penis, kiss it, and then go back to pray. I was in there about twice
I think, maybe three times. About a quarter of the way up the penis were piled
garlands of flowers. One woman would bring a garland, drop it over the top, and
then she would kneel there and pray to become pregnant or to have a baby. That’s
the type of god and the goddess that Israel was worshipping. In other words,
they were worshipping sex to the hilt. Of course, as soon as you leave the
temple, there are plenty of those images to buy. You can buy them in any size. I
brought one home and showed it to the kids at that time. I told them what I’m
telling you, and a lot more. That’s the degradation to which Israel had gone,
and that is why they got destroyed. They were serving another god. And the god
was this Asherah, called Baal. Now in the process of it, other gods get
involved. On some of the symbols in the Roman Catholic Church, I’m sure you have
seen something that looks like the letter "I," and then an "O" behind it. And
they tell you it’s the God of hosts. That is the symbol of Asherah and Baal.

I’m sure once your mind gets acclimatized to the truth of God’s Word, you’ll see
a lot of things in symbols that you have never recognized before. To you they
held little significance. If they put ivory around them, or rubies, you thought
it was so beautiful. They bring food, for instance, to the god in India. Women
would bring cookies, like cakes. It talks about baked cakes in Jeremiah. That’s
what it was in India. Women baked special unleavened cakes to bring to the god.
Flowers, rubies, and gifts of money were also brought. But if the shepherds, as
we read, if the king, if the priests, are worshipping the wrong god, they will
lead their people to do the same, because people are just like sheep following a
shepherd. In Israel, the high priest, along with all the other priests, the
king, and all the elders we read about led them into idolatry. That is the one
thing that you cannot get away with and live before the true God. You just kill
yourself, your nation, everything. The first commandment that God ever gave was,
"I am the Lord thy God which hath brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage, thou shalt have no other gods before me." Yet the
so-called Christian churches have a minimum of three. Most of the Christian
churches have had a lot more. They have had at least three since the early part
of the second century. By the third century you had to believe in those three or
the sword of the Roman Empire would cut your throat. And so all Christendom came
under Rome. The Anglican never got out of it. The Episcopalians never got out of
it. Christianity never got out of it to this day. Except for a small remnant of
people, perhaps, around the world. This is why most nations are still in
captivity and those who aren’t are going, because the true God will not stand
for it. No matter how they try to clean themselves up, no matter how beautiful
they make their buildings or their cathedrals or anything else on the outside,
inside they stink. God looks on the heart and not on the outside. In Isaiah 57,
Asherah represented the goddess of life, the female side. Baal represents the
generative side, the erection, the penis side of this thing.

Isaiah 57:8:

Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance: for thou
hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged
thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; thou lovedst their bed where thou
sawest it.

Ezekiel 16:17:

Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had
given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with
them.

Here when it’s talking about "images of men," it’s not talking about the
complete physical body of a man. It’s talking about an erect penis. "And didst
commit whoredom with them." You will be reading in Jeremiah about Israel playing
the whore. That simply means she was worshipping other gods than the one true
God. The one true God supplies every need for Israel. He was to Israel like the
husband is to be to the wife and the wife to be to the husband to supply the
complete need. In the Bible, when that complete need is not supplied, there’s
something wrong. The true God always supplies the complete need and Israel was
to reciprocate by supplying the true need to the true God. I put it all together
in one verse in John where it says we worship Him via spirit and truth. God
would’ve always and still does supply every need to man. In our administration
He does it through His wonderful Son, Jesus Christ, and the power of the holy
spirit that is in us. It is Christ in us the hope of glory by which God supplies
every need. We in turn worship Him via spirit and truth. It is when Israel
walked away from the true God, and got themselves other idols, that God forsook
them, because they forsook God. Consequently, Israel went into captivity and so
many, many terrible things have happened. I believe there would not be the great
religion today called Mohammedanism (or Moslem) had the true Church, the Body of
Christ, from the first century on had only one God. I think Mohammedanism saw
itself like a cleansing to Christianity, because the Mohammedans know there is
only one God. They’ve only ever stood for one God. Outside of this ministry I
know of nothing that can reach the Moslems. They are tough people to reach. But,
you’ll never reach a Moslem who’s got a brain in his head by talking about the
trinity. They know better. And when the hoards of the Moslems rode across what
we know as the so-called Christian lands, they killed the Christians like crazy,
because they thought they were doing the true God a favor since the Christians
had three gods. At least they had some sense in their heads. They’ve only got
one God. Most Christians sit around and say they’ve got only one, but worship
three. Remember what I read a little while ago from Jeremiah? They said, "Oh, we
haven’t sinned." That’s what the Christian church has said for centuries! Then
they look at me and say I’m the heretic, I’m the sinner, I’m the person they
ought to get rid of because I dare to write a book called Jesus Christ Is NOT
God. It’s the same damnable stuff you read in Jeremiah. In Ezekiel, they gave
gifts to all their whores. That doesn’t mean to their physical women, but to
their gods. They went whoring after other gods. Let’s go back to Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 2:24 and 25: A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the
wind at her pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away? All they that seek
her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her.

Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst: but thou
saidst, There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I
go.

"A wild ass in the wilds (that’s the wilderness) snorts out the wind of her
soul." Have you ever seen a horse snort? Or an ass snort? That’s the word
"snuffeth." Snorting out the wind pushes out the wind of her life, of her soul.
She is prancing and chasing around. She’ll jump up and down, she’ll snort, kick
up her back legs and jump on the front ones. "Prancing and chasing around when
she is in heat. And anyone who desires her, does not have to look far to find
her." Verse 25, withhold thy foot from being unshod, reads: "You didn’t want to
get tamed." The wild horse, unshoed, he didn’t want to get tamed. Didn’t want to
get shoed. "You didn’t want to get tamed. Nor have your thirst quenched by good
water." The rest of the verse is simple. "You loved idols and after idols you
said you were going to go." He’s talking about Israel. Like a wild ass, you’re
snorting out there, prancing and chasing around all these gods. You don’t have
to look far to find one. They had them on every hill, remember? And they usually
did one of three things. They’d take one tree, cut the top out of it, and
fashion the top like a penis. It would be a live green tree. That’s why it’s
translated "green tree." They’d cut the top of it, fashion it like a penis and
then fill the genitalia of the female around it. Or they would take a tree,
fashion it, take it to a place and set it in the backyard, like I see statues
setting all over the country and along roadways. If they had good men working in
stone, they’d make it out of a stone. In India they had around the base a female
section which was made out of very beautiful acara marble. It was gorgeously
laid in, just perfect, great workmanship. Those are the three ways and when
Josiah the king destroyed them, he tore them down. That’s why some of them he
burned, others he powdered. That means the stone ones, he broke them up with
sledges, powdered them up. The others he burned. Well, that’s the translation of
two of those verses in Jeremiah 2. They just about tell history to this date. At
least I guarantee it tells the history of Jeremiah’s prophecy, and that’s all
you’re going to read in the Book of Jeremiah. The reason Jeremiah prophesied
against Israel, against the Ammonites, against Moab, against Egypt, and all of
that was because they were all worshipping pagan gods. Especially Israel was
rampant with idolatry, and they were supposed to be God’s people.

Today idolatry is still rampant. There is only a handful of people speaking out
for the true God. We must be as committed as Jeremiah in delivering our message.
We also have been raised up to hold forth God’s Word. We must be men and women
who stand for the one true God. The cow may kick you, the bull may rend you, but
they’ll never lead you to worship the false god. But man with all of his brain,
because it is not renewed according to God’s Word, is the wickedest creature God
has formed and made. Man without Christ in him, the hope of glory, is no more
than body and soul. Under the worst condition, he can be possessed by devil
spirits in the mind. This is why when you get to the integrity and accuracy of
the Word, there’s a lot of things that have to be thought through. Very few
people have ever known enough of the Word to think it through, and very few
people have enough courage to think today. For most people it’s a difficult task
to think. They just think they think, they never really get around to thinking.
They’ve let everybody else do the thinking and those they depended on were
basically all directed by influence of devil spirits that had manipulated a
country. So people have just gone along and accepted these things, and have
become part of the problem and never part of the answer. Outside of this
ministry, I know nobody trying their best to get back to the Word and walk it.
Outside of it, I just don’t know where. I think I’ve been with all the religious
groups the Devil has conjured up in this world, including all the denominations.
Anytime you belong to one or keep worship­ping in one, you are back to where
Jeremiah and the children of Israel were then. But I made a decision many, many
years ago, and that was I refused to bow down and serve. I made up my mind. I
give my life to the best of my ability for the one true God, if I have to walk
alone.

I see in Jeremiah some great commitments. It is men who stood like Jeremiah that
finally made it possible for a remnant of Israel to come out of the Babylonian
captivity, and ultimately for the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know in
the Book of Revelation it talks about saying, "Lord, come quickly." I feel that
way about the first part of the second coming. If he came back today, I wouldn’t
have to work so hard. But it’s been a joy working in spite of all the bologna
you go through with people. You’ll never have many opportunities with anybody
but people. Dogs won’t bother you too much, cows won’t bother you too much,
horse or jackasses. But human jackasses will bother you like crazy. You get most
of your problems from people. Like in the days of Jeremiah, each person has to
make up his own mind. A man in the Word of God can read the Word to men and
women, but you can’t make them believe it. In the Eastern culture when anybody
was repeatedly caught stealing, they would often cut off his hand. He sort of
quit stealing after he lost both hands. We call it cruel today in our culture.
But is it cruel? You see, what if one man has the right to come in here and
shoot this whole bunch, but nobody outside has the right to shoot the guy who
shot all of you. It seems to me if they shot the guy outside before he shot you,
we’d be better off. Today, the greatest amount of justice in the United States
is on the side of the criminal, not the innocent person. Law and justice are
down the drain because they have moved away from the Word. We have basically
gotten rid of capital punishment. Every time this happens, devil spirits come
like crazy. They rule. That’s why capital punishment must be in a nation and
justice has to be swift. I didn’t say hurried, I said swift if it’s justice.
Anytime a court case drags out it will always be unjust. Anytime punishment is
meted out and it takes a long time to get to the decision, it will always be
unjust. The Word says so. And I study this thing occasionally. I’ve not seen a
system outside of the Word that works. The law, the enforcement of law and
order, is given to protect the innocent from the guilty and not to protect the
guilty at the expense or the cost of the innocent. Even the word polis, meaning
wall of a city, was designed to keep the enemy out and keep the people inside of
the wall safe. God gave the rules and regulations in the Word on how government
can be run. But I see no government being run that way, including our country.
But in the midst of all that, some of us are going to live with the truth of
God’s Word if we believe it. Just as He did in the days of Jeremiah, God will
continue to bless the remnant of us that believe. As Jeremiah faithfully
proclaimed God’s Word to a nation full of idolatry, we must proclaim it today
with all boldness. Now is the time to make it happen.


========================================================================
Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/wierwille-vp-the-foundations-of-the-book-of-jeremiah/
========================================================================