God’s Predetermined Purpose | Clip 2
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study the history of Israel for the last 32 years. It’s one long continuous process of applied pressure. Economic pressure, military pressure, spiritual pressure, psychological pressure, political pressure. What’s happening? Nothing is happening by accident. God is reshaping a people the way he wants them to be. It’s being fulfilled.
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Turn on to Jeremiah 30 1-7. This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord. This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says, “Write in a book all the words I’ve spoken to you. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave their forefathers to possess, says the Lord.
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These are the words the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah. This is what the Lord says. Cries of fear are heard. Terror, not peace. Ask and see, can a man bear children? Then why do I see every strong man with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor? Every face turned deathly pale.
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How awful that day will be. None will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it. Notice how specific there God speaks of the reathering of Israel and Judah. He says it will not be a time of peace, will be a time of terror, a time of pressure, a time building to a fearful climax, of agony, but he will be saved out of it.
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The time of Jacob’s trouble. Again, we see everything following the course that God predicted. And then in Jeremiah 31:es 27 and 28, the days are coming, declares the Lord. That phrase is very frequent in Jeremiah. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will plant the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the offspring of men and of animals.
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Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy, and bring disaster, so will I watch over them to build and to plant, declares the Lord. Before I became a preacher, as I indicated, I was a philosopher. One of my favorite fields of study was logic. And I think that’s been one of my problems as a preacher.