goddiscriminateshispeople
God Discriminates His People
"Then the LORD said to me, 'What do you see, Jeremiah?' And I said, "Figs, the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, very bad, which cannot be eaten, they are so bad.'" (Jeremiah 24:3)
The Comfort and Edification of God’s Discrimination Between the "Good Figs" and the "Bad Figs" once you get over the shock that God early in Old Testament history and dealings start separating His own people into good and bad people. {This is taken from the seventh section of "Prophesy, Comfort, and Edification", see www.biblecombibleman.com/ProphesyComfortEdification.html .}
Get over it, God does discriminate between the two types of His own people, between the two types of God's people. It is a reality of the Bible from Jeremiah to the New Testament. Early in the history of the Bible in God’s dealings with His own people, in fact in God’s dealings with all people, it became no longer a matter of codemning all of God’s own people or blessing all of God’s own people; but God’s choices became far more selective and individual. {This could have been the case far before Jeremiah and we just did not detect it.}
1. The good figs of Jeremiah 24:5-7.
"Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge thos who are carried away captive from Judah, whom I have sent out of this place for their own good, into the land of the Chaldeans {you see these were far better off than those killed in the seige of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, than those who remained as vagabounds in the land, and even of those who fled to Egypt and elsewhere}. For I will set My eyes on them for good {you see how selective God became among His own people, and you will recall among those were Daniel and his friends in Babylon}, and I will bring them back to this land, I will build them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD, and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart." (Jeremiah 25:5-7)
2. The bad figs of Jeremiah 24:8-10.
"And as the bad figs which cnnot be eaten, they are so bad--surely thus says the LORD--’so will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, his princes, the residueof Jereusalem who reamin in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. I will deliver them to trouble into all the kingdoms of the earth, for their harm, to be a reproach and a byword, a taunt and a cruse, in all places where I shall drive them. And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence among them, till they are consumed from the land that I gave to thema nd their fathers." (Jeremiah 24:8-10)
If you want a proper perspective of the Jews as once the chosen people of God, you must consider the book of Jeremiah and in particular Jeremiah 24; and furthermore you must consider how God did discriminate between His own people, dividing them into good figs and bad figs; and further passing future judgment on them as two kinds of people, some for His good and some for His harm.
3. God herein in Jeremiah 24 established the Principle of Discrimination Between the Two Kinds of the People of God, the good figs and the bad figs, that later Jesus developed into the "few" and the "many" of Matthew x:xx that either go the broad way to destruction or the narrow way to life eternal; the same two groups of His people who in Matthew 24:xx at the end of time are either the "many" that cease in their love for God or the few who remain faithful during the Falling Away; and the same fruit bearing or not fruit bearing branches of Christ and of John 15 that are either pruned or cast out.
"Then the LORD said to me, ‘What do you see, Jeremiah?’ And I said, "Figs, the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, which cannot be eaten, they are so bad.’" (Jeremiah 24:3)
And don’t forget the parable of the fig tree where Jesus condemend the tree because it did not yield good fruit.
This introduction to the Principle of Gods Discrimination Between His People, between the bad figs and the good figs is a hard concept to shallow even by those somewhat mature in Bible study, so what was introduced here in "Bible Studies in Jeremiah and Prophesy" will be continued with a parallel Bible Study on "Good Figs and Bad Figs". Among many scriptures to be studied during the coming months will be those introduced above.
{when one of these subjects below is underlined, it is available for Bible Study so keep tuned...}
0. An Introduction to "Good Figs and Bad Figs" from Jeremiah 24.
1. Jesus on the good and bad Fig Trees in Jerusalem.
2. Jesus on the Fruit and the Branches of John 15.
3. Jesus on the "Many" and the "Few" of the Broad and Narrow Ways.
4. Jesus in Matthew 24 on the "many" Christians deceived by false prophets during the Falling Away.
5. Paul's bottom line on the "potter and the clay" of the book of Romans.
6. Paul's bottom line in Romans are who are the people of God now.