Jeremiah 7: 28 - 34
28 "You shall say to them, 'This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD their God or accept correction; truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth.
29'Cut off your hair and cast it away,
And take up a lamentation on the bare heights;
For the LORD has rejected and forsaken
The generation of His wrath.'
30 "For the sons of Judah have done that which is evil in My sight," declares the LORD, "they have set their detestable things in the house which is called by My name, to defile it.
31 "They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, and it did not come into My mind.
32 "Therefore, behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when it will no longer be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of the Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth because there is no other place.
33 "The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky and for the beasts of the earth; and no one will frighten them away.
34 "Then I
will make to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the
voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice
of the bride; for the land will become a ruin.
Revelation 17: 1-18 (Read first few verses from your Bible.....to save space I only quoted the key text)
23 and the light of a lamp will not shine in you any longer; and the voice of the bridegroom and bride will not be heard in you
any longer; for your merchants were the great men of the earth, because all the
nations were deceived by your sorcery.
FACTS
1. Jerusalem lost the Light of the Lamp
2. Jerusalem lost the Voice of the Bride and Bridegroom (according to these texts AND according to Josephus)
3. Jerusalem will never get this back (Verse 34 in Jeremiah AND verse 23 in Revelation
4. If this is still future, then Jerusalem HASN'T yet lost the Light of the Lamp, the Voice of the Bride and Bridegroom
5. We know Revelation 23 is for Jerusalem because Jeremiah Prophesied this in verse 34
6. If you admit Jerusalem lost the light and the status of Bride, then they shall never receive this again. And this fact alone proves that Revelations has been fulfilled; at least up to this point in Chapter 17....SCRIPTURE SAYS SO
7. Church is the Bride and Christ is the Groom......do you now believe that the Church will lose the Bride status? No scriptures for that.....
Conclusion? Revelation fulfilled; at least up until this point. We're awaiting the resurrection.
Hi,
Not sure how much I will write in response to your email. I have banged heads with those who do not believe that God will fulfill His promises to the nation of Israel before, and some of my thoughts on why God will fulfill all His promises to the nation of Israel, and the city of Jerusalem, can be found here if you are interested:
https://jesusplusnothing.com/series/post/IsraelsFuture
https://jesusplusnothing.com/series/post/SpiritualIsrael
I would like to point out a few things however as it seems to me that your “proof” verses below are full of assumptions, not facts. That is how it seems to me at least. I’ll just list them in the numbers that you have assigned to your ‘facts”.
1. The only passage I could find in the Old Testament that says that Jerusalem would lose the light of the lamp was in Jeremiah 25:10. This is a corresponding passage to the one you have quoted. Here it is –
”Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.”
Even better, it goes on to tell us for how long this would occur:
“And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”
We know from scripture and history that after this time, the Jews returned and populated the land of Israel again.
So I would agree with your first point that Jerusalem lost the “light of the lamp” for the seventy years it was in desolation, taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar.
2. I would agree that during this period of desolation the voice of bride and bridegroom was absent from Judah and Jerusalem.
3. Unfortunately, for point 3 you then make a big leap based on a faulty assumption and say that Jerusalem will never get this back. This is unfortunate because:
a) There is nothing in the Jeremiah passage that states that this desolation was forever. The opposite is actually true. There are many prophecies in the book of Jeremiah which show that that this period of desolation in Babylon was for a limited time and that God would restore Israel from this time of Judgement. Please read Jeremiah 29:10-14, 30:1-3, 33:5-13.
b) Just because Jeremiah said that the sound of the bride and bridegroom would be absent from Judah during this time of judgement, and Babylon also loses the sound of bride and bridegroom in the future, therefore you conclude that Jerusalem must be Babylon! Huge assumption which leads to a faulty conclusion. Mystery Babylon of Revelation 17 and 18 is not Israel, Jerusalem or Judah. It dates back to even before there was a nation of Israel or a city called Jerusalem! It dates back to the tower of Babel in Genesis 11. Even a quick reading of Revelation 18:9-17 would show that its not Jerusalem. All the merchants of the world mourn over Babylon’s fall because it is a center of commerce. This is not the case with Jerusalem, nor would merchants mourn over her fall. In fact, Zechariah tells us that instead of mourning for Jerusalem, all nations of the earth will come against her to destroy her (Zech 14) and that the Lord will fight for her and then set up his Kingdom rule from there (Zech 14:3, 16-20).
c) The prophecies concerning Babylon in Revelation were first spoken by the Old Testament prophets and there is no way that “Babylon is Jerusalem”. For example, see Jeremiah 50,51. Babylon will fall for the slain of Israel (Jer 51:49).
4. Yes, the final fulfilment of Babylon’s fall as stated in Revelation is still future and Babylon is not Jerusalem, nor Israel.
5. Again, faulty assumption. If you really like and believe Jeremiah, then agree with his prophecy concerning the nation of Israel:
Jer 31:35-37 “This is what the LORD says, he who appoints the sun to shine
by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so
that its waves roar— the LORD Almighty is his name: “Only if
these decrees vanish from my sight,” declares the LORD, “will the
descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me.” This
is what the LORD says: “Only if the heavens above can be measured
and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the
descendants of Israel because of all they have done,” declares the
LORD. “
6. Jeremiah nor Revelation says anything about Jerusalem losing its ‘status of bride’. You are reading into the text what isn’t even there. Jeremiah just says that people aren’t going to be getting married during this period of judgement. There won’t be the voice of the bride or the bridegroom because they were taken into captivity in Babylon. No where in the passages mentioned does it state that they lost their 'status of bride' as you state.
7. I agree that in this current age, the Church is the bride of Christ - composed of those that believe in the name of Jesus. But this in no way nullifies the plans and promises God has made to the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem for the future. God is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should change His mind.
Conclusion:
Paul clearly shows that God still has a plan for the nation of Israel after ‘the fullness of the gentiles has come in (see Rom 11:25). Why would God do this? Why would He still fulfil His promises despite Israel’s failure and disobedience? Well, because -“As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.“
Why do I get so passionate about this topic? Because to say that God is not going to fulfil His promises to the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem, or to say that the Church now inherits the promises made to the nation of Israel, is a slur on the character of God. If He cannot be trusted to fulfil His promises to them, how can He be trusted to fulfil His promises to us? No, He will, and is. The Hebrew prophets said that the Israelite nation would be disobedient and scattered throughout the earth. That happened. They said that Jews would be persecuted amongst those nations. That happened. They said that in the last days they would be regathered and become a nation again. That happened. And it says that though all the nations will come against them in war, they would look again to their Messiah, the one pierced for them (Zech 12:10), who would deliver them and setup His Kingdom from Jerusalem. (Zech 12, 14, Isaiah 2). And yes, that will happen.