Heralds Digest

“O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” For I was the king’s cupbearer.” ‭‭Nehemiah‬ ‭1:11‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ http://bible.com/114/neh.1.11.nkjv The passion for prosperity is the natural endowment of a serious-minded man. The only concern is that self-centeredness represents a significant drawback in finding the right motivation for passion in life. Unlike Nehemiah, once human preoccupation provides the basic things of life, there are likely to be little or no passion for calls that risk the present comfort for selfless welfare of others. Whereas, the scripture defines pure religion on the basis of service to the vulnerable people within believers sphere of influence. When Nehemiah prayed for the prospect of being an instrument to secure the mercy of the king for the welfare of his brethren in J...

“Now it came to pass in the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, that Evil-Merodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah and brought him out of prison.” ‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭52:31‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ http://bible.com/114/jer.52.31.nkjv One of the endless frustrations in the battle against evil is the lack of capacity for evil to combat evil. Protest against a perceived act of evil has always lead to the escalation of wickedness and unrighteousness. Unfortunately, human beings have always blamed God for the cause of their evil-generated wickedness and the consequences of their unrighteousness. Unlike king Jehoiachin, instead of accepting the judgment and turning away from wickedness, most of the kings of Judah and Jerusalem rejected the judgment of God with the consequent and endless escalation of evil. Jehoiachin spent about twice the length of his life’s ...

“And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you arrive in Babylon and see it, and read all these words, then you shall say, ‘O LORD, You have spoken against this place to cut it off, so that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but it shall be desolate forever.’ Now it shall be, when you have finished reading this book, that you shall tie a stone to it and throw it out into the Euphrates.” ‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭51:61-63‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ http://bible.com/114/jer.51.61-63.nkjv Words of powerful people need the mobilization of the system principalities in the world before their manifestation. Unlike the word of God, the spoken word of men cannot travel in vacuum. Little wonder, manipulative tools are required in order to mobilize the support of fellow men towards accepting the declaration or bid. Whereas, the scriptures declare that the words of God are settled in heaven, even when spoken on earth. That was why Seraiah needed to just read out the spoken s-word once, then it became settled in heave...

“You who have escaped the sword, Get away! Do not stand still! Remember the LORD afar off, And let Jerusalem come to your mind. We are ashamed because we have heard reproach. Shame has covered our faces, For strangers have come into the sanctuaries of the LORD’s house.” ‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭51:50-51‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ http://bible.com/114/jer.51.50-51.nkjv Corruption brings a cessation to the possibility of progress in all projects of life. Unlike physical corruption, emotional or spiritual corruption provides a deceptive sense of cessation. For example, engagement in life’s activities without a significant record of progress is a depressive or frustrating claim to human existence. After a continuous life of servitude and attacks by the nation of Babylon, the sense of escape in the remnants from the Babylonian captivity no longer provide the needed excitement to the people of Jerusalem. Whereas, daughters of Zion are capable of shaking themselves off from the ashes of shame and corruption. For the s...

“The Portion of Jacob is not like them, For He is the Maker of all things; And Israel is the tribe of His inheritance. The LORD of hosts is His name. “You are My battle-ax and weapons of war: For with you I will break the nation in pieces; With you I will destroy kingdoms”” ‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭51:19-20‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ http://bible.com/114/jer.51.19-20.nkjv Although idols and human images in the days of Jeremiah cannot move and talk, the intelligence of machines in our days are capable of surpassing the quotient of an average human being. The kingdom of this world is programmable towards reversing the dominance and the authority of man, starting from home to the society at large. Unfortunately, those who dream of making home out of this world have little restraint to the call to worship the idol of sophistication and human intelligence. Whereas, God still rule the nation of people who are called by His name, and are sensitive to the leading of His Spirit. Against the prevailing distractions in ou...

““Call together the archers against Babylon. All you who bend the bow, encamp against it all around; Let none of them escape. Repay her according to her work; According to all she has done, do to her; For she has been proud against the LORD, Against the Holy One of Israel. Therefore her young men shall fall in the streets, And all her men of war shall be cut off in that day,” says the LORD.” ‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭50:29-30‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ http://bible.com/114/jer.50.29-30.nkjv The rise and fall of the relationship between God and Babylon defines the divine concept of reliability in relationships. While human relationships may do perfectly well with emphasis on responsibilities, God is always interested in our intimate relationship. When the scriptures say “Acquaint yourself with God and good shall come unto you”, it means that God count more on our ‘knowing’ than our ‘doing’. For Babylon, his ‘doing’ without ‘knowing’ makes him ‘proud against the LORD’. Obviously, the ‘doing’ sense in man makes him...

“Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, As I have punished the king of Assyria. But I will bring back Israel to his home, And he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan; His soul shall be satisfied on Mount Ephraim and Gilead. In those days and in that time,” says the LORD, “The iniquity of Israel shall be sought, but there shall be none; And the sins of Judah, but they shall not be found; For I will pardon those whom I preserve.” ‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭50:18-20‬ ‭NKJV‬‬ http://bible.com/114/jer.50.18-20.nkjv Convicted prisoners on presidential parole often enjoy their conditional release with restraint and constant reminder of their sin and parole terms. Even the parole officers would always act in constant threat and tendency of a re-arrest. As parole officers to Israel and Judah, Assyria and Babylon mismanaged the possibilities of grace for all offenders of the laws of God. While there is a constant reminder of sin with p...