Prophetic Prospective Daily Devotional

And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

You must remember that God chose Jeremiah to be a "prophet to the nations" before he was born, before he was conceived, in fact the prophet was chosen by God in the Lord's mind in eternity past, Jeremiah 1:5.

As a "prophet to the nations" Jeremiah was a prophet first to his own people, the Jewish nation. In the passage from our devotional reading for today we see that the prophecy of the "seventy years" was mentioned in Daniel. Daniel 9:2 reveals when Daniel in his own quiet time, his devotional reading, read about the "seventy years" that Jerusalem would be desolate.

I’ll have more on that in a moment.

This passage is a record of the prophetic ministry of Jeremiah before the Jews would be taken into the Babylonian Captivity. Jeremiah forewarns the Jews that the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, verse 9, would be the "servant of the Lord."

The Babylonian King would be used by God to make the Jewish people give the land that He had given them the "sabbatical" that He called for in Leviticus 25:1-7.

Every seventh year the Jews were to rest the land, plant no crops on the land, give the land a "Sabbath." The Jews had not obeyed the Lord for 490 years so He would use "His servant" Nebuchadnezzar, to take the Jews out of the land for that "70 Sabbaths" that the land should have been given.

What a practical lesson we can learn from this event in the lives of the Jewish people. When God tells us to do something He means for us to obey. Sometimes when we disobey He will force the issue and we learn the hard way to be obedient.

Now back to Daniel and his quiet time, his reading in Jeremiah, actually he read the same passage as we are today and he learned that Jerusalem would be desolate for 70 years, verses 11-12.

When Daniel read Jeremiah he was 85 years old, 70 years after he was taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar, when he was 15 years old. Daniel was able to understand where he was in God's prophetic time and plan by reading the prophetic Word of God.

We also can understand the times we are living in and how close we may be to the Lord's return by reading the prophetic scenario for the "end times" found in Bible prophecy.

By the way, when you do read Bible prophecy you will realize we are very close to the Lord's "shout" at the Rapture, to call us up to be with Him. That Rapture could actually happen today, so keep looking up.

PRAYER THOUGHT: Help me, Lord, to live for your soon return as I understand the times we are living in by reading Bible prophecy.