Page 100 - Satan in the Sanctuary

102 Satan in the Sanctuary

Later, in the first year of the reign of the terrible Nebu-
chadnezzar of Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah focused at-
tention on the future events like tomorrow's newspaper:
Thus saith the LORD of hosts; because ye have not
heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the
families of the north [the Chaldees, etc.] . . . and Nebu-
chadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will
bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants
thereof . . . and will utterly destroy them, and make them
an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desola-
tions. Moreover 1 will take from them the voice of glad-
ness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of mirth,
and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones,
and the light of the candle. And this whole land shall be
a desolation and an astonishment (Jer 25:8-11).
You would think that when the prophet gives names and
places, and when his analysis agrees reasonably with fore-
seeable political situations, he would be taken very serious-
ly. But what happened to Jeremiah is truly remarkable and
perhaps instructive.
He was jailed.
To speak against the Temple and Jerusalem was tanta-
mount to treason, and Jeremiah, the voice of the Lord,
was made a political prisoner.
His trial was a curious affair. The priests, like the Phari-
sees who tried our Lord, insisted on the death penalty. Had
not this miserable prophet compared the great city of Jeru-
salem to Shiloh in his rantings? (Shiloh, the site of the
tabernacle of God before Solomon's time, had been ravaged
by military invasion.)
The elders present were more circumspect. When had
anybody gotten away with killing a prophet of God?
Wouldn't it be better to avoid blood on their hands? Re-