Did the Apostle’s Expand on Jeremiah’s Commission?

May 20, 2007

Note to readers: If you haven’t read today’s lessons from the calendar stop here and read them first!!!

  Good Morning: 

My sermon today may sound a little like an anthropology lecture, okay a lot like an anthropology lecture, but for me to make my spiritual point I need to familiarize you with some biblical and non-biblical facts of history that identify with certainty a few important places, people, and events that are important enough for us to know today that Yahweh (God) had them recorded by his prophets thousands of years ago in scripture we are still reading today.  So bear with me through this and I will try to make it as interesting as possible.

In today’s reading from Jeremiah chapter 1 we learn how Yahweh had known Jeremiah and predestined him to become a prophet before he was ever conceived in his mother’s womb.  Let’s repeat what God (Yahweh) says “Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee”.  Jeremiah’s soul existed long before he was born and Yahweh knew him personally.  God goes on to remind Jeremiah that he personally trained him and determined what Jeremiah’s life would be all about before he was incarnated and born into this life.  You know Yahweh’s wisdom and power has no end.  Halleluiah!  Praise God for sending us Jeremiah so we could read his account of the power of Yahweh.  But even though Jeremiah was predestined by God and trained by God before his earthly body was ever conceived to be a great prophet, whose commission was also preconceived and ordained by Yahweh, Jeremiah felt insignificant and not suitable for the job.  Jeremiah said to God, “I know not how to speak, for I am a child”.  Have you ever felt that way about yourself and your mission in life?  Have you ever felt that you’re not up to the challenges Yahweh as prepared for you?  Then you are in the best of company, because all of the most righteous of God’s prophets have all felt the same way.  You know the all-powerful and all-knowing Yahweh, knew each of you before your mother’s ever conceived you.  You, the soul that is being carried around in that physical body of yours, are the breath the very spirit of the almighty living God.  You’re not here willy-nilly by any stretch of the imagination, oh no, you’re here to fulfill the will of Yahweh and he has a purpose for you just as he had a purpose for Jeremiah. 

So what was this purpose that Yahweh had for Jeremiah?  Yahweh tells us in verse 10 of today’s lesson “Behold I have appointed thee this day over nations and over kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to rebuild, and to plant”.  So Yahweh gave Jeremiah a very specific commission and he gave him the power and resources to accomplish what he told him to do.  Yet it was only a short time into this mission when Jeremiah found himself lowered down by rope into the deepest dungeon of the prison where he had to stand in mire (septic sludge) up to his neck for doing God’s work.  He was considered a criminal by the king, the priest, and the other so called righteous officials of Judah.  What was it that God could have instructed him to do that would bring upon him the wrath of the law of God’s chosen people?  And I want to point out one other thing.  When Nebuchadnezzar conquered the city of Jerusalem per God’s instructions, Nebuchadnezzar then ordered Jeremiah’s release from prison and he gave Jeremiah gifts and anything he needed.  It’s interesting to ponder how a prophet of Yahweh could be so mistreated by the king and his officials who ruled over the land of God’s chosen people and then be so revered by the leader of the country that came in to conquer Jerusalem.  But Jeremiah isn’t the only one of God’s prophets to have this happen to him.  You know just about every one of the great people spoke of in the Bible was at some point in their lives declared a criminal and prosecuted by the “righteous people” in power at the time.  Makes you wonder doesn’t it?

But Jeremiah did what Yahweh wanted done.  By standing up and speaking out against the wrong that was going on in the government of Judah and in the temple he rooted out the imposters, those who claimed to love and follow God but really didn’t.  By imprisoning Jeremiah King Zedekiah of Judah exposed himself for what he really was, an imposter pretending to worship Yahweh.  In his attempts to cover his tracks and discredit Jeremiah, Zedekiah ended up contributing to the downfall of the kingdom of Judah.  To this day the kingdom of Judah has never been restored as it was in Jeremiah’s time, just as it was prophesied.  But Jeremiah’s commission had not yet been fulfilled for God still had other tasks for him.  We read in Jeremiah 46 that Yahweh told Jeremiah that the kingdom of Egypt should fall as well and Jeremiah 43 we learn how Jeremiah planted great stones in a certain wall being built in Egypt in the house of Pharaoh at Tahpanhes.  We are told that Jeremiah did this in front of the men of Judah the Judahites that were with him in Egypt and it was on this wall that Nebuchadnezzar would later assume control of the land of Egypt.  So another part of the commission, to destroy, was accomplished.  But, what about to that part of Jeremiah’s commission to rebuild and to plant?  God still had work for Jeremiah to accomplish.

If you read Jeremiah chapter 50 in the LXX version of the scriptures or chapter 43 in most other modern versions of the scriptures you will find that Jeremiah had King Zedekiah’s daughters with him.  Remember in your bible studies, that Nebuchadnezzar had all of Zedekiah’s sons killed before his eyes and then Zedekiah’s eyes were plucked out.  Nebuchadnezzar believed that he had ended the Royal house of Israel/Judah by killing of the heirs to David’s throne.  But what he wasn’t aware of is that God had modified the traditional law of inheritance that was followed in the ancient Middle East by allowing girls to inherit the property and rights and privileges of their father in certain circumstances.  In Numbers 27:1-7 we learn that Moses had a case brought before him, in which a man had died and had only daughters to inherit his property and title/name.  The priest brought the daughters before Moses to decide if they should inherit or not inherit, as was the law at the time.  Moses didn’t feel right turning these women out without any inheritance but it was the law so Moses turned to Yahweh and asked him to render a decision in the matter.  God spoke to Moses and changed the law.  God said that a daughter could inherit a father’s property and NAME/TITLE if there were no sons.  So under the law of God the kingship of Israel/Judah promised to David by God, passed from Zedekiah to his eldest daughter as all of Zedekiah’s sons had been slain.  Thus Jeremiah had with him the rightful heirs to the thrown of David.  He would have to build up a people and plant the kingship within them to complete his commission assigned by God.  Did he do these things?  The bible tells us he partially did “build up” because he had a company of men and their families from the tribe of Judah with him but he would have to do more to have a place to plant the “tender young twig” as the daughter of Zedekiah is described by God in Ezekiel 7:22.  We further read in Ezekiel chapter 7 that the twig/daughter will be planted on a mountain in the mist of or under the control of the people of Israel.  Since all the tribes of the people of Israel had been driven from the Promised Land Jeremiah had to go to where they were.  The book of Jeremiah as we have it ends before it tells us how Jeremiah accomplished the last part of his commission but history confirms to us that he was able to accomplish it under God’s guidance.

So where do we look to find out how and where Jeremiah fulfilled his commission?  Secular and early church historians record for us the principle events of Jeremiah’s acts.  However we get the first clue as to where Jeremiah was to go by reading Jeremiah 15:14.  Yahweh tells Jeremiah that he will cross over into a land that he did not know.  Another clue comes from Ezekiel 17:4, where we are told that God said he would plant the tender twig in the “land of traffic” in a city of merchants.  When we look at the original Hebrew word translated as traffic in the KJV we see it comes from the Hebrew name Kena‛an, who was a son of Ham the son of Noah and the founder of the Canaanite people under which the Phoenician people are generally grouped because of the geographical proximity of their cities in the area of Palestine[1].  The bible tells us that the Phoenicians were related to the tribe of Dan, as in 2 Chronicles 2:14 were we read “The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre,”.  Also the word Land here is from the Hebrew word “eret” which according to Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Definitions means firm land and is used in contrast to the land of Canaan.  Thus Ezekiel 17:4 would be easier understood in contemporary English to read “a island of the Phoenicians” or the “island of the Dan”.  To understand where the lands of the Phoenician people were we only have to look to the numerous historical records.  From Palestine to the British Isles and Ireland the Phoenician people had established seaports and cities of merchants to support their vast seafaring empire.  The Massaliote Periplus a merchants' handbook, dating to the sixth century BC describing the searoutes used by traders from Phoenicia and Tartessus in their journeys around Ancient Europe, specifically describing seaways running northwards from Cadiz in Spain along the coast of Atlantic Europe to Brittany, Ireland and Britain.  The Greeks and Carthaginians knew of the British Isles as Cassiterides or "tin islands”[2].  Pytheas a Greek merchant, who was from the Greek colony of Massilia or modern Marseille, France and one of the greatest navigators of the 4^th century BC traveled around a considerable part of the interior of Great Britain, sailing around the whole island between 330 and 320 BC.[3]

The histories of Britain and Ireland recorded by numerous historians down through the centuries confirm that at a time between the 11th^th to 8^th century BC in what we call the Bronze Age a people who identified themselves as being decedents of the patriarch Jacob/Israel settled in Ireland and Britain.  Such peoples as the Nemedians often referred to as the original permanent settlers of Ireland, the Firbolgs who set up the first royal dynasty, and the “Tuatha de Danaan”, or Tribe of Dan[4] who over threw the Firbolgs and established the ethnic people we know as Irish/Celts today.  The Kelts or Celts as we call them today are the same people as the Iberians of the Iberian Peninsular (Spain/Portugal).  The word Iberi is the roman variant of the Hebrew word Ibri, which is Hebrew for Hebrew[5].  The Celtic language has been identified by a number of well know scholars and linguist experts as positively being of Hebrew origin with intermixing of Egyptian words[6].  Historical records of both ancient Britain and Ireland record the in about the year 538 BC a Great Prophet, his scribe “Brugh or Baruch” and the daughter of a king arrived in Ireland.  Jeremiah is recorded in Irish history as Caei, the Eloquent (or the Just), from Judea, and Iar/ Iarbanel, son of Nemha/Nemedh[7].  “Iar” representing an abbreviation for the Hebrew form of Jeremiah, “ban” meaning son of, and “el” meaning God. Thus we have Iarbenel or Jeremiah the Son of God.[8]  Once in Ireland and Britain Jeremiah saw to it that the daughter of Zedekiah, the “young tender twig” were planted down, that is were married to the royal family in Ireland, who themselves were descendents of the early Hebrew settlers.  Once this was accomplished Jeremiah’s commission had been fulfilled.  We could spend a great deal more time reviewing all the historical biblical evidence that support this conveniently obscured fact of Biblical history but we would generally have to conclude that Jeremiah made it safely to Ireland/Britain where a long established colony of Hebrew settlers, most of the tribe of Dan had been living for generations.  Now let’s move on to the mission of Paul as given him by the Yeshua (Jesus) the messiah.

Yeshua makes it pretty clear to us in Matthew 15:24 that he did not come to gentles but only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  That is to the decedents of all the tribes of Israel who had been scattered around the ancient world from Parthian to the British Isles.  We learn in Matthew 10:6 that the apostles were given very specific instructions to go only to the decedents of the tribes of Israel to preach the good news of the coming of the messiah.  Yeshua specifically forbids them from preaching amongst the gentiles.  Nor were they to preach amongst the then contemporary Judeans in the Kingdom of Judea, as they were not of the House of Israel either.  God hadn’t promised the gentiles a messiah he specifically promised the messiah to the descendents of the Patriarch Israel, the father of the children of Israel.  God had to keep his promise to us and he did by sending his son to be our Messiah and guiding the apostles to the lost sheep to deliver the good news (gospel).  We discussed the arrival of Jeremiah in Ireland/Britain but over the several hundred years since the exile of the children of Israel and later the children of Judah (not Judea) made their way by land and sea to shores of the British Islands.  These were the lost sheep that the apostle Paul and apostle Peter as well as Simon the Zealot were destined to preach to.  Matthew for example was sent to the lost sheep in Parthia according to St. Simeon Metaphrastes who compiled a history of the apostles in the mid 10^th century AD.  James in his epistle, which bears his name writes in James 1:1, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.”(KJV).  He isn’t writing to the Judeans who live in Judea and he isn’t writing to just the tribe of Judah, often confused with the Judeans of Judea and Jerusalem in Yeshua’s time.  No he is writing to all of the decedents of Israel from each of the twelve tribes.  Did you know that only the Apostle Paul was given the authority to preach to the gentiles?  Let’s look at Acts 9:15  “But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:” Only Paul of all the apostles was to preach the gospel to the gentiles but even then when he had preached to the gentiles and the kings he was to go to the children of Israel and preach the gospel.  Did the apostles follow Yeshua’s instructions or did they do their own thing?

First let us look to Paul he went first to preach in Cyprus, Asia Minor and Greece, thus fulfilling the first part of his charge.  Then Paul was charged with a crime and sent to Rome; here he was to preach to the emperor thus fulfilling the second part of his charge.  Now Paul was to fulfill the third part of his charge to preach the gospel to the “children of Israel” and then the book of Acts falls silent concerning Paul.  Why?  Obviously the writer and/or latter editors didn’t want the masses to know where the Apostles had gone.  Today most Christians haven’t the slightest idea where any of the Apostles traveled with the exception of the general knowledge that Paul went to Asia Minor and then to Rome where he was executed.  Bishop Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Bishop Clement of Rome who later became pope both tell us in their writings that Paul went to Britain and Ireland to preach the gospel to the lost sheep of Israel. This confirms the statement of Paul in Romans 15:28, "...  I will come by you into Spain"  Theodoret in his book from the 4^th century AD, i, on Psalm cxvi.  p. 870, clearly states "That St. Paul brought salvation to the isles that lie in the ocean” Eusebius, also testifies to the fact that the apostles went to Britain in his third book of "Evangelical Demonstrations", chapter 7, he states that the apostles "passed over to those which are called the British Isles."  He also writes  "Some of the Apostles preached the Gospel in the British Isles."

But not only did Paul go to Britain to establish the Christian church and preach to the lost sheep of Israel but so did several other Apostles of our Lord and Messiah go there.  William Camden writes in volume published by him in 1674, "Remains of Britain", page 5, we read: "The true Christian Religion was planted here most anciently by Joseph of Arimathea, Simon Zelotes, Aristobulus, by St. Peter, and St. Paul, as may be proved by Dorotheus, Theodoretus and Sophronius."  We know that Peter and Paul were executed in Rome after preaching in Britain and were buried there as well.  But how many of us know that the bodies of S. Paul and St. Peter, as well as those of the martyrs St. Lawrence, St. John, St. Gregory and St. Pancras, where sent from Rome to England to be re-interred in the great church at Canterbury?  The truth of this is found in a found in an order issued by Pope Vitalian to the British King Oswy, in 656 AD, which is still in existence, and states as quoted from Opera Historica, Volume I, p. 501; "But to your messengers, the bearers of this our letter, we have caused to be given the benefits of the saints, that is to say, the relics of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and of the holy martyrs, Laurence [or Lawrence], John and Paul and of Gregory and Pancras, all to be delivered truly to your excellency."

The truth is not only found in our beloved scripture but also in church history, and secular history that Jeremiah brought the seed of David to the Islands of Britain for the sole purpose of following God’s promise to maintain the lineage of the house of David as King over the peoples of the tribes of Israel.  It was the politicians of Rome who tried to rewrite history.  In the early centuries of the Christian church the Roman Empire had hijacked the fledgling Christian faith for its own purposes to use Christianity against their own people as a binding agent to maintain their political control.  If it became popular knowledge that the Apostles mission was to go only to the true blood descendents of all the twelve tribes of Israel then Roman Christianity would have lost its appeal amongst the Roman heathens.  The Pharisees also, soon grasped what was going on and began to circulate rumors and newly created mythology that was designed to protect their interest because the truth of Christianity was dangerous to them.  With the fall of the Roman Empire and the collapse of the Roman government in the provinces where the Apostles had gone Roman Christians soon forgot and no longer cared about the true apostles because they had their imposters. We have all heard that Peter went to Rome to preach the Gospel but how many of us know which Peter it was?  It wasn’t the Apostle Peter; no it was Simon Peter Magnus who is introduced to us in Acts 8:9 who went to Rome and started a supposedly Christian church there.  The roman church even built a church on the site of one of his supposed miracles and dedicated it to him, it is known as the church of Santa Francesca Romana, previously known as Santa Maria Nova.