Jeremiah did a lot of weeping over the people of Israel. He wanted to spare them judgment from God. Babylon was the entity God used for his purposes. The Israelite’s were trusting in their religion to save them. Surely God would not let his temple be removed or eliminated would he? This is exactly what God did for seventy years. Solomon’s temple was razed to the ground never to be seen again. This temple was the pride of the Jewish people. “This is where God lives!” they proclaimed. Unknown to them God had departed. He was removed by the Jewish leaders and replaced with man’s wisdom and thinking. The Jewish leaders were very confident that they and the people would never be judged, Jerusalem would never be destroyed, because God was no where else in the world. They alone were God’s people. They alone had a covenant with God. What happened? They went into captivity. They were given by God into the hands of their enemy. They went into servitude and disgrace.
II Thessalonians chapter 2 says that those who love the truth will be saved. Others will be given a strong delusion from God in order that they will believe a lie. In our day we have a good number of our own saying that we can no longer trust the Bible fully because it has been compromised. “Surely, God does not expect that from us given the circumstances.”
The Israelite’s didn’t think so either.