Tag Archives: Jeremiah 47

Flash Flood

June 12, 2023 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

This is what the Lord says:
“See how the waters are rising in the north;
    they will become an overflowing torrent.
They will overflow the land and everything in it,
    the towns and those who live in them.
The people will cry out;
    all who dwell in the land will wail…”
Jeremiah 47:2 (NIV)

It was early summer in 1993 and I made a quick trip to a car dealership just a mile or two up the street from my house with the whole family in tow. I don’t recall being there very long. The girls were just toddlers at that point, so it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes to look at whatever car it was that we were interested in seeing.

By the time we started pulling out of the dealership a creek the runs just a hundred yards or so to the south of the dealership had risen to flood the intersection between the dealership and our house. Over the next hour, I drove for mile and miles trying to find an open route that would get us safely home. I eventually had to drive about ten miles north and east of our location to successfully connect to the interstate that was still open and could get us back home.

Floods are an ominous thing. As I look back on my life journey, I realize that floods are the most consistent natural disasters that I’ve had to deal with throughout my life journey. What’s crazy is that you can’t always see them coming before the floodwaters start wreaking havoc. I’ll never forget waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of rushing water and discovered water pouring through a basement window. Talk about feeling helpless. Ugh!

Today’s chapter is another one of the prophet Jeremiah’s one-off prophetic messages to people groups in his region. This one is directed to the Philistines who lived to the south and west of Jerusalem. Like Jeremiah’s own people, the Philistines were caught in the no-mans-land between the two warring empires of Egypt and Babylon. Like Jeremiah’s people, the Philistines would have felt the tension of who they should side with in the conflict in order to avoid disaster.

In the message God gives to Jeremiah for the Philistines, it opens with the metaphorical imagery of a devastating flood coming from the north (that would be the Babylonian army) which the Philistines will be helpless to stop. In the ancient Near East, treaties often included curses for the people who broke the treaty. The curses were sometimes a “flood.” In surviving treaties from this same century, the Assyrian empire made vassal treaties with weaker city-states and promised destructive floods should those city-states break the treaty. This adds some context to Jeremiah’s message to the rising “flood waters” to the north.

The Philistines have been part of the geo-political landscape in this area for centuries. It was the Philistines who gave Samson troubles back in the time of the Judges. King David was always at war with the Philistines some 500 years before Jeremiah. What’s ominous about Jeremiah’s prophetic prediction of destruction for “all the Philistines” is that it turned out to be true. After Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon storms through the region in 605 B.C. the Philistines disappear from the historical record.

In the quiet this morning, I can’t help but think about floods in life. Along this life journey I have observed that sometimes troubles rise like floodwaters, and I am helpless to avoid them or prevent them. In those instances, the crucial question is how I will handle the reality of them. Jesus taught His followers to expect troubles. Those followers quickly learned that it was those troubles that required the production of character qualities such as faith, trust, perseverance, character, maturity, and hope. I have found the same to be true in my own life.

When troubles hit like a flash flood and the waters are rising, faith is the Life preserver that allows me to rise with them.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The Wisdom of Awareness

May 30, 2018 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“See how the waters are rising in the north;
they will become an overflowing torrent.
They will overflow the land and everything in it,
the towns and those who live in them.”
Jeremiah 47:2 (NIV)

A couple of years ago the lake where we spend a good part of our summer (which is actually part of a larger system of reservoirs) experienced some of the highest water levels on record. The flood of water coming downstream wreaked havoc throughout the entire system. Docks broke away, homes were flooded, and floodgates were opened which, in turn, became destructive to the area beneath the dam.

Of course, we knew it was coming. We could monitor the water levels of the rivers and reservoirs north of us online. There were warnings allowing residents to prepare. Fortunately, our house sits up on a hill and was never in danger, but that wasn’t true for all of our neighbors. It was a scary time.

Today’s chapter is part of a series of prophetic messages that the ancient prophet Jeremiah gave to the nations around him. The message from today is focused on the ancient nation of the Philistines. Jeremiah uses the word picture of the rising waters in the north which foretold a coming flood. The metaphor pointed to the Babylonian army which was heading south and bent on conquering and destroying all nations in its path.

Along my journey I’ve experienced different kinds of difficulty and tragedy. Sometimes things happen suddenly and without warning, catching me off guard and forcing me to switch into emergency mode. Other times, however, there are warning signs. If my eyes are open and I remain aware, there is time to prepare and to shore up my resources against the potential danger even if there is nothing I can do to stop the impending flood headed my way.

This morning in the quiet I’m looking out the window at the calm, peaceful water. It is usually like this on a summer morning, but not always. Jesus said, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.”

I’m reminded this morning of the wisdom of awareness. In my spirit I’m praying for the perception to see when waters are rising upstream in this life, and the courage to begin preparations when they are.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Jeremiah 47

March 10, 2011 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“Oh, Sword of God,
how long will you keep this up?
Return to your scabbard.
Haven’t you had enough? Can’t you call it quits?”
Jeremiah 47:6 (MSG)

Doomsday is a funny thing. With all of the upheaval in the world, it’s been getting a lot of press again lately.

Oh Doomsday, how we love thee. Let me count the ways:

My first brush with doomsday was a guy by the name of Hal Lindsey who wrote all sorts of books about the end of the world happening in the early 1980’s.
I also soon learned during my childhood about the “doomsday clock” that shows us how close we are to atomic annihilation. To this day I read about it from time to time. If you want to synchronize your watch, it’s currently six minutes to midnight.
In the early 80’s there was another guy who bought up ads in all the major newspapers in the world predicting the end of the world on a certain day at a certain hour. Man, was that a waste of advertising dollars.
I was a senior in high school in 1984. The whole George Orwell buzz got a lot of press.
I had a Bible prof who went to great lengths to prove that the Soviet Union was the evil empire Gog and Magog from Biblical prophecy who was going to invade Israel. About the time the Berlin Wall came down, I chuckled as I pictured him having to rewrite all of his exhaustive booklets, pamphlets and lecture notes.
In 1987 there was a “harmonic convergence” in which planets aligned. Lots of people gathered at “power centers” waiting for a major “energy shift.”
Then there was a rash of world events in the late 80’s and early 90’s that had everyone buzzing. The fall of communism, Tianamen Square, the Challenger disaster, the San Francisco earthquake, and the baseball strike.
Of course, can we forget Y2K and the global doomsday that was about to befall us when the world’s computers couldn’t change their date to a new century? A few fortunate people still had atomic bomb shelters from the 1950’s to stockpile with supplies.
There’s a lot of buzz about the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012 and the end of the world. I’m not too worried about it. My Norman Rockwell Calendar from Van Wyk State Farm ended on January 31st, 2010. The sun dawned on 2011 just fine.
Wendy read me an article from the Wall Street Journal this past week about a million dead sardines washing up on shore in southern California. Some are seeing it as a sign of doomsday, but the only sign I see in it is that a shortage of sardines means the price of my Ceasar Salad dressing is likely to go up.

As I look back over my journey, I’ve learned to take prophetic doomsday predictions with a large grain of salt. Do I believe that world events are moving towards an eventual climax of events prophetically outlined in scripture? Yes, I do. Can worrying about the timing of these events add value or quality to my life? No.

I’m not worried about doomsday. I’m just worried about following God’s path for me, loving my wife and kids well, working hard, giving generously, and living full. As the old Keith Green song said, God can take care of the rest.