Jer 12:1-9 Let Me Talk With You of Your Judgments

[Study Aired June 27, 2021]

Jer 12:1  Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?
Jer 12:2  Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root: they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins.
Jer 12:3  But thou, O LORD, knowest me: thou hast seen me, and tried mine heart toward thee: pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter.
Jer 12:4  How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our last end.
Jer 12:5  If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?
Jer 12:6  For even thy brethren, and the house of thy father, even they have dealt treacherously with thee; yea, they have called a multitude after thee: believe them not, though they speak fair words unto thee.
Jer 12:7  I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.
Jer 12:8  Mine heritage is unto me as a lion in the forest; it crieth out against me: therefore have I hated it.
Jer 12:9  Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her; come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour.

The shameless adultery of Israel ‘happened unto them… and… they are… all… written for our admonition’ and for our benefit:

1Co 10:11  Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.

The Hebrew word translated ‘ensample’ is ‘tupos’ and it means ‘types’. Verse 6 tells us everything that happened to ancient Israel was “types of us”:

1Co 10:6 Now these things became types of us, for us not to be lusters after evil things, (CLV)

Typical of us as “carnal… babes in Christ” (1Co 3:1-4), Jeremiah certainly was not aware at his time that the entire history and economy of his nation was for the benefit and admonition of God’s spiritual Israel:

Gal 6:15  Certainly, it doesn’t matter whether a person is circumcised or not. Rather, what matters is being a new creation.
Gal 6:16  Peace and mercy will come to rest on all those who conform to this principle. They are the Israel of God. (GWV)

Jeremiah, like Job, typifies who we are before we are granted to stop ‘contending with and reproving God’ to make ourselves appear to be more righteous than God:

Job 40:1  Moreover the LORD answered Job, and said,
Job 40:2  Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it.

Job 40:8  Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?

When we ask these questions, like Job, we are implying that God is not a just God and that He is not nearly as righteous as we are. Typical of us, Jeremiah questions why the Lord afflicts His elect while blessing His Own enemies.

Jer 12:1  Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore [Old English for ‘Why?’] doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?

That question typifies the ignorant carnal mind in each of us. We simply are not capable at this point in our ‘experience of evil’ to see any of the benefits to be achieved from doing things like selling Joseph into Egyptian slavery. We can see no need for the nation of Israel to ever be slaves in Egypt. We would never anoint King Saul and then reject him as king. We would never have put David through years of being pursued by King Saul, and later have his own son, Absalom, seek King David’s life to acquire his throne. Finally, none of us would ever be pleased to bruise and kill our own son to pay for the sins of all mankind.

Isa 53:10  Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Isa 53:11  He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
Isa 53:12  Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Our heavenly Father does not pass the buck. He takes complete responsibility for every detail leading up to the death of His own Son:

Act 4:26  The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ.
Act 4:27  For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together,
Act 4:28  For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

It is the Maker and Creator of all things who has decided “before the world began” (2Ti 1:9 and Tit 1:2) that mankind was to be rebellious, corrupt and dying creature filled with the most heinous sins and in desperate need of a Savior:

2Ti 1:9  Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Tit 1:2  In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

For us to be given “purpose and grace [and the] hope of eternal life… promised before the world began”, God would have to have planned out in advance every day of the lives of every man in every generation from Adam, and that is exactly what we are told He has done:

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them. (ASV)

1Co 10:5 But not in the majority of them does God delight, for they were strewn along in the wilderness.”
1Co 10:6 Now these things became types of us, for us not to be lusters after evil things, (CVL)

Paul tells us that the holy spirit teaches us “comparing spiritual things with spiritual”:

1Co 2:12  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
1Co 2:13  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth;  comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

What these verses tell us is that the unconverted physical nation of Israel, even though they had a relationship with God, were still as completely unconverted as the apostles of Christ were after spending three and a half years with Him:

Luk 22:31  And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:
Luk 22:32  But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.

Being unconverted and being without the holy spirit, Christ’s apostles could not and did not understand “the things of the spirit”:

1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Being a carnal-minded and rebellious people by nature, and as “types of us”, Israel became a harlot that typifies the great whore which the entire historical Christian church has become. We have all been a part of her, and we are all still in the process of ‘coming out of her…” as we come to see and to root out all of the lies she has taught us from our youth up:

Isa 1:21  How is the faithful city [Jerusalem, God’s rejected anointed] become an harlot! [the “great whore… which rules over all the kings of the earth”, Rev 23-24] it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

Like Adam, and like any newborn child, Israel transgressed against their own Savior at their first opportunity:

Jer 12:2  Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root: they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins.

“Thou hast planted them… they bring forth fruit”, but it is “very evil… fruit”. It is the fruit of our rebellious, self-righteous old man. Here is the fate of our rebellious old man:

Jer 24:1  The LORD shewed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the LORD, after that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.
Jer 24:2  One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.
Jer 24:3  Then said the LORD unto me, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs, very good; and the evil, very evil, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil.
Jer 24:4  Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Jer 24:5  Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good.
Jer 24:6  For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up.
Jer 24:7  And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.
Jer 24:8  And as the evil figs, which cannot be eaten, they are so evil; surely thus saith the LORD, So will I give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the residue of Jerusalem, that remain in this land, and them that dwell in the land of Egypt:
Jer 24:9  And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places whither I shall drive them.
Jer 24:10  And I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, among them, till they be consumed from off the land that I gave unto them and to their fathers.

There it is for anyone to read, yet only a few will see and understand (Mat 13:9-15). It is the Lord Himself who put us in Babylon, and it is the Lord Himself who brings us out if He decides to bring us back to Himself. Both the good and the evil figs are the Lord’s planting, and both are His work. Both are conquered by the king of Babylon, but Zedekiah and the Jews who fled to Egypt rebel against the king of Babylon and think within themselves that they need not drink of the wine of the Lord’s wrath. Such is not the case:

Jer 25:15  For thus saith the LORD God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it.
Jer 25:16  And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.
Jer 25:17  Then took I the cup at the LORD’S hand, and  made all the nations to drink, unto whom the LORD had sent me:
Jer 25:18  To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, an hissing, and a curse; as it is this day;
Jer 25:19  Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people;

Rev 15:7  And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
Rev 15:8  And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

But ‘evil figs’ never see themselves as being evil. It is natural for every one of us to profess that we are Christians even as we rebel against every doctrine of Christ. Christ asks us:

Luk 6:46  And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

At this juncture in our experience of evil’ (Ecc 1:13), the Lord is near in our mouth, but He is “Far from [our] reins”.

The word translated as ‘reins’ here in Jeremiah 12:2 is the same word translated ‘kidneys’ in these verses:

Exo 29:13  And thou shalt take all the fat that covereth the inwards, and the caul that is above the liver, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and burn them upon the altar.

Exo 29:22  Also thou shalt take of the ram the fat and the rump, and the fat that covereth the inwards, and the caul above the liver, and the two  kidneys, and the fat that is upon them, and the right shoulder; for it is a ram of consecration:

Lev 8:16  And he took all the fat that was upon the inwards, and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys, and their fat, and Moses burned it upon the altar.

Here is that Hebrew word translated as ‘kidneys’:

H3629
כִּלְיָה
kilyâh
kil-yaw’
Feminine of H3627 (only in the plural); a kidney (as an essential organ); figuratively the mind (as the interior self): – kidneys, reins.

These are the entries for this word as it is translated in the King James Version:

כּליה
kilyâh
Total KJV Occurrences: 31
kidneys, 18
Exo_29:13, Exo_29:22, Lev_3:4 (2), Lev_3:10 (2), Lev_3:15 (2), Lev_4:9 (2), Lev_7:4 (2), Lev_8:16, Lev_8:25, Lev_9:10, Lev_9:19, Deu_32:14, Isa_34:6
reins, 13
Job_16:13, Job_19:27, Psa_7:9, Psa_16:7, Psa_26:2, Psa_73:21, Psa_139:13, Pro_23:16, Jer_11:20, Jer_12:2, Jer_17:10, Lam_3:12-13 (2)

This Hebrew word ‘kilyah’ is most often translated as ‘kidneys’. The kidneys are strongly associated with “the inwards”, and as such “the reins” is the phrase which the holy spirit uses to speak of our innermost parts spiritually.

Psa 26:2  Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.

Jer 11:20  But, O LORD of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I revealed my cause.

Jer 20:12  But, O LORD of hosts, that triest the righteous, and seest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I opened my cause.

“The holy spirit teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual” (1Co 2:13). It is the spirit within us with which the Lord is working, and that is why we see the heart and mind so often associated with “the reins”… the kidneys… the inward most part of each of the Lord’s elect, “of the heart, in the spirit”:

Mar 7:21  For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,

Luk 6:45  A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

Rom 2:28  For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
Rom 2:29  But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

These bodies of corruptible flesh did not become corruptible because Adam ate of the fruit of the tree. If Adam’s flesh had been perfect, he would never have eaten of the fruit of the forbidden tree. Adam ate of the tree because he was not yet the finished product he is being created to become.  Adam was made of flesh, and flesh and blood are corruption and were never designed or intended from “before the world began” to inherit the kingdom of God:

1Co 15:49  And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
1Co 15:50  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

It is our hearts and minds with which the Lord is concerned. Our hearts and our minds are the “reins [which He] tries” to show us what resides therein, and the Truth is that we are all born into bodies of sinful flesh and blood:

Psa 51:5  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

It is only with the spirit of Christ within us that we can fear Him and be obedient to Him:

Ecc 12:13  The end of the whole matter let us hear: –`Fear God, and keep His commands, for this is the whole of man. (YLT)

Adam and Eve typify us just as ancient Israel also typifies us. They were the Lord’s original physical people, and like ancient Israel, Adam and Eve rebelled against their own God, and as the story of Cain demonstrates, they hate and kill any and all who “do well” and fear God and keep His commandments:

Act 7:52  Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:

The fact is that it is not and never has been possible to come to Christ and keep His spiritual commandments without having His mind and His spirit:

Joh 6:44  No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw [G1670: Helkuo, to drag] him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Rom 7:24  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Having “tried [our] reins” the Lord knows us very well:

Jer 12:3  But thou, O LORD, knowest me: thou hast seen me, and tried mine heart toward thee: pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and prepare them for the day of slaughter.

The plural pronouns ‘they’ and ‘them’ in scripture most always refer to the family and kingdom of our own old man. When we see these ‘sheep’ as evil men with whom we have nothing in common… people the Lord is “pulling out… for the slaughter”, and we fail to see that this is exactly what the Lord is doing to our own rebellious, self-righteous, carnal-minded old man, then we are making the word of God of no benefit to ourselves. On the other hand, if we are granted just to see ourselves “as other men…” as the one asking the Lord these accusing questions, as if He had to explain Himself to us, then we will in time see the foolishness of attempting to hold our very Maker and Creator accountable to ourselves.

However, we are all a self-righteous Pharisee before we can come to see ourselves as a repentant publican:

Luk 18:11  The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.

We all begin as immature, foolish, spiritual “carnal… babes… in Christ” (1Co 3:1-4) “contending with” our very Maker, attempting to “instruct [and] reprove” Him (Job 40:2):

Jer 12:4  How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our last end.

We may know better intellectually, nevertheless, we all first act as though the Lord does not see us when we are returning to our vomit and our wallow in the mire. The Lord poses this question for our contemplation:

Psa 94:9  He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?

Like Job, Jeremiah wants to know how long his suffering will last, and just as He did with Job and with the Pharisees, the Lord turns the tables on Jeremiah and on us by answering our questions with His own question:

Jer 12:5  If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?

The Lord is in effect telling Jeremiah and each of us that if the men of Anathoth, Jeremiah’s hometown, weary him, what hope does Jeremiah or we have of facing the same self-righteous and condemning spirit from the whole nation, and if our own nation, “the land of peace wherein you trusted, has wearied you” how will you act when the nations all around you turn on you and your entire nation, the entire nation of your old man?

This phrase “the swelling of Jordan” appears two other times in this prophecy of Jeremiah. We need to look at the other two entries of this phrase to understand exactly what the Lord is enquiring of us.

The first is the prophecy of the judgment of Edom by the invading armies of Babylon:

Jer 49:19  Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan against the habitation of the strong: but I will suddenly make him run away from her: and who is a chosen man, that I may appoint over her? for who is like me? and who will appoint me the time? and who is that shepherd that will stand before me?

It must be understood that the ‘him’ in this verse is all the men of Edom who are forsaking ‘her’, their own land, and people of whom they thought as “the habitation of the strong”.

The next entry of this phrase “the swelling of Jordan” speaks of the judgment of Babylon:

Jer 50:44  Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan unto the habitation of the strong: but I will make them suddenly run away from her: and who is a chosen man, that I may appoint over her? for who is like me? and who will appoint me the time? and who is that shepherd that will stand before me?

Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians without a battle. These two verses are the same word for word, and they both contain the phrase ‘from the swelling of Jordan’. Chapter 49 concerns the judgment of the Lord against Edom at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Chapter 50 reveals the judgment of the Lord against Babylon at the hands of “a nation… out of the north”:

Jer 50:1  The word that the LORD spake against Babylon and against the land of the Chaldeans by Jeremiah the prophet.
Jer 50:2  Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces.
Jer 50:3  For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make  her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they shall remove,  they shall depart, both man and beast.

The pronoun ‘her’ in both Jeremiah 49:19 and 50:44 is referring to the nation which the Lord is judging. Both verses add the words ‘like a lion from the swelling of Jordan’ to emphasize the extent of the ferocity of the Lord’s impending judgment. In all three verses, here in Jeremiah 12:5, 49:19 and 50:44, “the swelling of Jordan” refers to a worst-case scenario.

Inwardly the Lord is telling Jeremiah and us that if we cannot stand firm in the day of adversity, our strength is little:

Pro 24:10  If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.

The Lord continues to admonish us:

Jer 12:6  For even thy brethren, and the house of thy father, even they have dealt treacherously with thee; yea, they have called a multitude after thee: believe them not, though they speak fair words unto thee.

“[Our] brethren, and the house of [our] father” is our own flesh, the flesh of our old man, and “[our] father [is] the devil”. It is through “fair words… speaking smooth things”, that ‘our own brothers, and the house of our father’ “deal treacherously with [us]”:

Isa 30:8  Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever:
Isa 30:9  That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD:
Isa 30:10  Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:
Isa 30:11  Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.

What the Lord is telling us is that our old man sees what he wants to see and hears what he wants to hear. Our old man simply cannot receive the undefiled doctrine of Christ. The Lord knows this and has devised a means whereby our old man and his kingdom will be destroyed, and through that destruction our new man will be born. For that to happen the Lord must forsake the kingdom of our rebellious old man whom He has planted:

Jer 12:7  I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.
Jer 12:8  Mine heritage is unto me as a lion in the forest; it crieth out against me: therefore have I hated it.

The doctrines of the great whore are the lying, monstrous doctrines of our old man telling us that the Lord will burn us in hell for all eternity for our sins. Such blasphemy is crying out against the doctrine of Christ which declares that all in Adam shall be made alive, in the same manner we were made to die in Adam:

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

All the false doctrines of the transmigration of souls or the law of circularity notwithstanding, the Truth is that none of us were around before our birth to choose by our own will to be in “in Adam”. Adam’s creation was an independent work of the Lord Himself. ‘As [we had no choice but to be] in Adam… even so in Christ none of us chooses of our own will to be in Christ.’ That also is an independent work of the Lord Himself, and He makes that super clear with these words:

Joh 6:44  No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw [Greek: helkuo, drag] him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Joh 15:16  Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

It is the Lord who has ordained that we must be in “the first man Adam” before we will be in “the last Adam”:

1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
1Co 15:48  As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such  are they also that are heavenly.
1Co 15:49  And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

In our last verse of this study our “first man Adam” is called “a speckled bird”:

Jer 12:9  Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her; come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour.

There is no reason to think that the dove that descended upon Christ at His baptism by John was a “speckled bird”. Christ and His Christ are in the eyes of our heavenly Father “without spot”, while our old man is indeed “a speckled bird… made to be taken and destroyed”:

Heb 9:14  How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Ecc 3:18  I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

2Pe 2:12  But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;

“The birds round about… her” are called ‘unclean and hateful birds’ who are in and about the great whore who is the Lord’s rejected ‘heritage’:

Isa 1:21  How is the faithful city become an harlot! [Jerusalem, verse 1] it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

Rev 17:1  And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: [“the faithful city is become an harlot”]
Rev 17:2  With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

Rev 18:1  And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
Rev 18:2  And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit,  and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
Rev 18:3  For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
Rev 18:4  And I heard another voice from heaven, saying,  Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

Lord willing, we are those who are coming out of that “speckled bird… [that] great harlot” system and we are the first to be washing our robes white in the blood of the Lamb:

Isa 1:18  Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson,  they shall be as wool.

Rev 7:14  And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

This verse is referring specifically to those who will be in the great white throne judgment, but as Isaiah 1:18 demonstrates, those in the first resurrection are the first to come out of that “speckled bird… Babylon the great” and wash their robes white in the blood of the Lamb.

That is our study for today. In our next study we will see that this “speckled bird” is full of “many pastors [who] have destroyed [the Lord’s] vineyard…”

Jer 12:10  Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.
Jer 12:11  They have made it desolate, and being desolate it mourneth unto me; the whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart.
Jer 12:12  The spoilers are come upon all high places through the wilderness: for the sword of the LORD shall devour from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land: no flesh shall have peace.
Jer 12:13  They have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns: they have put themselves to pain, but shall not profit: and they shall be ashamed of your revenues because of the fierce anger of the LORD.
Jer 12:14  Thus saith the LORD against all mine evil neighbours, that touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit; Behold, I will pluck them out of their land, and pluck out the house of Judah from among them.
Jer 12:15  And it shall come to pass, after that I have plucked them out I will return, and have compassion on them, and will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land.
Jer 12:16  And it shall come to pass, if they will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, The LORD liveth; as they taught my people to swear by Baal; then shall they be built in the midst of my people.
Jer 12:17  But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the LORD.