“Within two years, I am going to bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD'S house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon.”

Jeremiah 28:3

And does Babylon not represent the world alienated from God? And just like Jerusalem is the holy city of God, as the antithesis of Jerusalem, Babylon is “the city of this world” and a cipher for “the tyrannical ways of evil.”

Prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah have plenty to say about Babylon. And, in summary, they describe Babylon as a city of pride and idolatry. And is pride and idolatry not at the root of all that is alienated from God?

During the reign of Hezekiah, when envoys from Babylon came to Jerusalem (2 Kings 20:12-19), the prophet Isaiah chastised king Hezekiah for showing off the treasures of Judah, and predicted that Babylon would some day carry these riches off.

And has this prophecy not been fulfilled? Have the ways of the world not carried off all the vessels of the LORD’s house and filled them with the tyrannical ways of evil? Being the tyrannical ways of pride and idolatry?

And of these vessels, has it not been written that vessels are either vessels of honour or vessels of dishonour? Romans 9:21. And do we not dishonour the reason for which we were created when we fill ourselves with the ways of Babylon? For were we not in fact created to be containers of God?

The holy Word tells us clearly that we are all vessels. Romans 9:21. And as a vessel, is a vessel not specifically a utensil for holding contents? For what else is a vessel other than a holder or receptacle? And as vessels, we were all made to be containers of God. We are destined to contain God.

Which is to contain His divine nature and eternal power. Which is the nature and power of living love. That as a container of His ways and His truth and His life, we may pour ourselves out in loving our neighbour as ourselves. John 13:34. So that just as all the law was fulfilled by Jesus, all the law may be fulfilled in us too. Galatians 5:14.

For is a container not something which provides of the fatness of its BELLY for the gain of another? Is this not why it has been written: “The one believing in Me, as the Scripture has said: 'Out of his BELLY will flow rivers of living water.'" John 7:38.

So whilst Isaiah prophesied that Babylon would some day carry these vessels off, Jeremiah in turn prophesied a bringing back of all the vessels of the LORD’s house. “Within two years, I am going to bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD'S house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon.” Jeremiah 28:3.

And are we not now approaching the end of Jeremiah’s two years? A time is coming and soon will come when all the vessels that have been destined for honour shall be redeemed from the clutches of the world, so that the storehouses of God may once again be full.

“Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honour and another for dishonour?” ‭‭Romans‬ ‭9:21‬.

We all have the choice as to which vessel we will ultimately be.

But for those who betray their purpose like the pattern of Judas who could not carry the weight of the glory of God’s divine nature, who instead choose to fill their vessels with themselves and the currency of the world, just like Judas, of their own doing, they shall all trip and fall and split open their sides in the “field of blood”.