The Undeniable Global Triumph Of Jeremiah's God

Old Testament prophesies often seem boring and confusing to modern readers, and it's easy to forget how radical they once were. It's also easy to forget how unlikely their long term fruition really was.

We should try to empathize with the prophet Jeremiah after he saw his nation fall, God's temple destroyed, his people scattered abroad, and himself dragged back to Egypt from whence his ancestors came. His prophecy, that all the world's nations would eventually worship Israel's God, seemed absurd in the face of Israel's dissolution. Why would nations abandon their idols to serve a God barely worshiped by his own weak and tiny ethnic group in the hill country of Canaan? Jeremiah's prophecy was absurd. Israel's whole history looked like a "tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing." Jeremiah died in exile. There was no hope.

Astonishingly, we find ourselves looking back at the last 2,500 years of history with the realization that Jeremiah's absurd prophecy has been fulfilled. Israel and Judah were annihilated, and yet their God has marched across every continent destroying idolatry and glorifying his name. Today, atheists have no choice but to attack the last God standing, and that God is Jeremiah's God. The last pockets of real idolatry in Southeast Asia are being infiltrated more every day.

Despite the differences between Christians and Muslims, both pledge sole allegiance to Jeremiah's God, and together they constitute 60% of the world's population. Their nearest competitors, Hindus and Buddhists, represent 16 and 6 percent respectively. Even in China, which is officially hostile to religion and relatively untouched by missionary activity, it's estimated 7 out of every 100 Chinese have converted to Christ. Projections show Christians and Muslims growing to include 70% of humanity by the end of the century.

Unbelievers love to quibble about the details of various "unfulfilled" Old Testament prophecies, but there can be little doubt the prophet's grand vision of the future has been vindicated. Jeremiah's absurd and illogical claims about the glory of an almost unknown local deity, whose temple and people were destroyed, are now beyond dispute. Across the planet, the word "god" has become synonymous with THE GOD of Jeremiah.

The modern state of Israel, a bizarre and controversial 2,000 year throwback, looks like God saying: "Just in case you thought my old prophecies weren't adequately fulfilled, I'll throw in this literal restoration of Israel just to leave you without excuse."

Unbelievers might claim to have found errors in the Bible, but how relevant are those claims in comparison to the undeniable global triumph of Jeremiah's God?