Young people of today will not remember this, but when I was very young, telephone numbers had an exchange name, followed by the number. You are no doubt familiar with the song from the 1940’s entitled Pennsylvania 6-5000. This is a good example of what I am talking about. In small towns, one gave the phone number to a ‘telephone operator’ instead of dialing it. All this reminiscing is said in order to explain a quote we used to say about the Bible verse Jeremiah 33:3. We called this God’s telephone number; Jeremiah 3-3-3. Here’s why—it says “Call to me and I will answer you…” The Lord tells us to call on Him, and He promises to answer. He doesn’t say he will give us the answer we desire, every parent knows this is not wise; but He does promise to answer.
The previous verse, verse 2, states “Thus says the Lord Who made (the earth), the Lord Who formed it to establish it—the Lord is His name.” Then he goes on to say “Call on me”. To me this is a Wow! The maker of heaven and earth is telling us to just “call” on Him, just pick up the phone, just connect to Him, and He will answer.
There are other promises in this first part of Jeremiah 33 that have grabbed at my heart. I realize the Lord was speaking to the Israelites, but I feel these verses are given to us to show what a gracious God we have. We, too, have angered and saddened our Lord. In verse 5 he says “…I have hidden My face from this city because of all their wickedness:” But then our gracious Lord says “Behold I will lay upon it health and healing, and I will cure them and will reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth.” Our Lord will ‘heal’ us from our sins; He will cure us and give us peace.
Verse 8 states “I will cleanse them from all the guilt and iniquity…and I will forgive all their guilt and iniquities by which they have sinned and rebelled against Me.” All we have to do is call upon Him and He will ‘forgive’.
Verse 11 sounds to me like our “Sacrifice of Praise”. “…the voices of those who sing as they bring sacrifices of thanksgiving into the house of the Lord. Give praise and thanks to the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good:”
Verses 15-17 talks about our Messiah, our Righteousness. Here are some excerpts…”at that time will I cause a righteous Branch (the Messiah) to grow up to David…” “The Lord is Our Righteousness (our Rightness, our Justice).”
To summarize the blessings I found in Jeremiah 33:1-17:
1. Just Call and God will answer
2. He will cure and give peace
3. He forgives our iniquities
4. We give our “Sacrifice of Praise”
5. The Messiah is our Righteousness
