Remember, when Jeremiah uttered his prophesies near the year 600 BC, Israel had been dispersed from its northern kingdom for over one hundred years.  They were no longer a unified people.  The Assyrians had divided them and sent them to various places within their dominions.  According to the prophesy of Hosea Israel had become “not my people,” no longer a cohesive nation under God.  Yet Jeremiah prophesies to Israel as well as Judah and we know that Israel and Judah comprised separate nations with separate callings.  Further, as we study the prophets we begin to realize that since God still prophesies to Israel there must be (or must have been) a manifestation of the Israelite nation after their subjugation and deportation in 721 BC.  It has been proven that modern day Israel is not this manifestation because that nation consists of Jews (Judah), not the northern ten tribes.  I believe that it has also been proven that the northern tribes migrated to Europe, England, and then America, and that the waning world powers of England and the United States of America fulfill the prophesies of abundance to Joseph through his sons Ephraim and Manasseh.

But, it is just as true that many of the prophetic utterances concerning Israel deal with the decline, debauchery, and ultimate devastation of these two great Israelite empires.  This is the subject at hand in the opening chapters of Jeremiah.  Although all of these verses describe England and the British Empire as well, my focus here will be upon America.  Consider,

And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat its fruit and its goodness; but when you entered, you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination. (Jeremiah 2:7 KJ2000)

America was founded by Christians yearning for greater religious freedom.  They wanted freedom to read their Bibles and serve God according to their consciences.  God brought them to a vast wilderness, a plentiful country full of fruit.  Their country, which ultimately became the United States of America, became perhaps the most moral and certainly the richest nation in the world’s history.  America became a “Christian” empire whose dominion reached around the entire earth.  Concerning morality, I remember that when I was young, less than ten years old, my mother would allow me ride my bike alone anywhere within my city, a city with a population of 30,000 people. 

But look at us today.  I would not allow a young child out of my sight anywhere in the United States.  We have become a nation filled with incest, pornography, sexual abuse, adultery, homosexuality, theft, murder, and lies.  We are bankrupt, morally and financially.  Our latest president, Barack Obama, correctly states, “We are no longer a Christian nation.”  We have not been “Christian” for a long, long time, and this is exactly what Jeremiah prophesied.

For pass over the coasts of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. Has a nation changed its gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. (Jeremiah 2:10-11 KJ2000)

Nations do not normally change their gods, says God.  Go to the surrounding nations and see.  The gods of the coasts of Chittim are the gods those people worshipped for time out of mind, and so are the gods of Kedar.  God expelled and dispersed the Northern tribes of Israel for exactly this same sin.  But, he is not talking to that kingdom in Jeremiah 2.  They had long since disappeared by this time. He speaks to a new nation which will arise from those people far, far in the future, a nation that came to be called the United States of America.

Is it not true that America has changed her God to a pagan one?  What did “Christian” America do when its Supreme Court kicked prayer out of its public schools in 1961?  What did “Christian” America do when that same court legalized murder by abortion in all 50 states in 1973?  What did they do in the 1980’s and 1990’s when public school teachers were told they could not keep Bibles on their desks, could not sing hymns in class, could not teach creation, and could not celebrate Christmas through song, plays, pictures, or anything else?  What did they do when it began to be taught that Islam and Satanism have the same freedom of religion in America as Christianity?  Nothing, nothing and nothing.

If Christians had withdrawn their children from the public schools when those schools began to teach paganism, then the entire public school system would have collapsed in a day. Yet Christian leaders, especially the national leaders with great radio and television ministries from the sixties to today, failed their people, just as prophesied by Jeremiah.

The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit. (Jeremiah 2:8 KJ2000)

The great ministers of our day became more concerned about their “great ministries” and their million dollar mansions than the truth.  They failed to counsel their people to leave the world’s schools and false teachings because they knew to do so would cost them mammon (worldly wealth).  Thus they walked after things that would not profit them spiritually.  This nation, therefore, lost its heritage and fell away from the one true God.  America has changed its God to gods that are not and we have reaped the whirlwind.  Can there be any doubt today that America has indeed changed its God of the Bible to gods of idolatry?

Sadly, every once-Christian nation of Europe has done the same thing.  Who today can point to a truly Christian nation in the world?  Who can even find a church now which confesses the mystery of Godliness and teaches the people to practice righteousness in the freedom of Christ?  So, as you read Jeremiah’s remarkable prophecies bear in mind that he speaks to this day and not only to the fallen Jews of his own time.