God's Fishermen, Satan's Hunters (2 of 10) - The Prophecy of the Fishermen and the Hunters

Hello, friends. I'm Chadwick Harvey, and this is Faithful Performance, where we explore the testimony of the biblical prophets and how they perfectly correlate with the current events of today. Thank you for joining us.

In this week's episode, we're going to continue our ten-part video series on my second book, *God's Fishermen, Satan's Hunters: The Unspoken Biblical Prophecy That Is Terrorizing the World*. In Part One, last week, we discovered the everlasting covenants — the Abrahamic, the Davidic, and the New Covenant. These form the foundation of this prophecy and all the other prophecies, anchored in the hope of Jesus returning for His second coming and His millennial reign to fulfill those everlasting covenants, which He will.

This week, we're going to examine the prophecy itself: the prophecy of the fishermen and the hunters, found in Jeremiah 16. This is one of the most neglected prophecies in the holy Bible, in my view. We frequently speak about the books of Daniel, Revelation, Isaiah, and other prophecies in Jeremiah, yet this particular prophecy tends to be blended in with Jeremiah's historical prophecies to the point that some believe it was already fulfilled in his own time. We are going to carefully evaluate whether this prophecy was fulfilled during the days of Daniel and Jeremiah, whether it was fulfilled at a later date, or whether it belongs to the end of the age.

The prophecy is written in Jeremiah 16:14–17:

*"Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that it shall no more be said, 'The Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,' but, 'The Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had driven them.' For I will bring them back into the land which I gave to their fathers. Behold, I will send for many fishermen, says the Lord, and they shall fish them; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity hidden from My eyes."*

This is a very sobering yet critically important prophecy, and when we examine it carefully it provides great insight into when it will be fulfilled.

First, the prophecy declares that this will be a greater exodus than the Exodus from Egypt. As we discovered in the introduction, approximately 600,000 men — not counting women and children — left Egypt together in a single day. This prophecy tells us there will come a specific time in history when a massive exodus will occur, not only from the north but from all the lands where God has driven them — that is, from all over the world. This is vital to recognize: he is speaking about a worldwide dispersion, not just a regional one.

Second, the Lord connects this return to the everlasting covenants we covered last week. He is bringing them back into the land to inherit the everlasting promises. We must also understand that what we see in history are foreshadows, and the ultimate fulfillment will be when Jesus returns and brings them back into the land. We will get into those time periods in a later video, including a related prophecy in Jeremiah 23, and we will show how those separate time periods align with the time of Jacob's trouble.

Third, God tells us specifically how He will accomplish this. He will send fishermen first to fish them back, and then hunters to provoke and hunt them back — from every mountain, every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks, meaning from every corner of the world.

So the three major keys of this prophecy are: a greater exodus than the first one, accomplished for the sake of the everlasting covenants, and carried out through the specific instruments of fishermen and then hunters.

Before going further, it is important to review the foundation of this and all the other prophecies, rooted in the hope of the second coming and the millennial kingdom. It all begins in Genesis 3:15, where the Lord declares to Satan that He will put enmity between the woman and Satan, between her seed and his seed. This is foundational. The woman's seed — Israel — represents the fishermen, and Satan's seed represents the hunters. We know from John 8:44 that Satan is a murderer from the beginning and a liar. His seed will be the hunter seed. We will identify who these are specifically in next week's video, when we begin with God's original fishermen. I believe God established this enmity in Genesis 3:15 as the very foundation upon which Jeremiah would later declare the prophecy of the fishermen and the hunters.

From there, last week we traced the pure royal lineage: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and on to Yeshua — Jesus. We will address Satan's seed and lineage in Part Four of this series. The enmity between the woman's seed and Satan's seed is what you are witnessing today in the Middle East. It is about the deed to the land — the everlasting covenants. Satan wants to come against those covenants. God will fulfill them. That is the root of the conflict, and that is where Armageddon will ultimately be fought.

Now let us turn to the prophet Jeremiah himself. He is one of my favorite prophets to explore. The calling upon his life was extraordinary and was not easy by any measure, but his anointing was profound. In Jeremiah 1:4–5, 9–10, and 17–19, the Lord spoke to him:

*"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations. Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me: 'Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant. Therefore prepare yourself and arise, and speak to them all that I command you. Do not be dismayed before their faces, lest I dismay you before them. For behold, I have made you this day a fortified city and an iron pillar and bronze walls against the whole land — against the kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests, and against the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you,' says the Lord, 'to deliver you.'"*

What an awesome blessing the prophet Jeremiah received from the Lord God Almighty. I include this because Jeremiah was called as a prophet not only to Israel but to the nations — to the kingdoms — to root out, to pull down, to build, and to plant. And God gave him a strict warning: do not be dismayed before their faces, or I will dismay you before them. Whatever the Lord gives us to declare, we must proclaim it, no matter what, as long as we know it is from Him. Jeremiah's life was not easy — even his own family disowned him over some of what he declared — but he was a true prophet of the Lord. That calling flows directly into the prophecy of the fishermen and the hunters. It is a sobering prophecy, but it will come to fruition, and we are going to see precisely where it fits in the end of the age.

Now let us turn to the Babylonian exile, because for this prophecy to come true, the people first had to be exiled. If they were already in the land, there would be nothing to fish back or hunt back. There were two exiles, and we will go through both: the Babylonian exile and what we will call the Roman exile of 70 AD.

The Babylonian exile came about because Jeremiah — along with other prophets — was sent by the Lord to the kingdom of Judah. His ministry began around 627 BC. By that time the northern kingdom had already been destroyed. He was sent to the southern kingdom to call them to repentance from all of the abominations they were committing, urging them to return to the Lord so that the Lord would return to them. They had to be exiled in order for them to then be fished back and hunted back — provoked back — to the promised land.

Jeremiah warned them, and when the Lord's patience was exhausted and His grace period ended — because they did not return, remaining stubborn and stiff-necked — He proclaimed the judgment that was coming upon them. In Jeremiah 1:14–16, the Lord said:

*"Out of the north calamity shall break forth on all the inhabitants of the land. For behold, I am calling all the families of the kingdoms of the north, says the Lord..."*