Jeremiah's Eighth Sermon

This eighth sermon encompasses three chapters of Jeremiah in verses 18:1 through 20:18

In Christian praise songs, both new and old, scripture is often used or referred to. As you read chapters 18 and 19 specifically, you won't be able to help but recall to mind those songs which speak of believers being the "clay" and the Lord being the "potter," or songs that refer to believers as "broken vessels."

In chapter 18, the Lord brought Jeremiah to the potter's house to watch how he takes clay, forms in on the constantly turning wheel, and when it doesn't take the shape he wants, he takes the same clay and reshapes it, again and again if necessary, until it takes the form he desires.  The power to take the clay in his hands in order to break it down and begin again is in the potter's hands alone; the clay has no control over what is being done to it.

Such clay are we in the hands of Almighty God.  Our prideful, intelligent minds speak lies to us about how "we are in control" when nothing could be further from the truth.  And the sooner we put aside our prideful thoughts and humble ourselves to submit to the Lord, the better it will go for us when terror strikes our own land as it struck the land of Judah.

Such was the message that Jeremiah is told in chapter 18 to deliver to Judah.

After the clay takes the right shape and is hardened by the drying or heat process, if the clay (aka "earthen" as clay comes from the earth) becomes damaged in any way, it is impossible to repair it.  Because it is now a useless vessel, unable to hold liquids, for example, there is no choice but to throw it onto the trash heap, where it is broken into bits and buried under more trash.

Unrepentant sin brings damage to us, the vessels of God, chosen for His purposes, but turned away from His purposes because of hard and unrepentant hearts.

What is very important to realize here is that the Lord told Jeremiah in chapter 19 to take an ordinary useless vessel, along with the eldest of the people of Judah and the eldest of the priests of Judah, to the "valley of Hinnom."  And there he was to break the useless vessel into bits, probably by tossing it firmly onto the existing trash heap that the valley of Hinnom was known for at that time. 

The valley of Hinnom was comparable to what we call the "city dump." It was outside the walls of the city, naturally, and the fires were kept burning continually in order to consume all the waste that was brought there.  It must have been a black, smelly place of destruction with fires that were never quenched.

Imagine the effect the environment had on Jeremiah's "guests" as he escorted them to this foul place and spoke the words of the Lord that referred to Judah as damaged and useless vessels that the potter, God Himself, would destroy and toss onto this most "unclean" site with its sulfurous odor and the great heat of its perpetual fires. (What is this reminiscent of?)

We would think it would shake some sense into them, right?  But what happened, as seen in chapter 20, is that Jeremiah becomes even more persecuted for the words of the Lord that he spoke against Judah.

"Now Pashur, the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things.  Then Pashur beat Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the Lord." (Jer. 20:1-2)

While the Lord allowed his servant Jeremiah to suffer for His sake, He never allows such behavior against one of His own to go unpunished.  While all of Judah was already in line to receive judgment for their sins, the Lord made sure, immediately, that Pashur knew his own particular fate; a fate clearly brought about not only by his own hard-heartedness against the Lord, but because of his ill-treatment of God's faithful servant Jeremiah:

"And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks.  Then said Jeremiah unto him, The Lord hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magormissabib.  For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it: and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive into Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword.

Moreoever, I will deliver all the strength of this city, and all the labours thereof, and all the precious things thereof, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, which shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon.  And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity: and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies." (Jer. 20:3-6)

The second half of chapter 20 tells us of Jeremiah's misery under such unjust persecution.  After all, he is just relaying a message from God.  He is merely the messenger of the Word of the Lord.

There is a sign to us in chapter 20, or perhaps I should call it a characteristic, that I want to bring your attention to in Jeremiah 20:9.  It is the great "compelling" that inhabits faithful servants of God:

"Then I said, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name.  But His Word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay."

The burning fire of the Holy Spirit anointing filled Jeremiah so that as much as he knew speaking the Word would bring him great pain, he had no choice but to speak it.

David spoke of this compelling.  Peter and John spoke of it as well:

"And they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.  But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.  For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." (Acts 4:18-20)

Some of you may have experienced this compelling.  I have.  It is what caused me to go preach in the Douglas County jail, a most uncomfortable place to be in, preaching with much fear and trembling as I faced thirty or forty tattooed grim-faced men in orange jumpsuits, or the twenty or so equally grim and hard looking women, prisoners within the walls of those jails.  I felt completely inadequate to face these people, and yet the compassion of the Lord for these men and women, that resided within me, allowed my mouth to open and, thankfully, HIS word to come out of it.

It is what compelled me to go further afield to the jail in Bridgeport, California, consuming most of my Sunday afternoons, to bring hope in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to the few women I was able to meet with there. In that smaller jail, in a more intimate women's bible study, I was able to witness the Lord doing some amazing transformations in only a couple of women there, while others remained rooted firmly in their sin and denial.  But seeing the miracle of tremendously changed lives in even two young women, made the discomfort of being in such a place so rewarding.  All I had to do was present my body for God's use, and He did the rest.  Watching their transformations before my eyes, increased my faith exponentially, because I knew it was God doing it, not me. And what He could do for them, He could do for me as well.

Such a compelling is so great in you that you cannot resist it and must go, even in fear and trembling.

I believe Jeremiah preached with great fear and trembling.  Yet he remained faithful to God. Such are we also called to do.

We are to hear from the Lord, wait for the compelling (the anointing of the Holy Spirit), and then move out no matter how much we tremble at doing so.  If you have not yet experienced this, you will, once filled with the Holy Spirit, as the disciples were, and you will find that it is more terrible to NOT go than to GO.  Because the Lord, through the Holy Spirit commands you to go, and go you must! 

You will find, as Jeremiah did, that you "cannot stay."

Jeremiah's Seventh Sermon, Part 2

The second half of Jeremiah 16 describes the amazing promise of God towards His people:

"Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt." (16:14) 

In other words, that miracle, as great as it was, will be eclipsed by what the Lord is going to do next as the Deliverer of those who trust in Him!  Here is what He promises He will do, prefaced by that which the people will proclaim as His new and greater miracle:

"The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from all the land of the north, and form all the lands whither He had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers." (16:15) 

This is the ultimate and final return of God's chosen people, Israel, back to the land that He gave to their ancestors beginning with Abraham.  This is the miracle that has brought about the establishment of the State of Israel, but that is not all that the miracle entails.  There is so much more.

"Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.  For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes." (16:16)

This is the miracle that we have witnessed in our own times: that of a nation of people returning home from all the ends of the earth to which they had been scattered (aka the "diaspora"), as the scripture says, by the hand of God. The same hand of a holy and righteous God that drove them away from His presence, is the same hand that loves them enough and is compassionate enough, to bring them home again, and thus glorify His Name and declare to the whole earth just who He is! We are all to see and understand that the very existence of the State of Israel is no coincidence; this is the orchestration of a mighty and sovereign God who will fulfill ALL of His promises to His people, to all those who trust in Him! 

Who are these "fishers" but their own brethren, the disciples of Jesus Christ and all who follow Him?  The ones that Christ declared He would make "fishers of men"?  First to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles.  Paul even says that the Lord will cast aside the Jews for a certain length of time, and will instead draw Gentiles unto Him, in order to make the Jews jealous:

"O Lord, my strength and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our father have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there in no profit.  Shall a man make gods unto himself and they are no gods? Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might: and they shall know that my name is THE LORD." (16:19-21)

Then who are the "hunters"? Could there be 144,000 of them perhaps? God has further plans for this people who have turned from Him, most of which have still not returned to Him, even though they have returned to their homelands given to them by this gracious God.  His plan requires that they be in Israel, for it is from Israel, under great duress, that they will as a nation once again turn towards God and call out to their Messiah for deliverance!  All of which will be enabled by the prior faithful testimony of 144,000 witnesses that are to come 12,000 each from the 12 tribes of Judah!  The Word declares that these witnesses will preach to the nation of Israel so that they will know that their Messiah was the one they rejected more than two thousand years ago.  They will know Jesus, the Messiah, or as they will call Him in their native tongue, Yeshua HaMashiach!  They will cry out to Him, and He will answer!  What a miraculous thing, after two thousand years of determined rejection, to now recognize Jesus as their Messiah!

The second part of the seventh sermon of Jeremiah to the people of Judah is in effect a declaration or a detailing of their sins, so that there can be no doubt, to future generations at least, the reasons why Judah was punished:

- worshipping at the altars (pagan shrines) in the groves of green trees upon the high hills (17:2)
- departing from the Lord  and trusting in man instead (17:5)
- not keeping holy the Sabbath day (17:21-27)

It is in fact, their refusal to observe the Sabbath, especially the Sabbath year, known as the Shemitah, rebelling against the very command of God written and preserved in scripture, that determined the length of Judah's captivity for those who were not killed but taken captive into Babylon. This people determined to not take God's Word at face value, and to instead, do what they thought best, most likely following upon unquestioned traditions of their fathers and the fathers before them.  Much as we Christians do still today.  Here is why I say that.

I have a comment regarding the Sabbath, and it is one that I have preached for many years on my blogs: the Sabbath is a day that GOD has declared HOLY.  It is THE day that God has called HIS holy day for on it He rested from His work of creation.  It is the day which, if we observe it, is our witness to the world around us of the fact of our Creator God's very existence, and that our sovereign God did in fact create the universe and all that is in it in SIX days and rested on the SEVENTH.  It is NOT and never has been a JEWISH holy day.  It is a GOD holy day.

We, the people of this great and awesome God, turned away from Sabbath observance in the third century A.D.  It was done by order of Constantine, the Roman emperor who thought he could worship the one true God, while continuing to worship other gods, such as the "sun" god, and thus he, Constantine, changed the Sabbath from Saturday worship to "sun"-day worship.  Even though the Sabbath (seventh day) is declared in God's word to be HIS HOLY DAY, we treat Sunday as His holy day instead.  And thus, because of our own unquestioning continuance of our forefathers traditions, we have lost the power of the 7th day/Sabbath witness of God as Creator of heaven and earth. 

I can't help but wonder how much the loss of this powerful statement of faith has contributed to the now common place belief in evolution that the world has chosen over the belief in a Creator God who made the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh?

Jeremiah's Seventh Sermon, Part 1

The 16th chapter of Jeremiah begins with a description of the horrifying and devastating judgment that will soon come upon the people of Judah:

"For thus saith the Lord concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bare them, and concerning their fathers that begat them in this land: they shall die of grievous deaths...they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth...they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth." (16:3-4)

"Both the great and the small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them." (16:6)

"Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place in your eyes, and in your days, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride." (16:9)

As a physical sign before the people of the Lord's coming judgment, His servant Jeremiah is not allowed to marry, nor to have children. Thus, Jeremiah, in a sense is already experiencing the effects of this judgment in his own life. What we are not told is whether or not Jeremiah already had a potential wife chosen for himself, or if he had hopes, as most people do, of having a home and family, only to be told by the Lord that he could have neither. If so, it is no wonder that he was called the "weeping prophet."  And yet, he remained obedient and faithful to God!

The people of Judah understood then what was to come, even as they doggedly refuse to acknowledge their sin, as evidenced by the words the Lord says they will speak to Jeremiah after his proclamation of God's judgment:

"And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt shew this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? Or what is our iniquity? Or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?"

This passage shows the blindness of heart in the people, the greatness of the deception in which they lived that they were unable to see their own evil towards God. Deception that allowed them to respond to the one true and almighty GOD Himself with words that, in effect, said: "What have we done to deserve such punishment? We have done nothing!" In effect, showing God to be unjust, blaming Him, for their own wickedness!

To which God has Jeremiah reply:

"Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the Lord, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law; and ye have done worse than your fathers, for, behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me: therefore I will cast you out of this land unto a land that ye know not, neither ye nor your fathers, and there shall ye serve other gods day and night: where I will not shew you favor." (16:11-13)

Mind you, Jeremiah has been preaching to them for a very long time now; he is more than halfway through the time period that the Lord has allowed for the people to hear His words and turn from their evil ways.  But they are no more aware of their sin now than they were when Jeremiah began.  God, omniscient that He is, knew, even as He brought His servant to preach to them, that they would not turn, knew that even Jeremiah's intercession in their behalf, could not change such hardhearted a people as they were.  Yet, for His Name's sake, He would be gracious to hold back His wrath for a period of time, so that the survivors of this judgment (such as Jeremiah and Daniel) could look back and know that His love caused Him to do all that was possible to bring the people back to Himself before bringing such terrible judgment upon them.

The reason God sites as the cause of the judgment to fall is that men "walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart."  In fact, this phrase is reiterated a total of 7 times in the book of Jeremiah [3:17; 7:24, 11:8, 13:10, 16:12, 18:12, 23:17]. SEVEN TIMES! We know that seven is the number of God, the number of perfection; perhaps indicating to us the perfection or "rightness"  of God's judgment upon evil men.

Walking after the imaginations of our own evil hearts is a malady afflicting all off mankind: from the creation of man in the garden, to this very day and beyond.  Scripture is filled with examples throughout the past generations of man and to be seen in future generations as well, until the Lord returns, of man doing his own thing, while fully rejecting God:

Judges 21:25: "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes."

"For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away..." (Matthew 24:38)

"And in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: and behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink for tomorrow we shall die." (Isaiah 22:12-13)

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put biter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own sight!" (Isaiah 5:20-21)

Are we modern-day people not just such people?  Are we not all wiser than ever before because of the knowledge we can easily gain from the internet?  Do we find ourselves calling out to God for His wisdom, or do we trust more in our own educated, independent thinking?  Isn't society around us, that which calls evil good, and good evil, just an extension of ourselves and our modern-day thinking?  We have become gods in our own sight, according to the evil imaginations of our own deceived hearts.

And the deception that allows us to walk in such evil imagination is so great, that only God Himself, in human form, called by the name of Jesus, could deliver us from this great bondage that seeks to drive us all towards the wrath of a holy God. 

Only Jesus, by the sacrifice of His own spotless sin-free life, could break the chains of such deception in us. Jesus is the grace of God given to us. We are as foolish and hardhearted as the people of Judah, if we will not recognize God's goodness to us in this period of grace and repent from our own ways before the grace period is finished!

The earth itself and all who are in it are in just such a period of grace, for the bible (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12) declares that the day will come when the power of the Holy Spirit that is currently restraining evil, will be removed from the earth, leaving evil to destroy all that remains, by design of a sovereign and holy God who will bring judgment to those who continue to reject His great gift of grace: His Son Jesus, our Savior, our Deliverer!

"Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation...?" (Hebrews 2:1-3)

Jeremiah's Sixth Sermon, Part 2

In this last passage of scripture from Jeremiah's sixth sermon, we find Jeremiah grumbling before the Lord.  Then we see the Lord basically telling him to stand up and be a man; to stop his whining, to repent of it, and, if he will turn away from his complaining, then the Lord will take care of him even in the midst of the coming judgment.

Please don't take exception to my paraphrasing that the Lord is telling Jeremiah to buck up and deal with the problem at hand.  The fact is that the Lord often speaks to us with a certain amount of "tough love", especially when we are feeling sorry for ourselves.  He is our Father, after all, and what father would not say that if the times warranted it?  There are times for compassion, and there are times for toughness, aka truth. The truth here is that feeling sorry for ourselves is just sin. Yes, we are human, and yes, sometimes we like to just wallow in self-pity.

The truth also is that it isn't always about us.  Especially when we have been given an assignment from God; there is no time for self-pity.  There is work to be done...God's work...and we are to be willing vessels without complaint.

I am thankful that we have our brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage us to go on, as Paul was thankful for those who remembered him in prayer and supported him as best they could during his ministry, especially those times spent in jail.  We all have times such as Paul and Jeremiah, where it is difficult to go on, and sometimes, in our humanness, we grumble a bit.  Yet, at all times we are thankful to be used of God for His glory.  I believe it is just the flesh in us that grumbles, while the Holy Spirit in us keeps moving us forward.  The best we can do at those times is just as Jeremiah did...voice it honestly before the Lord, for He knows our hearts already anyway...we can hide nothing from Him.  And then face up to the music, the mild rebuke from the Lord, and pick ourselves up by His power and encouragement and by the hope that He gives, and move on in the battle.

This discourse between Jeremiah and the Lord picks up at chapter 15, verse10:

Jeremiah cries out: "Woe is me, my mother, that thou has borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth!" Words reminiscent of Job's suffering (Job 3:1). "I have neither lent on usury [charging interest], nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of then doth curse me."

To which the Lord replied: "Truly, it will be well with thy remnant; truly I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil and in the time of affliction."

Can you hear the compassion the Lord has upon Jeremiah; can you hear how much the Lord understands our fears and anxieties and helps us through them with promises of great hope?  His first response to Jeremiah is not one of rebuke, but of tender encouragement for Jeremiah's concerns.  It isn't until Jeremiah persists in his self-pity that the Lord issues the tough love rebuke.  And even then, it is the words by which Jeremiah begins to accuse the Lord that brings forth this rebuke.

Jeremiah goes on: "Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable; which refuseth to be healed? Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?"

This is where we sin; when our self-pity becomes bigger than our God.  When out of our suffering we forget ourselves, and forget that this is GOD to whom we are speaking.  Much as a child who, now that he has his parent's attention, becomes overly emboldened and a bit cocky to his parent...and then gulps back his fear as he realizes he went a bit too far that time!  This realization strikes him right about the time his parent puts the child back in his proper place with a quick cold rebuke.  The child is not always aware that it is out of love that the parent brinks this rebuke and that it is for the sake of the child rather than for the parent.  So it is with us and our Father God.  So it was with Jeremiah and the Lord.

"Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou return [repent], then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee: return not thou unto them. [In other words, don't become as these evil people have become before me...let them become as you are, obedient, but do not let yourself become disobedient as they are.]  And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brazen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible."

God makes this promise to Jeremiah, that even though he must be included in this evil to come, he will be protected to a great degree in the midst of the evil.  We will see further in this study exactly what the Lord does to bring His promise to pass for Jeremiah's sake.

Meanwhile, we take encouragement from this: that if we repent, and we remain upright and trusting of the Lord and His goodness, we have that hope as well of being spared the worst of what is to come.  The rain falls on the just and the unjust, but in all things God is sovereign and He will decide what we are to bear and what we will be spared from bearing.

This is our confident hope in Him: that as Jesus Christ is our covering, as well as our strength, we will receive mercy from the Lord in times of need.  We see it in small ways in our lives every day as financial needs are somehow met at the eleventh hour, as serious health issues become less scary as we walk through them with the Lord and are often completely healed of them as well, as the burden of our fears for our wayward children are left at the cross of Christ with this confident hope that He loves them even more than we do, and thus He will see that they are kept safe until HE brings them to repentance, as only He can do.

It is seeing these hopes realized in the small things, that prepares us to hope confidently when in the midst of the greater battles yet to come.

Jeremiah's Sixth Sermon, Part 1

Chapters 14 and 15 are considered to be Jeremiah's sixth sermon. Here, Jeremiah is given the prophetic word from the Lord about a coming drought of epic proportions, what my King James version calls a "dearth."  And, of course, if there is no water, there will soon be no food; famine must follow closely behind, bringing death as well.

As you read this next passage of scripture, try to imagine the horror Jeremiah must have felt to hear these words of severe judgment against his people, affecting even the beasts of the field that inhabited the land of Judah, being spoken to him straight from the mouth of almighty God:

" Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. 

And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.

Because the ground is chaff, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads. 

Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass. 

And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass." (Jeremiah 14:2-6)

It is no wonder, then, that Jeremiah immediately begins to intercede and plead with the Lord for mercy, even while acknowledging the sins of his people.  Three times in the remainder of the 14th chapter, Jeremiah pleads with the Lord. And three times God refuses to change His mind about His coming judgment against Judah.  These verses are very self-explanatory, needing no further commentary from me. 

But as you read them, please read them not only with unrepentant Judah in mind, but with the unrepentant United States of America in mind as well.  When you read about horrendous coming judgment upon the unrepentant people individually, consider if those horrifying judgments were being spoken to us as a people who once belonged solely to God, but have turned from Him.  As you read about false prophets, speaking only a positive word, consider yourself, as I do myself: are we so intent on being "positive" that we do not want to speak the "harsh" words that the Holy Spirit might be leading us to speak concerning coming judgment in our own time and in our own land?  Will proclaiming peace when there is no peace, in God's eyes at least, bring about the salvation for the multitudes who are leading their lives as they see fit with no regard for this fearful and holy God who must bring such judgment to those who will not heed Him?  Are we definitely being led by the Spirit of God at all times when we speak or are we just speaking what we want to hear and believe no matter how contrary it appears to be to the Word of God?

For me, these passages bring me great pause to consider my own actions, both as part of a people group, and as an individual.  Have I repented of all that I need to repent of?  Have I spoken what God wanted me to speak, versus what I wanted to hear spoken?  Have I taken an easy way out of proclaiming peace, versus the enduring the misery and rejection that would come of speaking God's words of coming judgment as Jeremiah did? Am I leading the life God wants me to lead, versus going my own way and doing what feels good to me?

Consider all of this as you read the conversation that went on between Jeremiah and God, as Jeremiah pleads for a change of heart from the Lord on behalf of Judah:

Jeremiah: "O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do thou it for thy name's sake: for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee...yet thou O lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not."

The Lord: "Pray not for this people for their good.  When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence." (Jeremiah 14:11-12)

Jeremiah: "Ah, Lord God! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place."

The Lord:   "The prophets prophesy lies in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land.  By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. And the people shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters, for I will pour this wickedness upon them. Therefore thou shalt say this word unto them: 'Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease: for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow."

Jeremiah: "Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? Hath thy soul loathed Zion? Why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, and there is no good: and for the time of healing, and behold trouble! We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against thee. Do not abhor us, for thy name's sake, do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us."

The Lord: "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.  And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? Then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the Lord: Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity....for who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem?...thou hast forsaken Me, saith the Lord, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting. And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land: I will bereave them of children, I will destroy my people, since they return not from their wicked ways."

Does the new covenant in Jesus Christ do away with judgments such as these toward a disobedient people, even if that disobedient person is a believer in Christ? Or did Christ come to show us that through Him we don't have to live lives of disobedience to the Lord; that we don't have to fear these judgments, not because our holy God has changed His ways, but because we have changed our disobedient ways into obedience through the strength of Christ?  How does a person change their ways, and escape such judgment, without Christ?  And what are we doing to help them come to know Christ and thus escape such judgment?

We will finish the 15h chapter on the next posting.

Jeremiah: Fifth Sermon

The 13th chapter of Jeremiah is filled with the use of the use of the words "pride" and "darkness."  It describes two tangible signs that God provides the people of Judah in order to try to shake them out of their prideful sin.  But still they will not hear; they will not repent.

Through two strong analogies, the first being a girdle that is buried and then unearthed in a deplorable condition, and the second being wine bottles that are filled with the source of drunkenness, God warns the people that their lives are in His hands alone and that this should be a fearful place to be: sinners in the hands of a HOLY and angry God, angered by their continued rebellion against His goodness toward them.  Yet the people will neither heed and repent, nor will they fear.

Regarding the analogy of the girdle, verses 13:1 through 13:11: when the description of  "loins" is used biblically it denotes a sort of strength or security perhaps.  The "girdle" protects the loins, the lower back, the hips, which once destroyed, one cannot stand without.  The girdle also carried the sword by which one protected himself (see 2 Samuel 20:8).  Perhaps these following two verses will illuminate further:

"Bless the Lord, His substance, and accept the work of His hands: smite through the loins of them that rise against Him, and of them that hate Him that they rise not again."  Deuteronomy 33:11

"Let their eyes be darkened that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake." Psalm 69:23

God is declaring that He is putting the protection of His name and His glory into the people of Israel first, and then Judah. They were the belt or girdle that He joined to Himself.  But they did not glorify the Name that they were called by, they did not bring praise to His Name.

Thus, by using the sign of a damaged and useless girdle, He is telling Judah that as they dishonored His name, so will they be dishonored and cast aside.  They have become of no use to Him.  And even as the Lord's own loins have been exposed and unprotected by this useless girdle called Judah, so Judah will receive the judgment of being exposed and unprotected as they are cast aside. They will no longer have the Lord to cleave to, because He will no longer cleave to them.

"This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing. For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel, and the whole house of Judah, saith the Lord; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear."

Verses 13:12-14 describe the second sign: "every bottle filled with wine."

When Jeremiah speaks these words, the people mock him in great pride saying, "Do we  not certainly know...?"

But of course, they have no idea what they are talking about, because the word of God through Jeremiah is pointing to a soon coming great judgment:

"I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings that sit upon David's throne, and the priests, and the prophets, [speaking of false prophets here] and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the Lord: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.  Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud, for the Lord hath spoken."

Here the key word is drunkenness.  If we look at how that word is used in other scriptures, we will understand better what the Lord means with this analogy of every person being filled with that which produces great drunkenness:

"And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:" (Deut. 29:19) 

 

To be drunk is to be insensible, or deceived, is it not? Perhaps to see something that is not really even there.  To lie to one's self. A deception, I believe.

 

"Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of thy sister Samaria." Ezekiel 23:33

 

Drunkenness produces "astonishment," being caught off guard as the protective instincts are no longer serving that person.

 

"And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares." Luke 21:34

 

Drunkenness makes one "unaware" of the danger looming before them.  Again it is a form of deception, of a lie that all is well, when it is not.

 

All of this points to the coming "darkness" of which Jeremiah 13:16 warns:

"Give glory to the Lord your God, before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, He turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness."

 

The final consequence of remaining unrepentant in sin is a darkness caused by God Himself that will fall on those who will not heed the word of the Lord.  This consequence occurs even today with those who remain unrepentant of their sins, for God's divine principles never cease to perform that which His Word declares must happen regarding man willful sin.

This particular darkness in Jeremiah 13:16 is a judicial darkness, a judgment from God on those in Judah who continue to "enjoy" sin's pleasures, who refuse to repent, who love sin more than they love God. This is further described in 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12:

"...and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

 

Jeremiah is telling them to repent before God sends this darkness upon them from which they cannot recover.  (Perhaps the "gross darkness" mentioned in Jeremiah 13:16 is that of hell itself, as the judicial darkness appears to have the potential of becoming a deeper, possibly permanent, darkness for those still unrepentant hearts?)

Amos describes this judicial judgment of darkness as a famine of His Word:

"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." Amos 8:11-12

God has unimaginable patience with us, far beyond what mere humans can give. Yet, He is to be feared as well, for all sin must end sooner or later; best that we end it right away, rather than wait for God to end it in His great wrath! If God withdraws the understanding of His Word from our hearts, as Amos describes, then we have no hope of being saved, for the Word of God carried by the Holy Spirit is what gives us life. Without this we face only eternal and everlasting death.

It always amazes me that we can so easily see the sins of Judah, but we cannot see what pride and vanity of mind we apply to our own lives rather than admit our personal and deep-rooted sins of pride.  It amazes me how few times in our lives, we fall trembling before this almighty, powerful and holy God. What deception lies in our own hearts?

I believe this is the main reason that we are commanded to pray for one another, to plead with God for that dark deception to be removed from each of us, so that our hearts can remain clean before Him.  It is so important to pray for one another....at all possible moments.

Chuck Missler says that the Word of God describes at least three forms of darkness.

Besides the judicial darkness already described above, there is a "natural" darkness.

This is a darkness of ignorance, a darkness of an unregenerate heart, a darkened understanding.  This is us before the Holy Spirit opened our eyes to see and our ears to hear, and drew us to Christ. Who prayed for us that we might be able to see?  Surely, there was someone somewhere, if even a stranger, who, on their knees, pleaded for the the Holy Spirit to bring the light into sin-darkened lives such as ours.

It is of this natural darkness that Paul speaks in Ephesians 4:17-18:

"This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart..."

Often, people with this darkness in them are able to see God as Creator, but not as Redeemer. Without the Redeemer who is the bridge between man and God, they cannot reach God, even if they might think He exists.  There is no relationship with the Father without the Son. Yet, Paul says the existence of God is testified to by the works of His hands, in other words, by all of creation that surrounds us (Romans 1:20).

But we cannot understand redemption without the living Word of God found only in Jesus, and without the Holy Spirit to plant faith as a seed in our hearts in order that we might believe in Him.  And without that relationship with Jesus there is no relationship between us and the Father.  It is in the righteousness of Jesus Christ that we must be clothed, in a sense, before we enter into the presence of so holy a God as ours. We need Jesus to know God.  The Word of God declares that there is no other way!

There is a third darkness: one that is deliberate or chosen.

 John 3:19-20 describes it as:

"...the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved."

This is when people know they are doing evil, but choose to continue in it willfully.  They prefer the darkness to hide the evil in their lives; they refuse to come to the light and to be held accountable.  There is great pride involved and the pride wins out. They do not want to change.

 

We are to know and recognize our Creator God, and we are to know and recognize that our Redeemer, our Savior, IS GOD.  He is the Word of God made flesh: Jesus Christ.  (John 1).

It is His great love for each and every man created, that led Him to give His life on the cross for us.  Such great love we have never experienced before Him!  How great then, is our rejection, when we refuse to acknowledge what He has done for us?  How great must God's anger be towards us who would dare to reject such a gift from almighty God Himself: the gift of His only-begotten Son's life? What great pride and delusion must we be filled with to not see this?

Jesus arrived in our world the first time, in fleshly form, in humility, in what might be described by the world as a position of low birth, and in poverty.  Yet multitudes were drawn to Him, the very Word of God made flesh, as He presented to the world the love of God and the very real hope of life everlasting for those who would but trust in Him.

But when Jesus returns, Revelation 19:11-16 tells us the manner of His second coming:

"And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.  And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS."

After this final battle scene, Jesus will then judge the living and the dead, granting everlasting life with Him to those who trusted in Him, not because of their great deeds, or their might, for we can never EARN such a gift: but simply because they TRUSTED in Him.  They trusted their lives to Him, by putting their lives every moment of every day in HIS hands.

But to those who reject Him, continually, willfully, pridefully, He assigns them in His righteous and holy judgment to be thrown into the everlasting lake of fire, along with Satan and his dark angels.  Such a terrible, unimaginable place of horror and pain, yet God makes sure everyone knows this...everyone will hear His Word, before being judged. 

The choice is ours alone.

Will we choose the love that Jesus has given us and everlasting life in His presence, or will we reject His goodness to us, and choose everlasting darkness and eternal suffering?

Here is what God wants us to choose:

"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live."  Deuteronomy 30:19

Jeremiah: Fourth Sermon, Part 2

Returning to our study of Jeremiah, we see in Jeremiah 11:9 that God speaks of a "conspiracy".  All conspiracies contain an element of secrecy.  Thus, the people in this conspiracy of which the Lord speaks are those who choose to continue to serve other gods, probably in secret resistance to the reforms that King Josiah instituted against pagan practices; resistant even to the point of making secret plans to assassinate the prophet Jeremiah (verses 11:18-19), who is preaching things the people do not want to hear. Thus, this conspiracy has double meaning.

There is a danger, as I have mentioned before, of feeling removed or uninvolved with the sins of Judah, since today most of us do not light candles to idols in a secret back room of our house. But we have to understand how subtle the act of worshipping an idol can be in our own lives. 

I found a very clear description of this from an interesting blog that says:

"Contrary to cultural opinion, possessions or positions or people cannot and will not bring us any closer to a sense of peace, prosperity or security." [ http://bogdankipko.com/why-idolatry-is-infused-with-irony ]

The problem is that in very subtle ways we so often put our trust in "possessions or positions or people" that only the Holy Spirit can reveal to us that we are NOT trusting Jesus, because we will continue to affirm that we ARE trusting Jesus as our hearts continue to deceive us. Whatever we give more of our time, thought, and even our money to, rather than to the Lord, is our idol.

It is because of the seriousness of this idol worship in Judah that the Lord tells Jeremiah NOT to pray for them in verse 11:14.  This is a clear indication of how grieved God is with the people, how angry He is because of their continued rebellion against Him, and for choosing vain and useless idols over the God who gives them their very breath. God declares that He will "not hear them in the time that they cry unto Me..." 

It was these sins of the people of Judah, as well as our own sins, for which Jesus, on the cross, experienced this relentless turning away of God in a time of great need:  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  In that transcendent moment, Jesus became the sin of all the world, and received the punishment, in our place, of this divine proclamation against such sin.

It is always the idols in our lives that turn us away from God, and Him away from hearing us.  This is why our prayer each and every day should be such as David prayed:

"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts; And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)

Even in these last days, God's Word through His prophet Zechariah declares that He will not hear the cries of His people Israel until they repent of their iniquity and cry out for help to the Messiah whom they earlier rejected.

In chapter 12, we see the closeness of Jeremiah's relationship with the Lord; so intimate that Jeremiah seems to actually criticize the Lord:

"Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?" (Jeremiah 12:1)

David speaks of this same issue, as does Habakkuk.  It was a difficult thing for the people of God, who strived to walk in righteousness, to reconcile in their minds this prosperity of the wicked.

We have the advantage of the cross of Christ.  We are able to place less importance on the prosperity of the wicked, having been witnesses to the gift of God through Jesus Christ, a gift whose value is priceless to those who have received it.  The treasures of the wicked hold no appeal to those who have the real riches of Jesus.

There is a hint in verse 12:4 of the reason that Judah is eventually led into captivity, and that is of the land mourning, and the "herbs of every field" withering. This refers to the Sabbath years, every seventh year in which God commanded that the land should lay fallow, unworked, to give it rest. We will see later in our study that the years of Judah's captivity are relative to the number of years that the land did not receive its Sabbath rest. This is a powerful statement of God's concern for His creation.  And yet, there are those in society who do not care for the land in the specific way that God commanded, but instead worship the land, rather than worship God.  Another form of idolatry for us to guard against, while yet remaining obedient to God's command. 

There is an interesting analogy in verse 12:9 and that is of "a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her..."

This speaks of a type of mob mentality: a flock of birds wanting to gang up on and attack the bird that is different than they are, the only bird in the flock with spots.  A group always attacks the deviant in its midst, even when, as in the case of Jeremiah, the deviant is the only one going the right way, while the rest of the group all go the wrong way.  Jeremiah is following the Lord, while the world around him is following the idols.  The world is all in agreement, while Jeremiah alone voices his disagreement.  Simple solution to the problem is to remove the deviant from their midst, thus the conspiracy to assassinate Jeremiah.

The question for us is this: are we the deviant in the world?

Or are we one of them?   

Shavuot/Pentecost

Today is what the church calls Pentecost Sunday. 

In Hebrew, it is called Shavuot (which means weeks), a feast day that occurs exactly seven weeks past the Feast of Firstfruits (in other words, seven weeks or 49 days must pass and then on the fiftieth day the Feast of Shavuot is observed); in the Greek of the New Testament it is given the name Pentecost (from pente which means five and koste which means times ten) as it is celebrated exactly fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb - Jesus being the fulfillment of the Feast of Firstfruits when He became the "firstfruits" of life everlasting by the power of Almighty God that raised Him from the dead.  To the Hebrew mindset, Shavuot is the conclusion of the Passover season.

I want to depart from our study of Jeremiah for just a moment to recognize this feast day of the Lord's, for all the feast days belong to the Lord, not to either Jew or Gentile, even though most of the Lord's feast days are now celebrated only by Jews or Jewish believers in Christ, sadly.  The gentile portion of the body of Christ chooses not to really "celebrate" anything other than the Sunday known as Easter [a name which I do not even like to use as its origin comes from that of the pagan goddess Astarte or Ishtar, whom Jeremiah reviles with the facetious name "Queen of Heaven"] and Christmas, a commemoration of the birth of Christ, which is not a feast of the Lord at all.  In Protestant churches throughout America, a Christian nod is given to what is known as Good Friday, the day Christ was crucified which in Hebrew is known as Passover, and another nod is given to Pentecost, but there is very little celebration given to this day.

I wonder why that is, given that the church was in effect born on this very day, and draws its very life from the power of God given to them on this day?

But the gentile church as a whole knows very little about the Feast Day of Shavuot and what it was intended to represent to the people of God, so I want to take a little time to describe what it was meant to be, and how Jesus became the fulfillment of that Feast Day...His feast day.  So, let's turn not to Acts, as you would think, but to the first mentions of the commandment to God's people to observe this feast day:

"And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest,  and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.  Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel." (Exodus 34:22-23)

"And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God with a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shall give unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God blessed thee." (Deuteronomy 16:10)

The offering for Shavuot consisted of two long, flat, leavened loaves of wheat bread.  This is because the offering to be brought to the temple on this Shavuot Feast was to be the firstfruits of the wheat harvest.  Shavuot occurred in the summer at the time of the wheat harvest, while the Feast of Firstfruits brought an offering of the barley that was harvested in spring.

These two loaves of wheat bread for Shavuot were not burned as other sacrifices to the Lord were burned, but were waved by the priest standing before the altar.  The two loaves were waved forwards and backwards, then up and down (does that remind you of the shape of a cross?). Then they became the festive meal eaten by the priests themselves later in the day.

It is important to note that their were two loaves, not one.  Two. Two loaves joined together to bring an offering of worship to the Lord. An offering of the hands of the people of God, performed by the priest indicating the shape of a cross.

Now, watch how Jesus fulfills this Feast Day, and by fulfilling, I do not at all mean that Jesus caused the celebration of it to cease, but that He brought it into its full purpose, the purpose for which it had been intended from its very first origin at Mt. Sinai.  That is what is to be celebrated even now today.

We begin at Luke: 24:44:

"And He said unto them, 'These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.  Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  And ye are witnesses of these things.  And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.'  And He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.  And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen." (Luke 24:44-53)

I underlined the portion of scripture above that, to me, begins to indicate the meaning of the two loaves of bread...all nations, beginning at Jerusalem...not only for those in Jerusalem, but for all nations.  Two loaves of bread raised up in worship to God, an expansion of the people of God, no longer Jewish only (the disciples), but also now including the Gentiles; one in Jesus Christ, one in Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus, the Messiah).

It was by the power from God (the Holy Spirit) that two people groups, now joined by their belief in Jesus Christ, would become one.  It began with Jewish followers of Christ, but now includes both Jewish and Gentile followers of Christ.  The Gentiles (the group to which I belong) became a part of the "people of God" on Pentecost, on Shavuot, through the power of the Holy Spirit, by the preaching of repentance to all nations, by Jewish disciples of Christ.  What were the people of God called?  Israel.  At Pentecost, the people of God separated unto Him (the church) became one people called Israel. Israel was no longer a physical identity, but a spiritual one; no longer requiring physical circumcision, but circumcision of the heart only. Does that mean Jewish believers disappeared and are no more?  No, not any more than Gentile believers lost their identity.  But the identity of both developed into something even better; their identity became the "church" or the "bride of Christ."

As a result, the Jewish believers have no need to join with our Gentile church, they are the church, just as much as we Gentile believers are the church, the joining of the two was done by God on the Day of Pentecost over two thousand years ago...two loaves of bread that became one in Jesus, united in the power of the Holy Spirit.    Instead, I often hear pastors say that Jewish believers are welcome to join "their" church. I have always felt that was a little bit of putting the cart before the horse.  The horse that pulls the cart is the Jewish believers in Christ; the cart that follows behind, but is one with the horse now, is the Gentile believers in Christ.  If anyone "joined" a church, it was, and still should be, the Gentiles that "joined."  That was what Paul's metaphor of "grafting in" was all about.  Gentile believers in Christ became one with Jewish believers in Christ...the Jewish believers leading the way...until both are completely "united" under the new identity of the bride of Christ.

"But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto be both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth....these [the disciples of Jesus] all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren...and when the day of Pentecost [Shavuot] was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place [in Jerusalem].  And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.  And there appeared unto them, cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance....the multitude came together and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.  And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Gallileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?  And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?  Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. 

But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.  But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel:

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit unto all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy: and I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, fire, and vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: and it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Acts 1:8-2:21)

Two loaves of bread, representing Jew and Gentile, waved before the altar of God, with hands raised in Spirit-filled worship in the symbol of the cross; two people become one as living sacrifices, anointed by God in the power of His Holy Spirit, united together by the blood of Jesus that washed away their sins, appointed to bring into the kingdom of God those that would be saved (both Jew and Gentile) in the last days.

This is what we, Jewish and Gentile believers in Christ, should be celebrating today on the Feast of Shavuot.

I think it is worth celebrating....

Jeremiah: Fourth Sermon, Part 1

Jeremiah 11:1 through 12:17 covers what is considered to be the fourth sermon of Jeremiah, the prophet of God.

In verse 11:5 the Lord speaks of the promise to Judah's fathers to provide for them "a land flowing with milk and honey."  The promise was conditional, however, upon the Israelites obeying God.  The Lord longed to bless His people with such a land, but they continued to walk in such disobedience that He had no choice but to infer upon them, not the promised blessings of His Word, but rather the promised curses for their disobedience.  He is reminding them of the promises, both of life or of death, that He spoke to the Israelites...promises that can be found in several places in Deuteronomy.

For example, Deuteronomy 28:1-14 lists the blessings that will follow obedience to the Lord, while Deuteronomy 28:15-68 lists the curses that will come through disobedience to the Lord.

Read Deuteronomy 28 in full when you can, and let me know if any of it reminds you of our nation.  I can't help but see America in it, and I can't help but tremble at what is to come if our nation does not repent of its prideful neglect and ingratitude towards God and all that HE blessed us with as a new nation; blessings that continue today, yet will soon, I fear, come to a quick and devastating end in this Shemitah year.

The word "covenant" is used often in Deuteronomy and even several times here in Jeremiah 11.  I believe that we believers in Christ think that we can "excuse" ourselves from the penalty of the curses because the "covenant" of which the Lord speaks here is one of the Old Testament, not the New Testament covenant of forgiveness in Christ.  But why, then, would our nation be at "risk" at all if we have not covenanted with God and broken Hi covenant just as Israel and then Judah did?

The truth is that our nation has covenanted with God, as a nation.  This covenant was proclaimed by our leaders, those who represent our nation, and just as a bad leader can cause bad things to happen to the nation of which he is a leader, so also can godly leaders covenant with God on behalf of the nation that they represent to cause blessings to fall on that nation.

So, when, you might ask, did we covenant with God as a nation?

Well it wasn't in 1776, the date that we consider the birth of our nation. It was actually on April 30, 1789, the date that the nation's first president, George Washington, was inaugurated. 

Just as King Solomon stood at the dedication of the temple, and proclaimed that the blessings of God would fall on the nation of Israel with their disobedience to God, and also, prophetically, that the curses of God would fall on the nation if they should go away from God, so too, our nation's first inaugurated President proclaimed similar blessings or curses on our nation, dependent entirely upon our acknowledgment of and gratitude towards God (blessings), and that any nation foolish enough to turn away from God should expect His protection and blessings to cease (curses).

The President's inaugural address was heralded on April 23, 1789, a few day prior to his speech, by The New York Daily Advisor with these words:

"On the morning of the day on which our illustrious President will be invested with his office, the bells will ring at nine o'clock, when the people may go up to the house of God and in a solemn manner commit the new government, with its important train of consequences, to the holy protection and blessing of the Most High.  An early hour is prudently fixed for this peculiar act of devotion and is designed wholly for prayer."  [See posting on July 22, 2010 at this site:  http://davidbartonwallbuilders.typepad.com/blog/ ]

In the first ever presidential address, hear our first inaugurated President's words concerning Almighty God:

"Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow- citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted can not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence....since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained..."
 [ See the entire address at: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/wash1.asp ]

Now, follow with me just a bit further. 

When Israel as a nation was judged, the symbol of that nation's government or leaders, the symbol of the commitment of the national leaders to God, i.e., the temple, was the first thing to be destroyed, then the people were carried off.  It is as though the judgment began at the national place of dedication or commitment or covenant to God; such covenant being proclaimed on behalf of the nation by the nation's leaders.

So, if George Washington proclaimed America, in a sense, to be a nation that acknowledges God, at a place in which he was surrounded by representatives of the newly established government (including senate, congress, etc.), then, if judgment were to fall we might expect that judgment to fall first on that national symbol of commitment of the nation to God. 

Now, don't go thinking that means Washington D.C. in any form or shape, because the government of our country was not established in Washington D.C.  The proclamation by our first inauguarated President was not spoken in Washington, D.C.  In fact, to my knowledge, George Washington never set foot inside Washington D.C.

The New York Daily Advisor clearly stated that the inaugural speech was to be given by the President, surrounded by the government representatives of senate, congress, etc., in the "house of God."  This particular newspaper reported it, because the establishment of our government, and the location of the church of this first inaugural address, was none other than New York City, the capitol of our nation at that time.  [See David Burton Wallbuilder's blog again.]

The church was St. Paul's Chapel which still exists within a block or two of Wall Street.

And the large section of land that, at that time (according to the author of The Harbinger),was owned exclusively by St. Paul's Chapel, was later divided and sold to become the plot of land upon which the Twin Towers were built.

Ground that is now known as "Ground Zero."

Do you think that was just a very bad coincidence?  That the land upon which our nation covenanted with God to be guided by Him, was, 212 years later, the same land that was attacked on 9/11 by America's enemies...who just happen to be descendants of ancient Assyria? 

Or could that have been the beginning of judgment on a nation who, for all intents and purposes,  has excluded the Almighty God it once gratefully acknowledged; the God to whom it now turns its collective backs? 

Could it be also that God's Word which we declare to be "living" was recorded for our benefit, and the benefit of every nation ever to exist, in order that we might know what to expect, fully and completely, when we turn as a nation against God?

[If you need further convincing, read Jonathan Cahn's book The Harbinger.  It was in his book that I found this information for the first time a couple of years ago; information which I verified at the websites shown in this blog, although there are many additional websites that confirm this information as well.]

Jeremiah: The Valley of Hinnom

Here is some information that I think is important concerning something mentioned in a prior scripture passage called the "valley of Hinnom" (Jeremiah 7:32).

The following information comes from bible dictionaries and compiled on Blue Letter Bible's website [www.blueletterbible.org].  For those of you who are not yet using Blue Letter Bible's website, I encourage you to check it out.  It provides very easy cross-referencing, more study aids than I can contain on my shelves, and wonderful daily devotionals that will bless you.

Easton's Bible Dictionary:
Hinnom:
A deep, narrow ravine separating Mount Zion from the so-called "Hill of Evil Counsel." It took its name from "some ancient hero, the son of Hinnom." It is first mentioned in Jos 15:8. It had been the place where the idolatrous Jews burned their children alive to Moloch and Baal. A particular part of the valley was called Tophet, or the "fire-stove," where the children were burned. After the Exile, in order to show their abhorrence of the locality, the Jews made this valley the receptacle of the offal of the city, for the destruction of which a fire was, as is supposed, kept constantly burning there.

The Jews associated with this valley these two ideas, (1) that of the sufferings of the victims that had there been sacrificed; and (2) that of filth and corruption. It became thus to the popular mind a symbol of the abode of the wicked hereafter. It came to signify hell as the place of the wicked. "It might be shown by infinite examples that the Jews expressed hell, or the place of the damned, by this word. The word Gehenna [the Greek contraction of Hinnom] was never used in the time of Christ in any other sense than to denote the place of future punishment." About this fact there can be no question. In this sense the word is used eleven times in our Lord's discourses (Mat 23:33; Luk 12:5; Mat 5:22, etc.).

Smith's Bible Dictionary:

Hinnom:

(lamentation) Valley of, otherwise called "the valley of the son" or "children of Hinnom," a deep and narrow ravine, with steep, rocky sides, to the south and west of Jerusalem, separating Mount Zion to the north from the "hill of evil counsel," and the sloping rocky plateau of the "plain of Rephaim" to the south. The earliest mention of the valley of Hinnom is in Joshua 15:8; 18:16 where the boundary line between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin is described as passing along the bed of the ravine. On the southern brow, overlooking the valley at its eastern extremity Solomon erected high places for Molech (1 Kings 11:7) whose horrid rites were revived from time to time in the same vicinity the later idolatrous kings. Ahaz and Manasseh made their children "pass through the fire" in this valley (2 Kings 16:3; 2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6) and the fiendish custom of infant sacrifice to the fire‐gods seems to have been kept up in Tophet, which was another name for this place. To put an end to these abominations the place was polluted by Josiah, who renders it ceremonially unclean by spreading over it human bones and other corruptions (2 Kings 23:10; 23:13-14; 2 Chronicles 34:4, 5) from which time it appears to have become the common cesspool of the city, into which sewage was conducted, to be carried off by the waters of the Kidron. From its ceremonial defilement, and from the detested and abominable fire of Molech, if not from the supposed ever‐burning funeral piles, the later Jews applied the name of this valley-Ge Hinnom, Gehenna (land of Hinnom)- to denote the place of eternal torment. In this sense the word is used by our Lord (Matthew 5:29; 10:28; 23:15; Mark 9:43; Luke 12:5). 

Jeremiah: Third Sermon

This third sermon of Jeremiah's begins in verse 7:1 and ends in 10:25.

In verse 7:6, we come immediately back to the subject of shedding "innocent blood" which is timely because I earlier stated that this innocent blood was clearly that of the prophets who had been killed by an unrepentant people. But I believe this passage, and possibly the earlier one as well, as GW stated (see comments under Jeremiah: First Sermon), speaks also of the blood of children sacrificed to either Baal or Molech, in that it is immediately followed with the words: "neither walk after other gods to your hurt." Verse 7:31 further confirms:

"And they have built the high places of Tophet [remember the groves of trees in high places used for pagan god worship?], which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart."

The worship of these two gods specifically required babies to be sacrificed on their altars.  These practices were abominable to God.  They should be abominable to us as well, in this modern age of easy abortions.

Yet, even in these sins, our merciful God was still seeking repentance from the people, rather than just wiping them out as He had once done with the flood.  Judgment only comes from lack of repentance. Judgment is not the same as consequences. There are always consequences to be paid when we sin, God's divine law wouldn't be just if there were no consequences, but the wrath-filled judgment of God is not at all the same as the consequences of our actions.  Two totally separate concepts. God's calling is sure.  Once He has called us to follow Him, no matter what we have done before or after that calling, as long as true repentance follows, meaning we have turned from those past sins never to visit them again, then we are able to walk in confidence with the Lord, as He uses us then to minister to others who might be heading into (or coming out of) those same types of sin.  It is only when we willingly continue in sin and do not even want to repent that we are in danger of God's wrath...His patience is long, but limited...it does have an end. That is why we are to turn from sin as soon as we recognize it as sin.  "NOW is the day of salvation." (2 Corinthians 6:2)

Hypocrisy is the subject of verses 7:8 through 8:3, as seen in just these few first verses:

"Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit.  Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations.  Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord." (Jeremiah 7:8-7-11)

Even today, there are those in whom this hypocrisy can be found; people who trust that performing the ritual of going to church (as one example) makes them pleasing to God, even if the rest of the week they walk in willful disobedience to His Word. God is not pleased with ritual, only with obedience:

"For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: But this thing commanded I them, saying "Obey my voice, and I will be your God and ye shall be my people, and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well for you." (Jeremiah 7:22-24)

Then there is Jeremiah's lament for his nation and its people:

"When I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint in me.....I am black, astonishment hath taken hold of me.  Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered.? Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people." (Jeremiah 8:18-9:1)

This is both a lament and a prophetic utterance, for the "balm of Gilead" is a name given to Jesus, who is also known as the Great Physician.

I want to focus for a moment on Jeremiah 9:13-14:

"And the Lord saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein; but have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them."

This is the biggest sin I see happening in our nation "walk(ing) after the imagination of their own heart."  The human heart has an immense capacity to rationalize in order to get what it wants. At some time or another, each of us has experienced this most likely.  I certainly have. I was shocked after the fact to realize just how well I convinced myself to do something I thought I would never in a million years do.  And it all seemed perfectly logical at the time!  It made perfect sense!  Because I shut my ears to the voice of God, temporarily.  And deception fell like a veil over my eyes.  I didn't not receive sight again until my sin had caused great damage to my own spirit, to my walk, to those I loved.  We have a huge capacity to rationalize.

BUT, having been there myself, allows me to have compassion for those who are also blinded and deaf to their own sin.  God was merciful and pulled me out of the darkness of my sin.  Society around us is walking in such deception, deception that seems perfectly logical to them, deception that came about from the desire of their own hearts. In other words, they wanted this sin so badly deep down inside, that rationalization came easy.  We have all fallen for it at one time or another.

For us to walk up to someone so greatly deceived and begin preaching to them in terminology they don't even comprehend is less than helpful, it is toxic.  We KNOW the right way, but how do we get THEM to go the right way, when they are enjoying the wrong way so much?  As we also once did. [I keep coming back to our own sins, because we must never forget that from which we have been saved ourselves!  That knowledge keeps us loving the unloveable; without that knowledge we would not be able to love at all.  We would be self-righteous hypocrites such as the nation of Judah had become.]

So, how do we get the deceived, the spiritually blind and deaf, to go the right way, the way of the Lord?  The way of blessing! Give me your thoughts, or your experiences of what turned you around from sin if you can. You don't have to name the sin, just tell us what brought you around.  Think of the worst sin, perhaps, of your lifetime, because most likely the worst sin had the most profound revealing of that sin as well.

Moving on, we come to another interesting verse:

"For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the ax.  They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not." (Jeremiah 10:3-4)

Doesn't that sound a little like a Christmas tree?  Perhaps some religions outlaw Christmas trees because of this verse, not sure really.  I myself, when I first read it, thought it was condemning Christmas trees.  But further down in the same passage it clearly identifies these trees that are decked out in silver and gold are being handled and treated as gods...carried about...but unable to speak:

"They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go [walk or move on their own].  Be not afraid of them: for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good."  (Jeremiah 10:5)  In other words, they are worthless, empty, lifeless things that man has formed out of a tree.  And the pagans worship them, and cry out to them for help.  It is pretty silly isn't it, yet the Israelites did the same thing with a golden calf they formed out of their own melted jewelry.  Amazing how our deceived minds can think at times, so stupidly, yet believing ourselves to be so smart...certainly smarter than God. Amazing deception.

So, there is a summary of the highlights, in my opinion at least, of things we can learn from Jeremiah's third sermon. Tell me if there are other things that you have learned from this section of the Word.

And be sure to give me your thoughts, if you are willing, on that question I asked above.  I think it will be helpful to all the readers of this blog.  We are, after all, seeking God, and His ways, and encouraging one another along the Way.

Jeremiah: A Little Background Info

I think it will be helpful for us to depart from Jeremiah's sermons for a few moments, and gain a little more historical perspective to help us distinguish between two separate and distinct captivities: the first having happened approximately 100 years prior to Jeremiah's ministry, and the second to happen soon in our study of the Book of Jeremiah.

So, let's begin by identifying these two captivities as either the Assyrian captivity or the Babylonian captivity.

The Babylonian captivity, as we will begin to call it in our current study, is the captivity of Judah by the Babylonians.  Because we will be getting into that in more detail in our study, I do not want to focus on it here.  Let's instead review the circumstances of the Assyrian captivity, as all history teaches us something about the present period of time, which as pertains to our study, means that time frame which was "present" tense to Jeremiah.

Prior to the Assyrian captivity, David's kingdom of Israel became divided after the death of his son and heir, Solomon.  I found an excellent page on the internet that describes the details of that division so much better than I could, and I find it to be an easy read, though very, very long, so if you have time this weekend, or over the next week even, go to:

https://bible.org/seriespage/21-great-divorce-kingdom-divided-1-kings-12-2-chronicles-10

I will borrow one scripture reference from the link above:

After Solomon finished building the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and all the other construction projects he had planned, the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time, in the same way he had appeared to him at Gibeon. The Lord said to him, “I have answered your prayer and your request for help that you made to me. I have consecrated this temple you built by making it my permanent home; I will be constantly present there.  You must serve me with integrity and sincerity, just as your father David did. Do everything I commanded and obey my rules and regulations.  Then I will allow your dynasty to rule over Israel permanently, just as I promised your father David, ‘You will not fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’ “But if you or your sons ever turn away from me, fail to obey the regulations and rules I instructed you to keep, and decide to serve and worship other gods,  then I will remove Israel from the land I have given them, I will abandon this temple I have consecrated with my presence, and Israel will be mocked and ridiculed among all the nations.  This temple will become a heap of ruins; everyone who passes by it will be shocked and will hiss out their scorn, saying, ‘Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?’  Others will then answer, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God, who led their ancestors out of Egypt. They embraced other gods whom they worshiped and served. That is why the Lord has brought all this disaster down on them’” (1 Kings 9:1-9)

God being true to His Word, this passage of scripture above describes, in very simple and accurate details, the reason that Israel was carried away captive.

But as God always does, a remnant of ancient Israel, known as the nation of Judah, remained. 

The Assyrian captivity lasted as long as there was an Assyrian empire. When Babylon conquers the Assyrian empire, Israel is too scattered to ever unite again (until the 1900s at least.)  They become known as the "ten lost tribes of Israel."

[The ruins of the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh - the graveyard of the Assyrian empire - are located beneath two mounds of earth in the city of Mosul, Iraq.  I find it very interesting, with our earth having a land mass of 57,000,000 square miles, that the sworn enemy of both modern day Israel and the United States of America is occupying the same exact land that was home to the ancient enemy of Israel; the same enemy that God used for judgment against Israel.]

The Babylonian captivity, on the other hand, has an even more specific cause than the Assyrian captivity and will come with a captivity time limit as well.

More on that later.  Hope that helps.

See you Monday!