SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/16/2014
9:35 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Task Was Demanding
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jeremiah 1:1
Message of the
verses: 1 The words of Jeremiah the
son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin.”
We begin at the beginning in our study of Jeremiah with
the very first verse. Now I want to give
you the name of Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary for the book of Jeremiah again “Be
Decisive.” He entitles this first
chapter “The Reluctant Prophet,” and our first main point from the book is “The
task was demanding.”
He begins the book with these words, “For a people to
boast in the glory of the past, and to deny the secret that made the past, is
to perish,’ from G. Campbell Morgan.
“Jeremiah was perhaps twenty years old when God’s call
came to him in the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign (626 BC). Why did he hesitate to accept God’s
call? Let me suggest some reasons.” We will look at the first reason in today’s
SD.
We see in this first verse that Jeremiah’s father was
Hilkiah, and Dr. Wiersbe has an endnote that speaks about this name, “It’s not
likely that Jeremiah’s father was the Hilkiah who found the Book of the Law
during the repairing of the temple (2 Kings 22). In the Old Testament, there are several
others Hilkiahs mentioned. The name was
popular, particularly among the priests and Levites. If Jeremiah’s father had been that close to
the king, some of the prestige might have rubbed off on his son, but that doesn’t
seem to have happened.”
What we want to discover in this SD is why it would have
been easier for Jeremiah to perform the duties of a priest as opposed to the
duties of a prophet.
1.
A priest’s life was predictable, but not so
were prophets.
2.
The priest
worked primarily to conserve the past, but the prophet labored to change the
present in order for the nation would have a future.
3.
Priests dealt
with externals like determining ritual uncleanness and also offering various
sacrifices. The prophet was to reach
people and change their hearts. We find
the word heart at least sixty-six times in the book of Jeremiah, for he was
preeminently the prophet of the heart.
4.
It was not the
job of the priest to preach to crowds, for they ministered to a small group
teaching them about the Law. On the
other hand the prophet had to preach to the entire country in large crowds.
5.
Priest belonged
to a specific tribe (The tribe of Levi), but prophet could come from any
tribe. Because the priest came from a
specific tribe they commanded respect, by not so with the prophet, for many of
the prophets were killed for their beliefs.
6.
The priest were
supported from the offerings that came into the temple, but prophets had no guaranteed
income.
We
can see from this list that Jeremiah would have probably had a much easier life
if he would just been a priest, but that was not what God had planned for him.
The
following is a list of “pictures” that Jeremiah the prophet had to do in his
life as described in his book.
A.
A destroyer and
a builder (1:9-10)
B.
A pillar and a
wall (1:17-18)
C.
A watchman
(6:17)
D.
A tester of
metals (6:27-30
E.
A physician
(8:11, 21-22)
F.
A sacrificial
lamb (11:19)
G.
A long-distance
runner (12:5)
H.
A shepherd
(13:17, 20-21; 17:16, 23)
I.
A troublemaker
(15:10, 15-17) (This came from Dr.
Wiersbe Commentary on Jeremiah).
Spiritual meaning for my life today: The NT tell
me that because I am a born-again believer in Jesus Christ that I am a priest. I can intercede for people which means that I
can pray for their needs, and also my needs.
Being a priest has a great amount of responsibility and I desire to
fulfill that responsibility with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in me.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I need the grace of God in my life today in
order to give me the strength to go and see a friend who will probably be in
heaven sometime soon.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Jacob” (Genesis 46:2).
Today’s Bible Question “What
did Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Barak, Giedon Jephthah, and Samson have in common?
Answer in our next SD.
1/16/2014 10:22 AM
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