SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/20/2014
8:29 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Being God’s
Covenant People is no excuse for sin
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jeremiah
9:1-6
Message of the
verses: I think that a little review
over the last two chapters is in order at this point. We are following the outline of Warren
Wiersbe’s commentary on the book of Jeremiah which he entitles “Be Decisive”
and are now in the third chapter of this book.
This chapter covers chapters 7-10 of Jeremiah and at the end of his beginning
commentary he wrote Jeremiah dealt with their sinful mistreatment of the temple,
the Law, the covenant and the Lord Himself.”
In today’s SD we are looking at the beginning of the third main point in
which we deal with the false confidences that the people had over the covenant
that God had with them. At the beginning
of this section Dr. Wiersbe writes these important words “The Jews are the only
nation in history with whom God has entered into a covenant relationship (Gen.
12:1-3). As the children of Abraham,
marked by the seal of circumcision (Gen. 17), they are indeed a special people
to the Lord (Ex. 19:4-6). The tragedy is
that they trusted the covenant and the ritual to guarantee them acceptance
before the Lord. They though they didn’t
need to repent or believe; that was for the uncircumcised Gentiles. John the Baptist faced this obstacle in his
ministry (Matthew 3:7-10), and so did Jesus
(John 8:33ff) and Paul (Rom. 2-4).
Jeremiah had to deal with the pride of his people as he pointed out to
them three oblivious truths.” Now that
we are caught up with the review we will begin by looking at the first obvious
truth that Jeremiah brings up to the people of Judah.
Being God’s Covenant People is no Excuse for Sin
(Jeremiah 9:1-6): “1 Oh that my head
were waters And my eyes a fountain of tears, That I might weep day and night
For the slain of the daughter of my people! 2 Oh that I had in the desert A
wayfarers’ lodging place; That I might leave my people And go from them! For
all of them are adulterers, An assembly of treacherous men. 3 "They bend
their tongue like their bow; Lies
and not truth prevail in the land; For they proceed from evil to evil, And they do not know Me,"
declares the LORD. 4 “Let everyone be on guard against his neighbor, And do not
trust any brother; Because every brother deals craftily, And every neighbor
goes about as a slanderer. 5 “Everyone deceives his neighbor And does not speak
the truth, They have taught their tongue to speak lies; They weary themselves
committing iniquity. 6 “Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit; Through deceit
they refuse to know Me," declares the LORD.”
We see in verse one why Jeremiah is called the weeping
prophet, but both Jesus and Paul wept for the people of Israel: “When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the
city and wept over it (Luke 19:41).” “1 I
am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me
in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great
sorrow and unceasing grief
in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from
Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, 4 who
are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the
covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, 5
whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who
is over all, God blessed forever. Amen (Romans 9:1-5).” For all of these men to weep over the
children of Israel shows me that all had great compassion for the situation
that they were in, as we will see, in the case of Jeremiah, as we go through the book he wrote.
I remember on several different occasions that the first
Pastor that I had after I became a believer that he wept from the pulpit and
this is not seen a whole lot today. The
Pastor that we have now is a very emotional person and I have seen tears of joy
along with tears of sorrow come from him.
I truly appreciate this quality that he has for by seeing his tears I
know that he cares for those whom he is ministering to. I hope to see more tears from those who are
listening to his sermons, those who need to weep over sin in their lives, and I
surely include myself in that number.
James writes “9 Lament
and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy
to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you
up (James 4:9-10).” Dr. Wiersbe quotes
Vance Havner who said “Never in history has there been more ribald hilarity
with less to be funny about.” He may
have been thinking about what James wrote in saying what he said.
Jeremiah, if he could do what he wanted to do, would have
left these people and gone to a place of safety, but he knew that God had
called him to this work and he would obey the Lord. Jeremiah would stay the course with them even
after the city and the temple were destroyed. Jeremiah was grieved over the
sins of the people’s immorality, idolatry, deception, and slander, and that was
why he wept.
We have mentioned in earlier SD’s that the Jewish people
in that day and in the days of Jesus, and perhaps even today believe that they
can do something to earn their salvation, but they also believe that because
they are circumcised that they are the children of God. Abraham has those who belong to his family in
a way that all families are joined together, but He also has those who are
spiritually joined to him and that includes all who are and have been
believers. John the Baptist told the
Jews of his day “Mt 3:9 and do not
suppose that you can say to yourselves, ’We have Abraham for our father’; for I
say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.” Jesus told Nicodemus that in order for him to
become a true son of God he had to be born again, this is the new birth, and as
a friend of mine use to tell me “I was born wrong” that is true of all people
as we are all born with a sin nature and are in need of having a new birth to
be cleansed from our sin nature and our sins.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: As I look at
Jeremiah in this section and I look at our Pastor along with my Lord and others
in the Word of God and others in our world today and see that they can weep
over sin I pray that this will be something that I can do too.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Proverbs 3:5-6; Phil. 2:5-11.
Memory verses for the
week: Philippians 2:5-6
5 Have this attitude in
yourself which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form
of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Elisha” (2 Kings 6:1-7).
Today’s Bible
question: “The first Jewish coins
consisted of what three metals?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/20/2014 9:27 AM
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