SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/7/2014
9:34 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
God Describes the Consequences
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jer. 6:24-30
Message of the
verses: “24 We have heard the report
of it; Our hands are limp. Anguish has seized us, Pain as of a woman in
childbirth. 25 Do not go out into the field And do not walk on the road, For
the enemy has a sword, Terror is on every side. 26 O daughter of my people, put
on sackcloth And roll in ashes; Mourn as for an only son, A lamentation most
bitter. For suddenly the destroyer Will come upon us. 27 “I have made you an
assayer and a tester among My people, That you may know and assay their
way." 28 All of them are stubbornly rebellious, Going about as a
talebearer. They are bronze and iron; They, all of them, are corrupt. 29 The
bellows blow fiercely, The lead is consumed by the fire; In vain the refining
goes on, But the wicked are not separated. 30 They call them rejected silver,
Because the LORD has rejected them.”
24 We’ve heard the news, and we’re as limp as wet
dishrags. We’re paralyzed with fear. Terror has a death grip on our throats. 25
Don’t dare go outdoors! Don’t leave the house! Death is on the prowl. Danger
everywhere! 26 “Dear Daughter Zion: Dress in black. Blacken your face with
ashes. Weep most bitterly, as for an only child. The countdown has begun…six,
five, four, three…The Terror is on us!" 27
GOD gave me this task: "I have made you the examiner of my people,
to examine and weigh their lives. 28 They’re a thickheaded, hard-nosed bunch,
rotten to the core, the lot of them. 29 Refining fires are cranked up to white
heat, but the ore stays a lump, unchanged. It’s useless to keep trying any
longer. Nothing can refine evil out of them. 30 Men will give up and call them
‘slag,’ thrown on the slag heap by me, their GOD.’” (Message)
Sometimes I find it easier to look at a paraphrase Bible
when I have trouble understanding the NASB, and that is why I looked at the
Message Bible today.
As we read through these seven verses we can see that God
is bringing justice and wrath upon His people.
The heat that they felt was the heat of God’s wrath, not the heat of a
refining fire, for God had given up on these people who were left in
Jerusalem. Now we have to mention that
the Bible teaches that God always has a remnant from the children of Israel,
and some of that remnant would be taken to Babylon where they would live there
for seventy years before returning to the ruble of Jerusalem. Remember when we studied the book of Daniel
and we learned from his writings that Israel’s punishment would not be done
after seventy years, but would continue, and for that matter is still going on
even today. In the book of Ezekiel and
in chapters 35-38 we see that God promised to bring Israel back to their land
in the future that is the future of the time of Ezekiel’s writing. These chapters speak of a time when God would
put the nation back together again and bring them back to their land, and this
happened in 1948 when on the fifth of May that year Israel was made a nation in
one day. Ezekiel goes one in chapters
37-38 to talk about a future war that would come upon Israel, a war in which
God will destroy those enemies that were trying to destroy Israel.
All the things that were going on with the children of
Israel in Jeremiah’s day were seen by Moses when he wrote about it in the 28th
chapter of Deuteronomy. He wrote that
Israel would not follow the Lord and would be taken out of the land and then go
back into the land and then be taken out of the land again and would offer
themselves as slaves but no one would buy them.
In 70 AD Titus and his Roman Legions would again destroy Jerusalem and
the new temple that was built after the Jews returned from captivity and they
did offer themselves as slaves, but indeed no one would buy them because there
were too many slaves on the slave market at that time. I believe it was the will of God for the
children of Israel to live in the Promised Land and to serve the Lord there,
but because of their sinfulness, as seen partly
in the verses from Jeremiah we are looking at, they have been taken all
over the world, but there is coming a day when the Lord will call His people
back to the land of Israel, and I believe that is happening at this time for
there are more Jews living in Israel at this time than are other places around
the world. God will judge the nations on
how they have treated the Jews as seen in Genesis 12:1-3 where God told Abraham
that those who blessed the Jews would be blessed and those that cursed the
Jews, He would curse. I realize that we
have gotten a bit off the subject but I believe the things that I have written
are important.
As we look at the name of our Spiritual Diary today we
see it says God describes the consequences of the sinfulness of the Jews in
Jeremiah’s day. There is always a
consequence of sinful living, but we must understand that whenever a person is
born that they are born with a sinful nature and that is the reason that they
sin. We also must realize that the Lord
Jesus Christ came to earth to suffer and die for not only the sinful nature
that people have, but also for the sins that that sinful nature has
produced. God took care of the consequences
of sin when He punished the Lord Jesus Christ while He was on the cross for our
sins and the good news does not end there for there is an exchange available
for all who come to the Lord and confess that they are sinners and desire to
have the Lord come into their lives and to rule their lives. We read of the exchange in 2 Corinthians 5:21 where Paul writes “He made
Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him.” This is
the greatest exchange a person can have.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I am so glad that
the Lord has taken my sin and bore it on the cross and then gave me His
righteousness so that I can live for Him each day.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Proverbs 3:5-6.
Answer to yesterdays Bible
question: “Isaiah” (Isaiah 20:2-3).
Today’s Bible
question: “What reward did Elisha take
from Naaman after Naaman was cleansed?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/7/2014 10:40 AM
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