SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/6/2014
10:41 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
More of What God was Doing
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jeremiah
6:6-23
Message of the
verses: Today we will be looking at
two more sub-points from the last main point from Dr. Wiersbe’s outline. He writes at the end of this last main point
from this second chapter in his commentary the following “In that critical
hour, the prophet told the nation what God was doing.” God was doing four things as described in
Jeremiah six, and we looked at the first thing in yesterday’s SD.
God Directs the Attack (Jeremiah 6:6-15): “6 For thus says the LORD of hosts, "Cut
down her trees And cast up a siege against Jerusalem. This is the city to be
punished, In whose midst there is only oppression. 7 “As a well keeps its
waters fresh, So she keeps
fresh her wickedness. Violence and destruction are heard in her;
Sickness and wounds are ever before Me. 8 “Be warned, O Jerusalem, Or I shall
be alienated from you, And make you a desolation, A land not inhabited." 9 Thus says the LORD of hosts, "They
will thoroughly glean as the vine the remnant of Israel; Pass your hand again
like a grape gatherer Over the branches." 10 To whom shall I speak and
give warning That they may hear? Behold, their ears are closed And they cannot listen. Behold, the word of the LORD has become
a reproach to them; They
have no delight in it. 11 But I am full of the wrath of the
LORD; I am weary
with holding it in. "Pour it out on the children in the street And
on the gathering of young men together; For both husband and wife shall be
taken, The aged and the very old. 12 “Their houses shall be turned over to
others, Their fields and their wives together; For I will stretch out My hand
Against the inhabitants of the land," declares the LORD. 13 “For from the
least of them even to the greatest of them, Everyone is greedy for gain, And
from the prophet even to the priest Everyone deals falsely. 14 “They have healed the brokenness of
My people superficially, Saying, ’Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace. 15 “Were they ashamed because
of the abomination they have done? They were not even ashamed at all; They did not even know how to
blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; At the time that I
punish them, They shall be cast down," says the LORD.”
In verse six the Lord says that the trees around
Jerusalem were to be cut down in order to build a siege wall against the city. There use to be a lot of trees around the
city of Jerusalem, but through the years they were all cut down and used in the
war efforts against the city and thus today there are now not many trees left
around the city of Jerusalem. When we read verse six we see that God is giving
orders to the Babylonians to cut those trees down. Next we see the Lord tell why He has ordered
the Babylonians to fight against and destroy Jerusalem, as seen in the rest of these
verses in this section. Again I cannot
help but to see similar things going on in our country that were going on in
Jerusalem during the time of Jeremiah.
People do not want to hear the Word of God anymore, and one of the
reasons is that the people in that day and in our day were comfortable and thus
they did not need the Lord. I mentioned three
verses in Proverbs 30 in an earlier SD that shows what kind of an attitude a
person should have when it comes to riches and poverty. I have thought of these verses many times: “7 ¶
Two things I asked of You, Do not refuse me before I die: 8 Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me
neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion, 9 That I not be full and deny You and say,
"Who is the LORD?" Or that I not be in want and steal, And profane
the name of my God (Proverbs 30:7-9).”
Jeremiah mentions some different reasons that God was
going to destroy them and he uses some word pictures to aid those who would
listen to this message and who would later on read it. “As a well keeps its
waters fresh, So she keeps
fresh her wickedness. Violence and destruction are heard in her;
Sickness and wounds are ever before Me”
In verse ten Jeremiah laments over the fact that no one
was listening to what he was saying: “10
To whom shall I speak and give warning That they may hear? Behold, their ears are closed
And they cannot listen. Behold, the word of the LORD has become a reproach to them;
They have no delight in
it.” In Acts seven we read about
the stoning of Stephen and before the Jews stone him he preaches them a sermon
reviewing some of the things that were done by the children of Israel and in
verse fifty-one we read that he tells his audience that they and their fathers
were uncircumcised in heart and in ears, something Jeremiah described also in
Jeremiah 4:4. “"You men who are
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy
Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.” It was shortly after Stephen spoke these
words that the Jew killed him too. What
Stephen was saying to the Jews then was applicable to what Jeremiah is telling
them in our study.
Jeremiah also speaks of how the priests and the “prophets”
were telling them lies and fooling them into thinking that God would not and
even could not destroy the city where His temple was located.
One more thing I want to point out from this section and
that is that we see that God is a God of wrath, as wrath is one of His
attributes. “11 But I am full of the wrath of the LORD; I am weary with holding it in.
"Pour it out on the children in the street And on the gathering of young
men together; For both husband and wife shall be taken, The aged and the very
old.” I have mentioned in earlier SD’s that
I have read a few books on the attributes of God and one of the books that I
have recently read the author says that as we read the Bible and see God’s
attributes that we have to accept them, and this one along with His attribute
of justice is a difficult one to accept, never the less it is true that God is
a God of wrath and also justice.
God Delivers the Verdict (Jeremiah 6:16-23): “16 Thus says the LORD, "Stand by the
ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, Where the good way is, and walk in
it; And you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ’We will not walk in it.’
17 “And I set watchmen over you, saying, ’Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’
But they said, ’We will
not listen.’
18 "Therefore hear, O nations, And know, O
congregation, what is among them. 19 “Hear, O earth: behold, I am bringing disaster on this
people, The fruit of their plans, Because they have not listened to My
words, And as for My law, they have rejected it also. 20 “For what purpose does
frankincense come to Me from Sheba And the sweet cane from a distant land? Your
burnt offerings are not acceptable And your sacrifices are not pleasing to
Me." 21 Therefore, thus says the LORD, "Behold, I am laying stumbling blocks
before this people. And they will stumble against them, Fathers and sons together;
Neighbor and friend will perish." 22 Thus says the LORD,
"Behold, a people is
coming from the north land, And a great nation will be aroused from the
remote parts of the earth. 23 “They seize bow and spear; They are cruel and
have no mercy; Their voice roars like the sea, And they ride on horses, Arrayed
as a man for the battle Against you, O daughter of Zion!’”
As we read over this section we can ask and answer a
question: Are the people guilty? The answer of course is that yes they are
guilty. Next do they deserve
punishment? Yes they do deserve
punishment. I want to look at a passage
from the book of Genesis, and the portion that I want to go to is in chapter
fifteen where we read about the covenant that God makes with Abraham. God tells Abraham what the future holds for
the people who will come from he and Sara.
He tells Abraham that eventually his family will go to Egypt and stay
there for four hundred years before they return to the land that Abraham was in
at that time, the Promised Land. God
will take this family of around seventy people and make a nation out of them during
those four hundred years, but God also tells Abraham that the people who were
living in the “Promised Land” at the time of Abraham had not yet sinned enough
for God to judge them. “12 ¶ Now when
the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and
great darkness fell upon him. 13 God said to Abram, "Know for certain that
your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they
will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. 14 “But I will also judge
the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many
possessions. 15 “As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be
buried at a good old age. 16 “Then in the fourth generation they will return
here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.’” Now as we look at this passage from Genesis
we see that it all happened as God said it would and four hundred years later
the people of that land were conquered by the children of Israel. However God told the children of Israel to
kill all of these people so that they would not end up worshiping their
idols. They failed to do this and so
they worshiped idols which is the main reason why God destroyed the city of
Jerusalem and the people of both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel. Jeremiah is telling them in this passage that
they are guilty before God and that God would use Babylon, the nation from the
North to punish them for just as God’s wrath was taken out on those whom Israel
destroyed when they came into the land so His wrath was now against His own
people Israel and would destroy many of them but would be faithful in saving a
remnant.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: As I have
mentioned that the times we are living in are becoming similar to the times
that Jeremiah lived in I want to tell others some of the same things that
Jeremiah told the people in his day. I
want to tell people that even though times are not good at this point that God
has a plan for them and that plan is that they be saved from their sins through
the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “1 ¶
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you,
which also you received, in which also you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast
the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance
what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried,
and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor.
14:1-4).”
My Steps of Faith for Today: Always being ready to make a defense to
everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with
gentleness and reverence (1 Peter 3:15b).”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Hezekiah” (2 Kings 20:1-3).
Today’s Bible
question: “Which book records a man
walking naked for three years?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/6/2014 12:07 PM
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