SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 3/8/2014
My
Worship Time Focus: Ignoring God’s Warnings
PT-VII
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Jeremiah 13:22-23, 26-27
Message of the verses: We are looking at the next to last sub-title
in Warren Wiersbe’s outline in order to find out the vivid images that depict
the judgment that was about to fall upon Judah.
The Disgraced Prostitute (Jeremiah
13:22-23, 26-27): “22 "If you
say in your heart, ’Why
have these things happened to me?’ Because of the magnitude of your
iniquity Your skirts have been removed And your heels have been exposed. 23 “Can
the Ethiopian change his skin Or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do
good Who are accustomed to doing evil. 26
“So I Myself have also stripped your skirts off over your face, That your shame
may be seen. 27 “As for your adulteries and your lustful neighings, The
lewdness of your prostitution On the hills in the field, I have seen your
abominations. Woe to you,
O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean?’”
When
the people of Israel first went into the land of Egypt they were very small in
number, but over the next four hundred years they became great in number and
went from a family to a nation, a nation that God desired to use to show other
nations His greatness, His love and compassion, and also to bring the chosen
Messiah to earth. God gave to the nation
of Israel the Word of God and in that Word we read the following about
prostitution: “’Do not profane your
daughter by making her a harlot, so that the land will not fall to harlotry and
the land become full of lewdness (Lev. 19:29).”
“’They shall not take a woman who is profaned by harlotry, nor shall
they take a woman divorced from her husband; for he is holy to his God (Lev.
21:7).” “’A widow, or a divorced woman,
or one who is profaned by harlotry, these he may not take; but rather he is to
marry a virgin of his own people (Lev. 21:14).”
We can learn from these verses that prostitution was not permitted in
the land of Israel, and when prostitutes were caught in public they were
exposed and sometimes disgraced. We have
learned in earlier SD’s that there was a wedding ceremony at Mt. Sinai between
the Lord and the children of Israel as the Law was given to them, and also we
have learned that one of the attributes of God is that He is faithful, but
Israel was not faithful to Him as they prostituted themselves with the idols of
the land that God had give to them. The
reason for this was that they did not obey the Lord and kill all of those who
lived in the Promised Land when they entered the land after wandering around in
the desert for forty years. God had
given the people of the land many years to repent from their sins, but they
would not do it so He used the nation of Israel to rid the land of them.
Now
we have the picture of Judah being a prostitute and God says that they are so
evil that just as an Ethiopian cannot change his skin color or a leopard change
its spots so Judah cannot change it evil ways and so judgment will swiftly come
upon her.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: As I was studying the attributes of God in
one of the different books that I was reading I learned that God’s attribute of
long-suffering was an attribute speaking of a person’s sins, that is God is
long-suffering when people continue to sin, but there are a couple of things
that I can learn from this and first of all that the person is surely not happy
when they continue to sin against the Lord, and second of all because a
believer does continue to sin against the Lord in a certain area that the Lord
loves him so much that He will not allow them to continue in that sin.
My
Steps of Faith for Today:
Proverbs 3:5-6.
Memory verses for the week: Philippians 2:5-8
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, 7 but emptied Himself, taking on the form of a
bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in the appearance as a man, He
humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a
cross.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Tenth” (Exodus 12:3).
Today’s Bible question: “How many times did Jesus tell Peter we
should forgive others?”
Answer in our next SD.
3/8/2014
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