SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/29/2014
8:58 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Looking at
the rest of Jer. 17
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jeremiah
17:12-27
Message
of the verses: In today’s SD we want
to finish looking at Jeremiah chapter seventeen which speaks of the sins that
Judah was committing against the Lord.
Jeremiah gave this message to the people of Judah.
Forsaking the Lord (Jeremiah
17:12-13): “12 A glorious throne on high
from the beginning Is the place of our sanctuary. 13 O LORD, the hope of
Israel, All who forsake You will be put to shame. Those who turn away on earth
will be written down, Because they have forsaken the fountain of living water,
even the LORD.”
Jeremiah is speaking of the throne
of God in heaven for the Jews believed that the throne of God on earth was the
Holy of Holies that was in the temple of God in Jerusalem. “You who are enthroned above the cherubim,
shine forth!” (Psalm 80:1b) “The LORD reigns, let the peoples tremble; He
is enthroned above the cherubim, let the earth shake!” (Psalm 99:1)
However Judah had sinned and this throne would be taken away from them
because they would be taken to Babylon for 70 years. The ark of the covenant and other articles
would not be destroyed, but eventually put back into the new temple that would
be built after God called His people back to Jerusalem.
Judah would be disciplined by the
Lord because they had forsaken Him, for the Lord did not forsake Judah. Dr. Wiersbe writes “Instead of being written
in the Book of Life, those who forsook God were written in the dust where their
names perished with them. (Ex. 32:32;
Ps. 69:28; Phil. 4:3).”
Rejecting God’s Servant (Jeremiah
17:14-18): “14 Heal me, O LORD, and I
will be healed; Save me and I will be saved, For You are my praise. 15 Look,
they keep saying to me, "Where is the word of the LORD? Let it come
now!" 16 But as for me, I have not hurried away from being a shepherd
after You, Nor have I longed for the woeful day; You Yourself know that the
utterance of my lips Was in Your presence. 17 Do not be a terror to me; You are
my refuge in the day of disaster. 18 Let those who persecute me be put to
shame, but as for me, let me not be put to shame; Let them be dismayed, but let
me not be dismayed. Bring on them a day of disaster, And crush them with
twofold destruction!”
Dr. Wiersbe points out that this was
the fourth of Jeremiah’s personal prayers to God for help. I must admit that this prayer is not like
some of the others he has prayed to the Lord regarding the people of Judah, for
this prayer seems to be calling God’s wrath on the people who were trying to
harm him.
There was one time when Jeremiah
seemed to be trying to get out of his responsibilities as we saw in Jeremiah
15:15-21, but not this time as he was praying for deliverance form those who
were trying to harm him. The people were
asking when the things that he was telling them about the future would come
true, but God was delaying to give them time to repent.
God would answer the prayer of
Jeremiah and deliver him from those who wanted to harm him.
Profaning the Sabbath (Jeremiah
17:19-27): “19 Thus the LORD said to me, "Go and stand in the public gate,
through which the kings of Judah come in and go out, as well as in all the
gates of Jerusalem; 20 and say to them, ’Listen to the word of the LORD,
kings of Judah, and
all Judah and all inhabitants of Jerusalem who come in through these gates:
21 ’Thus says the LORD, "Take heed
for yourselves, and do not carry any load on the Sabbath day or bring anything
in through the gates of Jerusalem. 22
"You shall not bring a load out of your houses on the Sabbath day
nor do any work, but keep
the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your forefathers. 23 “Yet they did not
listen or incline their ears, but stiffened their necks in order not to listen
or take correction. 24 "But it will
come about, if you listen attentively to Me," declares the LORD, "to
bring no load in through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but to keep
the Sabbath day holy by doing no work on it, 25
then there will come in through the gates of this city kings and princes
sitting on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and
their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and this city
will be inhabited forever. 26 "They
will come in from the cities of Judah and from the environs of Jerusalem, from
the land of Benjamin, from the lowland, from the hill country and from the
Negev, bringing burnt offerings, sacrifices, grain offerings and incense, and
bringing sacrifices of thanksgiving to the house of the LORD. 27 "But if you do not listen to Me to keep the Sabbath day
holy by not carrying a load and coming in through the gates of Jerusalem
on the Sabbath day, then I
will kindle a fire in its gates and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem and
not be quenched."’"”
We have spoken about the Sabbath day
in earlier SD,’ but this bears repeating.
God gave the Sabbath day to the children of Israel as a special token of
their relationship with Him as seen in the Law from Exodus 16:29; 20:8-11;
31:13-17. God wanted them to rest on
this day and to worship the Lord on this day.
They were not to work or have their farm animals work either, however
when we come to the NT Gospels we see that the Pharisees put restrictions on
the Sabbath day that were not in Scripture and this was one thing that got them
in trouble with the Lord Jesus Christ.
The problem here as described by
Jeremiah was that people were commercializing the Sabbath day, making it a day to make money
instead of worshiping the Lord, a problem we have in our day as well even
though we do not fall under the OT Law, but the principle is still there. The people were making a mechanical obedience
to the Sabbath law and this did not come from their hearts and therefore was
not pleasing to the Lord.
Let me take the time to quote an
endnote from Dr. Wiersbe on the Sabbath day:
“Nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated in the New Testament epistles
for believers to obey, but the Sabbath commandment isn’t among them. The Sabbath was a special sign given to
Israel (Ex. 3:12-18), not to the church.
Believers are free to honor special days as they feel convicted by the Lord
(Romans 14:1-23; Col. 2:16-17) and must not judge one another. To make Sabbath-keeping a means of salvation
or a mark of special spirituality is to go beyond what the Scriptures teach,
and to equate the Sabbath with the New Testament Lord’s Day is equally unbiblical. The Sabbath is identified with the Law; You
work six days and then you rest. The
Lord’s Day is identified with grace: You begin with a resurrected Christ and
the works follow.”
I will close this section by writing
about what Nehemiah faced when he came to Jerusalem, which was similar to what
we read about in this passage. Nehemiah
actually saw a revival in Jerusalem after being there for a while, however
after he left and went back to Babylon and then returned a while later he saw
the very same thing that Jeremiah writes about here. History was repeating itself, and it was
wrong the first time and therefore it was wrong in Nehemiah’s day also.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Warren
Wiersbe mentioned judging another person for what they do in honoring different
days and at times this is kind of hard to do for me. I need to allow the Holy Spirit to work in my
life and the lives of those that I believe are doing wrong.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord
to aid and help us in our preparation for going on vacation so that what we do
will bring glory to Him.
Memory
verses for the week: Philippians 2:5-7
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 appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the
point of death, even death on a cross. 9
For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name
which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow,
of those who are in heaven and on earth, and under the earth,
Answer
to yesterday’s Bible question: “Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.”
Today’s
Bible question: “What remedy for snake
bite did Moses make at the Lord’s direction?
Answer
in our next SD.
3/29/2014
9:56 AM
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