Third Part of Jeremiah's Messabe about His Strange Conduct from Jer. 16:14-15

SPRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/24/2014 9:00 AM

My Worship Time                            Focus: 3^rd Part of Jeremiah’s Message about strange conduct

Bible Reading & Meditation                                              Reference:  Jeremiah 16:14-15

            Message of the verses:  We are looking today at the third part of Jeremiah’s message that has to do with his strange conduct.

            Jeremiah’s Consolation (Jeremiah 16:14-15):  “14 ‘Therefore behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when it will no longer be said, ’As the LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ 15 but, ’As the LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north and from all the countries where He had banished them.’ For I will restore them to their own land which I gave to their fathers.”

            We mentioned in yesterday’s SD that we saw different attributes from the verses we looked at, and one of them was God’s wrath.  Hab. 3:1-2 says “1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth. 2 LORD, I have heard the report about You and I fear. O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years, In the midst of the years make it known; In wrath remember mercy.”  The last part of verse two, the highlighted part is similar to what is said in our verses from Jeremiah that we are looking at today.

            In the middle of all the terrible things that Jeremiah is telling the people of Judah he gives them hope.  This hope comes from something that we have seen since the book of Exodus where we read many times about the Lord bringing the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but now that will change for God has promised to bring the people out of Babylon back to the land they had come from, the Promised Land.  We can call this the second Exodus and this Exodus will far outshine the one from Egypt.  Later on Jeremiah will write about the exiles being in Babylon for 70 years and we have already seen from the book of Isaiah that God would raise up Cyrus to allow them to return to their land.  One may wonder why it is that this second exodus will be far greater than the first one when the Children of Israel came out of Egypt.  I remember early on in my Christian life that the pastor I set under asked a question at the end of the morning service that would be answered in the evening service.  He asked why the temple that was built by the exiles would be greater than the one that Solomon had built.  The temple that Solomon built was much larger than the one that the exiles built, and some of the people who returned from the exile who had remembered the temple that Solomon had built actually cried when they say how much smaller the new temple was.  The answer to the question is that this new temple would be more glorious because the Lord Jesus Christ would minister from that temple, and perhaps this answers the question why this second exodus would be far greater than the first one, for the first one ended up in great sinfulness by the people of Israel.  Now we know that the Lord Jesus told the people of Jerusalem that the temple in His day on the earth would be destroyed and that the people would be scattered all around the world.  This happened in 70 AD and this was also prophesied in the book of Deuteronomy, and chapter 28.  Ezekiel prophesied that that God would call His people back to the land as seen in chapters 36-37 and this happened in May of 1948, as by the grace of God the nation of Israel was established in one day as the prophet Isaiah spoke of in Isaiah 66. 

            Getting back to Jeremiah we know that God fulfilled this promise and that when the children of Israel returned to their land they would not worship idols as they did before they went into captivity, and have not since.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  As I study the attributes of God it is more understandable to me how He does things as demonstrated by in the passage from the book of Habakkuk.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trust the grace of the Lord to be active in my life for Paul writes "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness."

Memory verses for the week:  Philippians 2:5-10

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:  “Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.”

Today’s Bible question:  “Who said, ‘Art thou greater than our father Jacob?”

Answer in our next SD.

3/24/2014 9:37 AM