SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
5/6/2014 9:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Application
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Jeremiah 18:11-17
Message of the
verses: Warren Wiersbe’s outline for
chapter 18 of Jeremiah is entitled “Jeremiah, the Threatened Prophet,” and
there are a number of sub-points under this main point of which is the one we
will be looking at in this morning’s SD, which is entitled “Application.” We covered in yesterday’s SD the sovereignty
of God and also the interpretation which covered the first ten verses of
chapter eighteen.
“11 “So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against
the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, ’Thus says the LORD, "Behold, I am
fashioning calamity against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back,
each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds."’ 12 “But
they will say, ’It’s hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and
each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’ 13 “Therefore thus says the
LORD, ’Ask now among the nations, Who ever heard the like of this? The virgin
of Israel Has done a most appalling thing. 14 ’Does the snow of Lebanon forsake
the rock of the open country? Or is the cold flowing water from a foreign land
ever snatched away? 15 ’For My people
have forgotten Me, They burn incense to worthless gods And they have stumbled
from their ways, From the ancient paths, To walk in bypaths, Not on a highway,
16 To make their land a desolation, An
object of perpetual hissing; Everyone who passes by it will be astonished And
shake his head. 17 ’Like an east wind I will scatter them Before the enemy; I
will show them My back and not My face In the day of their calamity.’”
As one reads these verses and even many others like it in
the book of Jeremiah, one cannot help but feel badly for the children of Israel
as they reject the Lord’s ways so that they can follow the ways of the nations
around them, nations that they were suppose to minister to. We see the application of what God showed
Jeremiah about the potter at the beginning of this chapter in these verses. In
verse eleven God tells Jeremiah to tell the people of Judah that He is
“fashioning” calamity against them. Dr
Wiersbe points out that this word in the Hebrew is related to “potter.” Just as the potter fashions something on his
wheel, so God is fashioning calamity on Judah because of their sins. In verse twelve we see something that is hard
to understand, but when you look at it as it relates to sin then it can be
understandable. In the book of Hebrews
we read about how Moses had decided not to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a
season, but instead followed the Lord doing things that probably did not at the
time give him much pleasure, so we learn from this that sin brings pleasure,
however only temporary pleasure.
Following the Lord can bring trouble in our lives as Jeremiah will soon
find out as we progress through this chapter and the next chapters, but in the
end will glorify the Lord. When we read
about Jesus’ prayer before His crucifixion and also His high priestly prayer we
see that Jesus had to go through the difficult time on the cross in order to see
the glory that followed. These people
were not willing to change their ways, but only wanted to enjoy the blessings
of God without following His Law, and so God would destroy Jerusalem and take
them into captivity where they would learn the difficult lesson of not to
worship idols. God is a jealous God and
will not stand for His children to worship idols.
Jeremiah uses the example of how nature that is water in
nature obeys what the Lord designed it to do as if flowed down the mountain
like it was suppose to do, but Israel did not follow what God had planned for
it to do. It seems that man is the only
thing that does not follow what God desires man to do, the animals do, the storms do, the oceans do, but not man.
Jeremiah introduced this portion in his writings by using
the very important word “therefore,” and when this word is used we have to look
back to see what the writer was saying and then look ahead to see what he was
saying before with what he is now writing.
In other words he is saying “in light of what I just wrote here is how
it will play out.” The way it would play
out for Judah would be upcoming judgment.
In spite of God’s upcoming judgment on Judah there will be some good
news for them. We have looked at a quote
that Dr. Wiersbe has used in many of his commentaries from an old Scottish
preacher named Alexander Whyte and we will see it again in this section of his
commentary. I love this quote and have
used it many, many times in my walk with the Lord. Dr. Wiersbe writes: “Like the patient potter, God is willing to
mold us again when we resist Him and damage our own lives. The famous Scottish preacher Alexander Whyte
used to say that the victorious Christian life was a ‘series of new
beginnings.’ No failure in our lives
need be fatal or final, although we certainly suffer for ous sins. God gave new beginnings to Abraham, Moses,
David, Jonah, and Peter when they failed, and He can do the same for us today.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I am thankful
that God give me a series of new beginnings.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to give me new beginnings
after I enjoy sin instead of forsaking it.
Paul writes that he did the things he did not want to do and the things
he wanted to do he did not do. I can
relate to this at different time in my life.
Memory verse for the
week: Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with
Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life
which I now life in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me
and gave Himself up for me.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “The Greeks.” We could probably say “Gentiles” and not be
wrong in our answer.
Today’s Bible
question: “What was the sixth plague
that God placed on Egypt?”
Answer in our next SD. 5/6/2014 10:12 AM
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