SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/11/2014
7:41 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Jeremiah
Experiences Pain
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jer. 20:1-6
Message of the
verses: 1 When Pashhur the priest,
the son of Immer, who was chief officer in the house of the LORD, heard
Jeremiah prophesying these things, 2
Pashhur had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put him in the stocks that
were at the upper Benjamin Gate, which was by the house of the LORD. 3 On the
next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him,
"Pashhur is not the name the LORD has called you, but rather
Magor-missabib. 4 “For thus says the LORD, ’Behold, I am going to make you a terror
to yourself and to all your friends; and while your eyes look on, they will
fall by the sword of their enemies. So I will give over all Judah to the hand
of the king of Babylon, and he will carry them away as exiles to Babylon and
will slay them with the sword. 5 ’I will
also give over all the wealth of this city, all its produce and all its costly
things; even all the treasures of the kings of Judah I will give over to the
hand of their enemies, and they will plunder them, take them away and bring them
to Babylon. 6 ’And you, Pashhur, and all
who live in your house will go into captivity; and you will enter Babylon, and
there you will die and there you will be buried, you and all your friends to
whom you have falsely prophesied.’"”
We look at the first six verses of the 20th
chapter of Jeremiah and in this chapter we will see that Jeremiah was beaten
and put into stocks, gives a prophecy to Pashur and then has a time of prayer
as he talks to the Lord about how he is being treated. The following is an endnote from Dr. Wiersbe
on the people in the book of Jeremiah who are named Pashur. “Three men named Pashur are found in this
book: the son of Immer (Jer. 20:1), the son of Malchijah (21:1), and the father
of Gedaliah (38:1). All three were
enemies of Jeremiah and sought to silence his ministry. Whether the Pashur of 20:1 is the father of
Gedaliah, we have now way of knowing for sure.” I am not sure why the spelling
of Pashur is different in Dr. Wiersbe’s end note from the NASB spelling of it,
but I am sure we are talking about the same persons.
When we began looking at the section of Jeremiah we are
looking at (chapters 18-20) we saw that Dr. Wiersbe named this chapter “The
Prophet, the Potter, and the Policeman),” and today we look at the Policeman.
We see in this section for today that Jeremiah is beaten and
then put into stocks until the next morning.
The place where he was put into stocks was near the temple so as Warren
Wiersbe points out there was shame with his pain. Jeremiah would have this happen to him, that
is physical persecution, more times as we will see as we move through his
book.
We can see from the text that God met with Jeremiah
during this time and told him what to tell Pashur the next morning, and it
would not be good what he tells him.
Jeremiah will use the name of the nation who would conquer Judah for the
first time in his book, that is the nation of Babylon. Dr. Wiersbe points out that Babylon is
mention or referred to some 200 times in Jeremiah’s book. Jeremiah would even tell the length of time
that God would allow the Jews to be captives in Babylon that is 70 years. Isaiah prophesied 150 years earlier that all
of this would take place, so if the Jews would have read his book they would
have known that Jeremiah was telling the truth.
God changed the name of Pashur to “Magor-Missabib” in
verse three, and that name means “terror on every side.” This phrase was used also in 6:25, and would
be used again in 46:5; 49:5, and 29. The
changing of Pashur’s name reminded me of just how important names are in the
Word of God. God changed Abram’s name to
Abraham, and then He changed Jacob’s name to Israel. Both of these were good changes, but Pashur’s
name change was not. In all of these
cases the new names fit who these men were.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: God knows my name
and knows how many hairs I have on my head, and for that I am thankful. I am also thankful that for reason’s known
only to God that He chose me before He created the earth, and for that I am
more thankful.
My Steps of Faith for Today: By God’s grace I will be ready to partake of
the Lord’s Supper in our service this evening.
Memory verse for the
week: Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with
Christ; and it is now longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life
which I now live 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: “To the mountain of Moriah”
(Gen. 22:2).
Today’s Bible
Question: “Which of the disciples was a
publican or tax collector?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/11/2014 8:17 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment