SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/9/2014
7:30 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Jeremiah Preaches the Sermon
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jeremiah
19:1-9
Message of the
verses: We move into chapter
nineteen of Jeremiah in today’s SD, and we also move into the next Main point
from Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary which he entitles “Jeremiah, the Persecuted
Prophet.” Our first sub-point under this
main point is what we will look at this morning. We continue looking at the theme of the
potter as we look at another of Jeremiah’s action sermons in this section, and
this sermon we will see that it cost Jeremiah a beating and a night in the
stocks.
“Jeremiah preaches the Sermon” (Jeremiah 19:1-9): “1 Thus says the LORD, "Go and buy a
potter’s earthenware jar, and take some of the elders of the people and some of
the senior priests. 2 “Then go out to the valley of Ben-hinnom, which is by the
entrance of the potsherd gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you, 3
and say, ’Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of
Jerusalem: thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, "Behold I am
about to bring a calamity upon this place, at which the ears of everyone that
hears of it will tingle. 4 "Because they have forsaken Me
and have made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other
gods, that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever
known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent
5 and have built the high places of Baal
to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I
never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter My mind; 6 therefore, behold, days are coming," declares the LORD,
"when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of
Ben-hinnom, but rather the valley of Slaughter. 7 "I will make void the counsel of Judah
and Jerusalem in this place, and I will cause them to fall by the sword before
their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life; and I will give
over their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the
earth. 8 “I will also make this city a desolation and an object of hissing;
everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its
disasters. 9 “I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of
their daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and in the
distress with which their enemies and those who seek their life will distress
them.’”
I think the first thing that I think of when I think of
Jeremiah is that he was the weeping prophet; however in this section we see the
strength and courage of Jeremiah. We
remember that in the last chapter Jeremiah wanted to see his enemies (who were
also enemies of God) to be destroyed.
This prayer to God must have given great courage to Jeremiah for we find
him in this chapter taking them to the potter’s house with him in order to
preach a sermon to them. We will see
later on that the results of this sermon would cause Jeremiah to be beaten and
to be put into stocks for a night, and this again will anger Jeremiah and cause
him to pray to the Lord again.
In this sermon to these people Jeremiah was standing at
the potters house which was near the East Gate of Jerusalem and it was there
that the garbage was thrown out and this would be a good place to throw the
broken and unwanted pottery. It
overlooked the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and this valley had been the center
for idol worship. Dr. Wiersbe writes “King Josiah had desecrated it by making it
a garbage dump. Topheth means a ‘fire
pit, a hearth,’ because the little children had been put through the fires
there. After the Babylonian invasion,
however, the new name would be ‘The Valley of Slaughter.’ The siege would be so bad that the Jews would
have to eat their own children to stay alive!”
Jeremiah tells the leaders who were with him what was
going to happen to the city of Jerusalem, and the inhabitants who lived there. He not only told them what was going to
happen, but why it was going to happen.
God’s cup of wrath was very nearly full, and when that happened He would
have to act and the reason it was nearly full was because of the detesobile
sins that they had committed against the Lord of which Jeremiah names in this
message. We can see the long-suffering
of the Lord as He waited for Judah to repent, but they did not and so it was
nearly time for God to act. Jeremiah
would live through this time of trouble, which is a picture of what will happen
to Jerusalem during the Last Days. In
our next SD, Lord willing, we will look at how Jeremiah announces judgment upon
this people of Judah form verses 10-15.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I think of the
frog in the kettle when I think of how Judah fell, and I think of the same
thing when I look at our nation in our day and age. If you put a frog into a kettle of boiling
water he would try to jump out right away, however if you put him in some nice
warm water and gradually up the heat he would not realize that he would be
destroyed because of that. When I look
at sin in our nation, sin that is happening today that would be appalled at if
it happened fifty years ago, but now it is tolerated, and I don’t want it tolerated
in my life, for sin is always wrong even if it is expectable in the culture I
live in.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Commit to pray for my oldest daughter’s
salvation every time that I am tempted today, and also pray for my friends wife
who is probably near death at this time.
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
that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me
and gave Himself up for me.
Answers to yesterday’s
Bible question: “Herod” (Luke 13:31-32).
Today’s Bible
Question: “Who said ‘All these things I
will give you, if you will fall down and worship me’?”
Answer in our next SD. 5/9/2014 8:49 AM
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