SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/30/2014
9:38 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
God Exposes the Sins of the False
Prophets PT-3
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jeremiah
23:33-40
Message of the
verses: Today’s SD brings us to the
last sub-point under this third main point from Warren Wiersbe’s commentary on
the book of Jeremiah.
Their Disrespectful Attitude (Jeremiah 23:33-40): “33 "Now
when this people or the prophet or a priest asks you saying, ’What is the
oracle of the LORD?’ then you shall say to them, ’What oracle?’ The LORD
declares, ’I will abandon you.’ 34
"Then as for the prophet or the priest or the people who say, ’The
oracle of the LORD,’ I will bring punishment upon that man and his household. 35
“Thus will each of you say to his neighbor and to his brother, ’What has the
LORD answered?’ or, ’What has the LORD spoken?’ 36 “For you will no longer
remember the oracle of the LORD, because every man’s own word will become the
oracle, and you have perverted the words of the living God, the LORD of hosts,
our God. 37 “Thus you will say to that prophet, ’What has the LORD answered
you?’ and, ’What has the LORD spoken?’ 38 “For if you say, ’The oracle of the
LORD!’ surely thus says the LORD, ’Because you said this word, "The oracle
of the LORD!" I have also sent to you, saying, "You shall not say,
’The oracle of the LORD!’"’ 39 “Therefore behold, I will surely forget you and cast you away
from My presence, along with the city which I gave you and your fathers. 40 “I
will put an everlasting reproach on you and an everlasting humiliation which
will not be forgotten."”
The first thing I want to do is to look at this passage
in the “Living Bible” which is a paraphrased version of the Bible and not a
translation of the Bible, but it helps me sometimes when I come to a difficult
passage to read it in a Bible like this:
“33When on of the people or one of their ‘prophets’ or priests asks you,
‘Well, Jeremiah, what is the sad news from the Lord today?’ You will reply, ‘What sad news? You are the sad news, for the Lord has cast
you away!’ 34 And as the false prophets
and priests and people who joke about ‘today’s sad news from God, ‘ I will
punish them and their families for saying this.
35 You can as each other, ‘What is God’s message? What is he saying?’ 36 But stop using this term, ‘God’s sad news.’ For what is sad is you and your lying. You are twisting my words and inventing ‘messages
from God.’ That I didn’t speak. 37 You
may respectfully ask Jeremiah, ‘What is the Lord’s message? What has he said to
you?’ 38-39 But if you ask him about ‘today’s
sad news from God,’ when I have warned you not to mock like that, then I, the
Lord God, will unburden myself of the burden you are to me. I will cast you out of my presence, you and
this city I gave to you and your fathers.
40 And I will bring reproach upon you and your name shall be infamous
through the ages.”
Dr. Wiersbe explains about this word that is translated “oracle”
in his commentary: “The key Hebrew word
in this section is massa, which means
‘a burden.’ Jeremiah used it to refer to
bearing burdens on the Sabbath (Jer. 17:21-27), but in this context it means
the burden of the message that the Lord places on His prophets (Nahum 1:1; Hab.
1:1; Mal. 1:1). For this reason, some
scholars translate it ‘oracle,’ but ‘burden’ is perfectly acceptable (See NIV
and NASB, both of which put ‘burden in the margin).”
It is easier to see from the way the Living Bible is
written that the people of Judah, the false prophet, priest, and even the
people were poking fun at Jeremiah and God is cautioning them not to do this. We
can see this in today’s world how the news media and even common every day
people poke fun at those who say that they are “born again.” I am sure that this is displeasing to the
Lord as much as it was in Jeremiah’s day when they were making fun of Jeremiah
and other prophets who actually had the Word of God come to them, and because
it was bad news for those who would not listen to it they made fun of Jeremiah.
There is a story in the OT in, I think 2
Kings, when a king from the southern kingdom comes to the king in the northern
kingdom in order for them to go to war against a common enemy. The king from the northern kingdom gets
advice from his “false prophets.” The
king from the southern kingdom asks if there were not a prophet of God to ask
what the outcome will be if they go to war.
The king of the northern kingdom says that there is one here but he never
gives any good news. He was making fun
of the true prophet of God in a similar way that the people were to
Jeremiah. The story ends with the true
prophet telling the king of the north that he would die in the battle so he disguises
himself but a random arrow hits him between his armor and he dies just like the
prophet told him that he would. So much
for making fun of God’s true prophet.
I suppose one would wonder why these priest, and false
prophets were asking Jeremiah to give them a word from the Lord when he already
had given them one from the Lord, but I think that they were not really
interested in a word from the Lord as much as they were at poking fun at
Jeremiah and what the Lord told him to say.
Jeremiah’s answer to their question was that they were the “burden.” As I look down at Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary he
actually quotes verse 33 from the Living Bible:
““33When on of the people or one of their ‘prophets’ or priests asks
you, ‘Well, Jeremiah, what is the sad news from the Lord today?’ You will reply, ‘What sad news? You are the sad news, for the Lord has cast
you away!’”
Wiersbe concludes his commentary with the following
paragraph: “A worldly church puts an
emphasis on fun and entertainment and forgets about tears. We now have Christian comedians who generate
laughter for thirty minutes and then tack on the Gospel and give an
invitation. While there’s a proper place
for humor in the Christian life, the church today needs to hear the words of
James: “Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and
your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in
the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up’ (James 4:9-10, NKJV). The church isn’t taking God’s Word seriously
at an hour when the world is in serious trouble.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I like to have as
much fun as other believers, but I agree with Warren Wiersbe that their needs
to be a balance in my life as a believer and to try and do the things that are
pleasing to the Lord. “1 There is an
appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under
heaven- 2 A time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to
uproot what is planted. 3 A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear
down and a time to build up. 4 A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to
mourn and a time to dance. 5 A time to throw stones and a time to gather
stones; A time to embrace and a time to shun embracing. 6 A time to search and
a time to give up as lost; A time to keep and a time to throw away. 7 A time to
tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak.
8 A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace.” (Ecc. 3:1-8)
My Steps of Faith for Today: Keep my life in the proper balance.
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, 8 but emptied
Himself taking on the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of
men.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Isaiah” (Isaiah 6:8).
Today’s Bible
question: “In what city did Manasseh
reign?”
Answer in our next SD.
5/30/2014 10:41 AM
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