SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/29/2014
10:07 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Johanan: a Hypocritical Leader PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jeremiah 42:7-22
Message of the
verses: We will be looking at the
second of three sub-points in our Spiritual Diary today.
The Divine Answer (Jeremiah 42:7-22): “7 Now at the end of ten days the word of the
LORD came to Jeremiah. 8 Then he called
for Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces that were
with him, and for all the people both small and great, 9 and said to them, "Thus says the LORD
the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your petition before Him:
10 ’If you will indeed stay in this
land, then I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will plant you and
not uproot you; for I will relent
concerning the calamity that I have inflicted on you. 11 ’Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon,
whom you are now fearing; do not be afraid of him,’ declares the LORD, ’for I
am with you to save you and deliver you from his hand. 12 ’I will also show you
compassion, so that he will have compassion on you and restore you to your own
soil. 13 ’But if you are going to say, "We will not stay in this
land," so as not to listen to the voice of the LORD your God, 14 saying,
"No, but we will go to the land of Egypt, where we will not see war or
hear the sound of a trumpet or hunger for bread, and we will stay there"; 15
then in that case listen to the word of the LORD, O remnant of Judah. Thus says
the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, "If you really set your mind to
enter Egypt and go in to reside there, 16 then the sword, which you are afraid
of, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which
you are anxious, will follow closely after you there in Egypt, and you will die
there. 17 "So all the men who set
their mind to go to Egypt to reside there will die by the sword, by famine and
by pestilence; and they will have no survivors or refugees from the calamity
that I am going to bring on them."’" 18 For thus says the LORD of
hosts, the God of Israel, "As My anger and wrath have been poured out on
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so My wrath will be poured out on you when you
enter Egypt. And you will become a curse, an object of horror, an imprecation
and a reproach; and you will see this place no more." 19 The LORD has
spoken to you, O remnant of Judah, "Do not go into Egypt!" You should
clearly understand that today I have testified against you. 20 For you have
only deceived yourselves; for it is you who sent me to the LORD your God,
saying, "Pray for us to the LORD our God; and whatever the LORD our God
says, tell us so, and we will do it." 21 So I have told you today, but you
have not obeyed the LORD your God, even in whatever He has sent me to tell you.
22 Therefore you
should now clearly understand that you will die by the sword, by famine and by
pestilence, in the place where you wish to go to reside.”
When the fighting was going on in Jerusalem and the other
cities in Judah some of the people moved to other countries in order to avoid
the fighting, and now that it was over they came back to the land of Judah and
this is where most of these people that we are reading about came from. There was no problem with them returning to
Judah, for God had told them to stay in the land and He would care for them,
but as we learned the man that the Babylonians put in charge of this remnant
was killed and then the people who did the killing were run out of town by Johanan
which was a good thing, but he turned out to be a bad leader and wants to move
this remnant out of Judah and take them to Egypt. He came to Jeremiah and asked him to pray
about this and in our Scripture verses for today we see that the answer came
from the Lord for them to stay in Judah and God would surely care for them,
which is what God had been telling the Jews for a long time, but these people
were afraid because of the killings that had been going on, thinking that the
Babylonians would kill them because of the murders that had taken place. God said He would care for them, and actually
tells them that He knows that they will leave and go to Egypt where they will
all be killed. In our next SD we will
learn that God is sending Nebuchadnezzar to Egypt to attack and destroy them
which is where these Jews wanted to go.
I want to focus in on verse ten for a moment and look at
the word “relent.” “’If you will indeed
stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will
plant you and not uproot you; for I will relent concerning the calamity that I
have inflicted on you.” John Gill writes
“not that he had done any unjust thing to them; or that he changed his mind
concerning them; but that he had compassion on them, and would change his way
and course of providence towards them, according to his unchangeable will.” We have gone over this word in earlier SD’s
but it was there so I thought that I go over it again. One of the attributes of God is that He is
immutable, He cannot change His mind, and it kind of sounds like He does change
His mind in this verse and others similar to this verse, but as John Gill states
He did not change His mind.
Why do you suppose that the Lord kept them waiting for
ten days? Perhaps He wanted them to
think about this decision, and perhaps He wanted them to see that He was caring
for them during these ten days, after all one would think that if the
Babylonians were going to do something about those murders they would do it
right away, but they did nothing because God would not allow them to do
anything. God is in control.
Dr. Wiersbe writes that there are three parts to the
answer that God gave to them, and the first one was a promises as seen in
verses 7-12, and the second part was a warning which comes from verses 13-18,
and then the last part is an exposure of their hearts which is found in verses
19-22.
Part one: God
promised that if they would stay in the land that He would care and build them
up. God was in charge of the Babylonians
along with everything else, so His promise was true.
Part two: It seems
that when Abraham went to Egypt to avoid a famine which was something that the
Lord did not tell him to do and this was followed by his son doing the same
thing that many other times the children of Israel went to Egypt showing a lack
of faith in the Lord. This time was no
difference. When God destroyed Egypt
before the Exodus and took Israel out of there some of them still wanted to go
back when times got hard. Dr. Wiersbe
writes “God knew that Nebuchadnezzar would enter Egypt and punish the land,
which he did in 568-567 B. C. (See Jeremiah 46:13-19),”
Part Three:
Jeremiah knew that these people were trying to deceive not only him, but
the Lord, for they never wanted to stay in Judah, and always wanted to go to
Egypt, and just wanted God to tell them to go, but He would not.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “This event is a warning to us not to
be insincere as we seek the will of God.
In my itinerant ministry, I’ve frequently met people who wanted my
counsel, and when I asked them if they had talked with their own pastor, the
answer was often ‘Well, no, but he really doesn’t’ know me or understand me.’ ‘But I’m a total stranger to you’ I’d
reply. ‘Yes, but you seem to understand
things better.’ Flattery!
“My conviction is that these people have gone from one
speaker to another, looking for somebody who will agree with what they already
want to do. When they find him, they’ll
let their pastor know that a ‘man of God’ gave them wise counsel. It’s the Johanan syndrome all over again.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: I have written many
times in this slot of my SD that I want God to continue to teach me
contentment, and one of the things that I am not content with is living where I
am, but it seems that this is where God wants me and so I better stay here
until the Lord desires for me to move to another place, as He may have some
work for me to do here.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Be content with where I am living.
Memory verses for the
week: Colossians 3:1-3.
1Therefore if you have been
raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated
at the right hand of God. 2 Set you mind
on things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you died and you life is hidden with
Christ in God.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Day” (Genesis 1:5).
Today’s Bible
question: “How may we fulfill the law of
Christ?”
Answer in our next SD.
7/29/2014 10:48 AM
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