SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/1/2014
10:22 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Restoration: A New Land And Kingdom
PT-1
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Jeremiah 32:1-15
Message of the
verses: As I follow Warren Wiersbe’s
commentary I see that we are at the last main point from the ninth chapter of
his commentary and we can see in the “focus” section of this SD the title of
this fourth main point. The first
sub-point under this main point is entitled “An ‘Illogical Thing” and this
covers the entire 33rd chapter of Jeremiah. There are three sub-points under this title
and we will look at the first of those in today’s SD.
The Transaction (vv. 6-15): “1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the
LORD in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year
of Nebuchadnezzar. 2 Now at that time
the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the
prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the house of the
king of Judah, 3 because Zedekiah king
of Judah had shut him up, saying, "Why do you prophesy, saying, ’Thus says
the LORD, "Behold, I am about to give this city into the hand of the king
of Babylon, and he will take it; 4 and
Zedekiah king of Judah will not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but he
will surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will speak
with him face to face and see him eye to eye; 5
and he will take Zedekiah to Babylon, and he will be there until I visit
him," declares the LORD. "If you fight against the Chaldeans, you
will not succeed"’?" 6 And
Jeremiah said, "The word of the LORD came to me, saying, 7 ’Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your
uncle is coming to you, saying, "Buy for yourself my field which is at
Anathoth, for you have the right of redemption to buy it."’ 8 "Then Hanamel my uncle’s son came to me
in the court of the guard according to the word of the LORD and said to me,
’Buy my field, please, that is at Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin;
for you have the right of possession and the redemption is yours; buy it for
yourself.’ Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD. 9 “I bought the
field which was at Anathoth from Hanamel my uncle’s son, and I weighed out the
silver for him, seventeen shekels of silver. 10 “I signed and sealed the deed,
and called in witnesses, and weighed out the silver on the scales. 11 “Then I
took the deeds of purchase, both the sealed copy containing the terms and
conditions and the open copy; 12 and I gave the deed of purchase to Baruch the
son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the sight of Hanamel my uncle’s son and
in the sight of the witnesses who signed the deed of purchase, before all the Jews
who were sitting in the court of the guard. 13
"And I commanded Baruch in their presence, saying, 14 ’Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of
Israel, "Take these deeds, this sealed deed of purchase and this open
deed, and put them in an earthenware jar, that they may last a long time."
15 ’For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, "Houses and fields
and vineyards will again be bought in this land."’”
Before we get into my thoughts on this section I want to think
about the entire section from Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary which covers the 33rd
and 34th chapters of Jeremiah.
By looking at this we will better understand where we are going as we
cover this final main point from Wiersbe’s commentary.
As we begin to look at this section we will be looking at
another “action sermon” from Jeremiah as he had to act out his faith by buying
a piece of property from his uncle at a time when as one looked around at the
Babylonians close to destroying the city.
Why would one want to purchase some land when their enemies were about
to destroy the entire city thus making things pretty much worthless, yet this
was God’s Word to Jeremiah and as James said “faith without works is dead” so
Jeremiah paid for the property.
As we begin to look at the 32nd chapter of
Jeremiah we see that Jeremiah is in prison, but perhaps this was God’s way of
keeping him safe from the Babylonians and also making sure he has food to
eat. The year is 587 and the king is
Zedekiah and he does not like the messages that Jeremiah is giving so he puts
him in prison. Dr. Wiersbe points out
that “People can imprison God’s workers, but God’s Word is not bound (2 Tim.
2:9). God’s Word came to Jeremiah
telling him to do a most illogical thing:
Buy a piece of the battlefield.”
Let’s look at 2 Timothy 2:9 “for which I suffer hardship even to
imprisonment as a criminal; but the word of God is not imprisoned.” This was written by the Apostle Paul and 2
Timothy is the last book Paul wrote before he was martyred for the cause of
Christ.
We have already talked about the purchase of the property
enough and it was a great step of faith for Jeremiah to do so, but now I want
to talk about a character that we introduced in this section of Scripture who
was very important to Jeremiah as he was his secretary, and the one who
actually penned the book of Jeremiah. I
will include an endnote to help us better understand who this person was and
how he was so important to Jeremiah: “Baruch
may have had royal blood in his veins since his brother Semiah was a staff
officer in the king’s service (Jer. 51:59, NIV), and such officials were
usually princes. The fact that Semiah
went to Babylon with the king shows how important a man he was in the eyes of
the Babylonians. The family of Neriah
may have thought that Baruch gave up a bright future in order to serve with
Jeremiah, but they were wrong. Many of
the royal officers perished, but God protected Jeremiah and Baruch and provided
for them (see Jer. 45). No doubt Baruch
was an encouragement to the prophet, who was usually friendless and forsaken.” The book of Proverbs speaks of how important
it is to have a close friend and I am thankful that Jeremiah had such a good
friend.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: God surely
provides exactly what we need and there is a difference in what we need and
what we want, but God does provide for all of my needs, and one of the great
needs that I have is to understand the Word of God, and He does not fail in
this need that I have.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Proverbs 3:5-6.
Memory verses for the
week: Philippians 2:5-11.
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, 7 but emptied
Himself taking on the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of
men. 8 Being found in appearance as a
man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death
on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God
highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10
so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven
and on earth and under the earth 11 and that every tongue will confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Solomon.”
Today’s Bible
question: “How many people did the Lord
tell Elijah had not bowed to Baal?”
Answer in our next SD.
7/1/2014 11:40 AM
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