Jeremiah 23 & 24

Chapter 23

Verses 5-6: The days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up to David a righteous branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD of Righteousness.

• Isaiah 4:2--In that day the Branch of the LORD will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel.
• Isaiah 9:7--Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
• Isaiah 11:1--A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
• Matthew 1:21-23--She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the LORD had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means "God with us."
• Romans 3: 21-22--But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference..."

Verses 16-18: This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. They keep saying to those who despise me, 'The LORD says: You will have peace.' And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, 'No harm will come to you.' But which of them has stood in the council of the LORD to see or to hear his word? Who has listened and heard his word?

• I believe we see a lot of this today. Religious "leaders" who don't want to offend anyone do not report fully the life the God would have His followers lead.
• "Visions from their own minds" give me the impression that these "leaders" twist the Word to fit their own pre-conceived notions. I believe this happens a lot, and not just in malicious ways but in totally innocent ways. Clearly, however, it is not appropriate to add or subtract material details from Scripture.
• "And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts..." is quite an appropriate fragment. In an age of following your heart, this snippet says a lot about the hear which the world would have us believe is worthy to be followed. The heart is stubborn, at least mine is, and it's easy for me to "follow it" while thinking I'm following God. The heart has a way of convincing us that we are following God when all we're really doing is pleasing ourselves.
• There's a lot here in these verses, and I've not even begun to scratch the surface of what these passages have to say about "lying prophets".

Verses 26-32:

This passage is more of the LORD's disgust with "lying prophets." These prophets say things that are "the delusions of" the prophets' own minds. But it's even more sinister than that. God knows that these delusions have a foundation in the lying prophets' desire to cause their parishoners to notice the prophets rather than God. They are power-hungry. A big problem is these prophets give God credit for their own delusional words which masks the fact that they are truly speaking on their own and for their own gain.

Verses 35-36--This is what each of you keeps on saying to his friend or relative: 'What is the LORD's answer?' or 'What has the LORD spoken?' But you must not mention 'the oracle of the LORD' again, because every man's own word becomes his oracle and so you distort the words of the living God, the LORD Almighty, our God.

• Again, we see God calling it like it is, showing us how easy it is to distort God's word. In fact, it's so easy that everyone does it.
• This really give pause to me as to how I present God's word to others, and this is a main reason why we should accompany our scritpture reading & teaching with prayer for wisdom & discernment.

Chapter 24:

This chapter deals with God using two baskets of figs to illustrate how He will deal with the people. One basket is full of good figs suitable for eating, the other basket is full of figs that aren't good enough to be eaten. God says he regards as good the exiles from Judah whom He relocated to Babylon. He makes the promis that He will return them to their land and "give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD."

The poor figs God equates with Zedekiah, King of Judah, his officials, and those survivors scattered about. The promise God makes to these people is not a pleasant one. It's one that will keep them dishoveled for a long time, and one in wich famine, oppression, and war will follow as well.

Jeremiah: Powerful Verses

16:17--My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is is their sin concealed from my eyes.

16:19-21--O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, "Our fathers possessed nothing but false gods, worthless idols that did them no good. Do men make their own gods? Yes, but they are not gods!" Therefore I will teach them--this time I will teach them my power and might. Then they will know that my name is the LORD.

17:5--This is what the LORD says: "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the LORD."

17:9--The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.

Jeremiah 6-9

Jeremiah 6:

• God's wrath is upon Jerusalem.

Verse 6: This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Cut down the trees and build siege ramps against Jerusalem. This city must be punished; it is filled with oppression."

Verse 8: Take warning, O Jerusalam, or I will turn away from you and make your land desolate so no one can live in it.

• Both of these verses show God's displeasure with Jerusalem. He is warning them and describing to them how He will allow other nations to surround them.
• He also talks about how the city must be punished due to its oppression.

Verse 10: To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear. The word of the LORD is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it.

• There are many references to the inability of the Israelites to hear the LORD and to understand how good He is to them.
• He goes a step further saying that His word is offensive to them. It's offensive to many today as well. At certain times, none of us wants to hear it. It confronts us and makes us uncomfortable.

Verses 13 & 14: "From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. Peace, peace, they say, when there is no peace."

• Basically, it appears that God cannot find even one who is not greedy. He doesn't discriminate in these verses. He calls out everyone, including the poor, including the righteous, including the clergy.
• He also remarks that the people do not take these matters seriously. They cry out for peace but aren't willing to do the hard work that true peace requires.

Verse 20: "What do I care about incense from Sheba or sweet calamus from a distant land? Your burn offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please me."

• Even in a culture where the law required very specific sacrifices to be made as penance for sin, God rejects the Israelites' sacrifices.
• He likely does this because their hearts have turned away from Him. They only repent when they are in trouble. They only pay attention to God when they are in trouble.
• Their actions are unaffected by their ceremonial sacrifices. There's no change from within.

Jeremiah 7:

Verses 1-8: Here, Jeremiah is instructed to again warn the Israelites about their actions & their false gods. It's interesting because he mentions that the people do come to the temple to worship, and they obviously feel good & righteous about this worship, however, Jeremiah informs them that LORD does not recognize their worship since their actions are in conflict with their worship.

Verses 9-11: God asks them boldly if they will continue to seek after false gods while at the same time arriving at the temple that bears His name. He refers to their safety in the context that they feel "safe" in their wrongdoing in the temple. He tells them He is paying attention.

Verses 21-24: God tells the Israelites to do what is forbidden: to eat their burnt offerings. He's making the point that His instructions to the Israelites as He led them out of Egypt were not strictly centered around the sacrifices of custom, but that His people are to obey Him so that He can give them life to the full. Instead, He said that the people went backward as opposed to going forward. After such an incrdible deliverance, the Israelites rebelled from their Deliverer. I can relate to this.

Jeremiah 8:

Verse 2: "They will be exposed to the sun and the moon and all the stars, which they have loved & served and which they have followed & consulted and worshipped. They will not be gathered up or buried, but will be like refuse lying on the ground."

• The irony is heavy in this verse. God hints at His power and the lack thereof regarding some of the Israelites' favorite gods.
• He says He will lay them bare before these idols, and obviously, the implication is that these idols won't be able to do anything for them, for God created even these items which the Israelites were worshipping.

Verses 8 & 9: "How can you say, 'We are wise, for we have the law of the LORD,' when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely? The wise will be put to shame; they will be dismayed and trapped. Since they have rejected the word of the LORD, what kind of wisdom do they have?"

• The difference between human wisdom & God's wisdom is huge. Even that which God has entrusted to His people (the Law in this case) has been not only misinterpreted, but purposefully misrepresented.

Jeremiah 9:

Verse 1: "Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people."

• This verse & the last verses of Chapter 8 are a glimpse of God's anguish over the disobedience of His people. He is saddened by the wickedness they have chosen.

Verse 5: "Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie; they weary themselves with sinning."

• This is a challenging verse to me. It's a criticism of the "I'm OK, you're OK" mentality. We have deceived ourselves into this type of thinking. Instead of speaking the truth to our friends so as not to offend them, we do them a great disservice by not sharing the truth that God has revealed to us.

Verses 13-16: God again describes why He is ready to destroy the Israelites. He laments that they haven't obeyed His law, that they have worshipped idols, and He describes their hearts as "stubborn."

Verses 23 & 24: This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD.

Verse 25: "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh..."

• A turly wise man will boast only of his knowledge of God and that he is able to know God.
• Verse 25 is very telling. The exterior is not important to God. Relationship with Him comes from the inside and then spills over into what we do.

Jeremiah 4-5

Jeremiah 4

Verse 4: Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, circumcise your hearts, you men of Judah and people of Jerusalem, or my wrath will break out and burn like fire because of the evil you have done--burn with no one to quench it.

• The circumcision spoken of here is inward, which is interesting since I was under the impression that most Old Testament references would have have been to the physical act. The verse in Deuteronomy (10:16) also shatters my assumption. And as I would have thought, the Romans passage (2:28-29) refers to circumsision as an inward act.
• The inward act is related to the heart & ourselves. We should submit our will to God's.
• The wrath of the LORD is mentioned as well. This wrath will occur, but in reading Zephaniah 2:2, it is apparent that people who consider themselves God's people should seek him now so that we might be spared.

Verse 10: Then I said, "Ah, Sovereign LORD, how completely you have deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, 'You will have peace', when the sword is at our throats."

• God deceives? This is a challenging notion. Reading 2 Thessalonians 2:11, it appears that this deception comes as a result of the peoples' worldly appetites. It almost seems as though the people deceive themselves by what the LORD is saying to them due to their annebriated & sinful state. They don't even realize what they are doing or the consequences of such actions.

Verse 22: My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil; they know not how to do good.

• This is very true today, and it's a main reason why God had to send His son as a sacrifice for our inability to do good & our propensity for doing evil.

Chapter 5

Verse 7: Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I supplied all their needs, yet they committed adultery and thronged to the houses of prostitutes.

• The continued references to idols & adultery give us an idea of how the LORD views our disobedience. We don't really have idols today that are physical like the ones of gold, silver, or wood that were back then, but we do have idolotrous behavior. We still fall to our sinful desires.
• God still fulfills our needs, but we still chase after un-Godly pursuits. Why do we do this? Can't we see that God is sufficient? I pray that I would continue to find this out.

Verse 19: And when the people ask, "Why has the LORD our God done all this to us?" you will tell them, "As you have forsaken me and served foreign gods in your own land, so now you will serve foreigners in a land not your own.

• Given the Middle East issues that are going on and have been going on for so long, this verse is certainly prophetic. The land ownership uncertainty the Jews have undergone & the constant upheaval they've been under from their neighbors are a couple of related points in this verse.

Jeremiah 1-3

Chapter 1

-Jeremiah's hometown of Anathoth was located about 3 miles north of Jerusalem in Palestine.
-Josiah, Jehoiakim, & Zedekiah all reigned as King of Judah at one time or another during the book's writing.
-It led up to the people of Jerusalem's exile.

Chapter 1, verse 5: Before I formed you in the wombe I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

• A conversation between Jeremiah & the LORD begins here with Jeremiah stating that he's only a child, & the LORD stating he need not talk like that, not to be afraid, and the LORD's appointment of Jeremiah as a prophet & one who is to deliver His words as he is instructed.
• The LORD then tells Jeremiah about the judgment Judah is about to face from foreign kings & nations, and that these judgments are being carried out due to Judah's idolotry.
• The LORD then informs Jeremiah that he shouldn't be terrified by the prospect of warning God's people. The LORD promises to remain with Jeremiah & to rescue him from harm.

Chapter 2

Verses 2-3: I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown. Israel was holy to the LORD the firstfruits of his harvest; all who devoured her were held guilty and disaster overtook them, declares the LORD.

• The words of the LORD were a look back at the faithfulness Judah had shown to God & how He protected them from foreign enemies.
• The LORD uses the illustration of marriage to describe this faithfulness.

Verse 6: They did not ask, "Where is the LORD who brought us up out of Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness, through a land of deserts and rifts, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?

• Here God is dismayed by Judah's newly found self-sufficiency. He speaks of where He has had such a huge hand in delivering them from difficult trials.

Verse 8: The priests did not ask, "Where is the LORD?" Those who deal with the law did not know me; the leaders rebelled against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal, following worthless idols.

• Here, even those who were supposed to be Spiritual Leaders among the community are exposed for their failings & decision not to call on God.
• The leaders appear to have gotten what they wanted from God: recongnition, power, & prestige from their God-ordained titles.

Verse 19: Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD you God and have no awe of me, declares the LORD.

• God lets His people know that their abandonment of Him will result in punishment.
• It's also interesting that He remarks that they "have no awe" of Him. I'm afraid we fall into this quite often. The lack of reverence I sometimes display would be stunning if I were to look back at some of my interactions with God. He's the Creator of the universe & our LORD & SAVIOR, but sometimes it almost seems like we who purport to believe this really don't. Father God, please forgive me for my disrespect of You.

Verse 20: Long ago you broke off your yoke and tore off your bonds; you said, "I will not serve you!" Indeed, on every high hill and under every spreading tree you lay down as a prostitute.

• Just a quick note about this: What does the yoke mean in this regard given the context of Jesus' words that His yoke is easy?

Verse 27: They say to wood, "You are my father," and to stone, "You gave me birth." They have turned their backs to me and not their faces; yet when they are in trouble, they say, "Come and save us!"

• Undoubtedly, we are all guilty of this. It's amazing how reluctant I am to think of God, much less pray to Him when things are going well. Then upon the first inkling of trouble where it involves personal agony (usually due to embarrassment), I call on Him to keep my actions hidden.
• I believe also that a distinction must be made between calling on the LORD when the trouble that prompts the prayer is related to temptation vs. when it is related to prideful deception.

Chapter 3:

Verse 3: Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame.

• Entanglement in sin causes the sinner to rationalize or even to put off the behavior so that any guilt might not take hold during the act.
• I believe these entanglements, especially for believers, can be looked at as Satanic attacks. We must pray continually in order to combat these attacks, and we must recognize that these attacks exist.

Verse 11: The LORD said to me, "Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah."

• I need to do a word study on faithless vs. faithful. Interesting too that in 2 Timothy 2:13, I believe, God says He will remain faithful to the faithless.

Verse 14: "Return faithless people," declares the LORD, "for I am your husband. I will choose you-one from a town and two from a clan-and bring you to Zion."

• Again, a reference to the LORD as Israel's husband.
• He's now decided to bring them back if they would only repent of their wrongdoing.
• He goes on to promise them leaders who will lead with knowledge & understaning.

Acts 3

Peter & John, upon entering the temple one afternoon, were asked for money from a crippled beggar. They looked straight at him, and told him that they didn't have any money to give him, but that they could give something much more powerful: Healing. The man got up and accompanied them into the temple courts. All of the people recognized him and were amazed that he could walk. All of that to say this from verse 11: "While the beggar held on to Peter & John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon's Colonnade."

This miracle was attractive to the people, or if nothing else, it peaked their interest a bit. They wanted more information as to how or why this healing happened. Looks to me like Peter & John use it as leverage in speaking to the people. After giving God the glory for this man's healing, they speak frankly to the onlookers, reminding them that they had turned Jesus over to Pilate in return for the freedom of a murderer: "You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses to this." (verse 15)

I believe this is some significant insight into the way the early church functioned. First, Peter & John performed a miracle that others would notice & be drawn to. Then, Peter & John gave glory to God for the miracle. Finally, they are able to speak boldly to people in a way that gives me the impression that they knew enough of this community that this type of boldness was effective in reaching the people. They of course balanced their message as well, such as in verses 17-19: "Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord..."

In other words, "Hey, you screwed up big time, but even in our folly, God works it out." In fact, Peter says that Christ will return at the appointed time, and God will "restore everything" (verse 21). Peter then refers to Moses' prophecy of Jesus, that He will come from among their own people, that the people must listen to everything He says, otherwise be cut off from among the people.

He also paints the picture in such a way that this knowledge of Christ is a blessing: "When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways" (verse 26). The Jews were first targeted by God for Christ's message, and they still had this opportunity despite their treatment of Him in calling for His crucifixion.

This is remarkable because the death of Jesus was recent news. At this point, the pain of it is still fresh on the disciples' minds, yet they are boldly attractive to all the people.

Living in the Present & for the Eternal

Lots of great reading lately continues to reiterate a few glaring points: 1. God wants his people to live in the present for the eternal (C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters); 2. Our labor in the Lord is a part of everything we do (I Corinthians 15:38); 3. When Jesus was taken up to return to the Father, He had accomplished more than just resurrection from the dead, he had prepared some very ordinary men & women to carry on his message to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

In Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, the demons are discussing the ideal living perspectives for those whose souls they wish to gain. Satan would like nothing more than for people to live in the past and/or in the future. Both distract God's people from serving those around them in their every day lives in every day ways. Our continual desire to plan, plan, plan & control our own destinies contributes to living in the future. It takes our focus off of what God is doing here & now & breeds distraction on our part.

A great quote that hit me square in the jaw comes from Bruce Milne as quoted in Randy Alcorn's Heaven, and it speaks to the fact that I typically wake up in the morning & float through the day. This kind of attitude must be dumbfounding to God considering the following:

Every kingdom work, whether publicly performed or privately endeavoured, partakes of the kingdom's imperishable character. Every honest intention, every stumbling word of witness, every resistance of temptation, every motion of repentance, every gesture of concern, every routine engagement, every motion of worship, every struggle towards obedience, every mumbled prayer, everything, literally, which flows out of our faith-relationship with the Ever-Living One, will find its place in the ever-living heavenly order which will dawn at his coming.

Talk about a kick in the pants, and then to come to find out that Jesus gave a bunch of below-average guys & girls the Holy Spirit so that they could expand His message. That's just a bit too much, but these are the incredibly convicting truths I've been learning.