Sunday, September 25, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
A Study in Jeremiah-Week 6
Chapter 26 Jeremiah in Danger for his life.
People don’t like getting a “word from the Lord.” They’d rather figure everything out for themselves and have God just leave them alone.
When Jesus made His claims to be God, the religious leaders wanted Him dead, too.
Chapter 27 God tells Jeremiah that people from many countries will become Nebuchadnezzar’s servants.
Jeremiah put on a yoke, like those worn by oxen, and went about the city saying, “Thus shall Babylon put on the necks of this people.”
In Matthew 11:29, Jesus speaks of His yoke. He invites us to take it on and learn of Him.
Chapter 28 Subjugation through Babylon
The false prophet, Hananiah, broke Jeremiah’s yoke and predicted that God would not do what He said He would do.
God promised Hananiah a yoke of iron that could not be broken.
Its not a good idea to be a false prophet “for God.”
God always keeps His word, and Hananiah died in the seventh month of the same year.
Sometimes, religious leaders get so full of themselves that they lose sight of the One whom they are supposed to elevate: Jesus.
That is what happened to the Pharisees. They were so full of their own “religious importance,” that they lost sight of the God they were supposed to be serving and substituted “logic and good sense” in their religious lives.
The church stands in danger of doing the very same thing, especially when she leaves the Word of God and starts following her own devices.
Chapter 29 Jeremiah is Comforting the Captives in Babylon
In a letter to the captives in Babylon, He prophesied the return to their homeland after seventy years.
There is always hope, always an opportunity to turn back to God.
Our country has decided to move away from the God of our founders and to remove Him from any and all “public” forums.
But it is not too late.
WE can be a part of bringing America back to the One who will bless and sustain her.
But we must each be involved in the turn-around.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
A Study in Jeremiah-Week 5
Jeremiah Chapters 21-25
Chapter 21: Zedekiah Consults Jeremiah. What Is to Be the Event of the War? God's Answer.
Zedekiah—a prince having some reverence for sacred things, for which reason he sends an honorable embassy to Jeremiah; but not having moral courage to obey his better impulses.
Nebuchadnezzar – The “chief of gods; the god of fire.
In verse 8. Jeremiah urges complete surrender to God’s will, instead of opposing their invaders.
God always requires complete surrender.
Verse 12 speaks of administering justice.
You do not want God to dispense justice to you. If He does, you will spend eternity in Hell. You want His mercy and grace, not justice.
Chapter 22: Exhortation to Repentance; Judgment on Shallum, Jehoiakim, and Coniah.
Verses 1-5 – God gives another list of the indications of His requirement for perfection from His people, something they could not offer.
Verse 24 Even if you were a “signet ring” God would reject you because He requires perfection and you can not meet that standard, even if you think you are perfect.
Failure to meet God’s standard (also called committing sin) results in His condemnation. Freedom from condemnation is found only in Christ; not in self and not in “proper” behavior.
Chapter 23: The Wicked Rulers to Be Superseded by the King. Who Should Reign over the Again United Peoples, Israel and Judah?
Verse 1ff - The “shepherds” are comparable to preachers or religious leaders.
Verses 5-6 – This is a prophesy of Messiah.
Verses 7-40 presents the idea of “prophets” who are really not prophets at all, because their prophesies are based on their own philosophies and lies, instead of on the Word of God.
Chapter 24: The Restoration of the Captives in Babylon and the Destruction of the Refractory Party in Judea and in Egypt, Represented under the Type of a Basket of Good, and One of Bad, Figs.
The baskets of “good” figs represent those who have found favor with God in Christ.
The “bad” figs represent those who have tried to accomplish life in their own power, strength and goodness.
God’s righteousness will prevail.
Chapter 25: Prophecy of the Seventy Years' Captivity; and after That the Destruction of Babylon, and of All the Nations That Oppressed the Jews.
Verse 5 - Each must separately repent and turn from his own sin. There is no corporate salvation.
Verse 28 – There is to come a cup from which each must drink if he/she is to receive God’s salvation. That cup is Jesus’ blood and His righteousness.
“I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Sunday, September 04, 2011
Friday, September 02, 2011
A Study in Jeremiah-Week 05
Chapter 16
Verses 1-9 The Word of the Lord tells Jeremiah not to marry and have sons and daughters because, in the end, their disaster would be greater than their parents’.
Why?
Verses 10-13 tell us. It’s because their parents wrongdoings were those of action, but the children’s sins were those of the heart . (Verse 12 “…the stubbornness of his evil heart…”
Romans 2:29 requires a circumcision of the heart. I Corinthians 14:25 “…the secrets of his heart will be laid bare.”
Chapter 17
Verse 5 - From the beginning God designed us not to depend on our own strength, intelligence or philosophies, but to depend upon Him for everything.
Verse 9 – Man’s heart is deceitful and without God, the truth is not in him.
Verse 10a – It is God who searches and evaluates the heart of man.
Verses 19-27 The “rules” were simple: Don’t neglect a day of rest – the Sabbath. Verse 23 lets us know that they couldn’t even obey the one “rule.” If they could not obey the one, how were they going to obey them all? Answer: They couldn’t. That’s why we needed Jesus to come and fulfil the Law for us.
In Him, all the requirements of the Law are satisfied…All of them.
Chapter 18
There was a problem with the potter…his clay was marred. God wants His people to be clay in His hands that he may “…mould them and make them after His will…”
In verse 18 the people met to “make plans against Jeremiah,” just as the Pharisees plotted against Jesus. God’s message, although it is a message of unalterable love, is always seen as a threat to people, because they don’t know Him with their hearts.
Chapter 19
The “highlight” of chapter 19 is verses 14 & 15 where Jeremiah refers to those who heard the message but refused to follow God as “stiff-necked” people.
Stephen repeats this accusations in Acts.7:51, “You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears. You are just like your fathers…”
What should have been a compliment (You are like your fathers) was, after all, a put-down, as we see their “fathers” had not been receptive to God’s word.
Chapter 20
When Jeremiah is arrested and placed in stocks, he is not exactly happy, with Pashhur or with God.
For proclaiming the word of the Lord, all he got was trouble. Like Paul, he ended up arrested. But Paul refused to stop proclaiming the gospel
Jeremiah curses the day he was born (much like Job did) in verses 15-18.
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