epcblog

Devotional thoughts (Monday through Thursday mornings) from the pastor of Exeter Presbyterian Church in Exeter, NH // Sunday Worship 10:30am // 73 Winter Street

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Jeremiah 20

It is discouraging to face the rejection of those around us as we speak a message that we know is right. It is especially difficult when the persecution that we receive comes from others who are within the covenant community, others that have a special obligation to bring the Word of the Lord to His people. In this chapter Jeremiah is opposed not by nameless powers that be, but by a man with a specific name and a certain authority that he uses against Jeremiah.

Pashhur, son of Immer, was a priest and chief officer in the temple. He had heard Jeremiah prophesy a word of destruction from the Lord God to His people. There is no note of humility on Pashhur’s part. He beats Jeremiah and puts him in the stocks overnight.

The next day Jeremiah has something to say to him. That word is not just a general word of danger or condemnation against the people of Judah or the priests as a group. The Word from God is against this man Pashhur. Even the person who rejects the prophetic authority of someone who claims to speak for God will find it to be an unsettling experience to receive some word that is specifically directed against him. Jeremiah is not backing down one inch from the message that he declared to Pashhur. The beating and imprisonment have not changed his resolve.

The only change in his message is the specificity of God’s pronouncement for this one man Pashhur. God has a new name for him: “Terror on Every Side.” God has called Him by this name, and now he learns why from the man he had beaten and imprisoned. The people of Judah will be carried away to the king of Babylon, along with all the wealth of the nation.

This will mean something for the defiant leader who dared to lay a hand upon the one who was serving as the Lord’s true prophet. He now speaks to Pashhur a true but distressing verdict. Pashhur and all who live in his house will go away into captivity, and they will never return. They will die in captivity, and will be buried in the land of Babylon together with all their friends.

Jeremiah feels utterly deceived by the Lord. Wherever he goes he speaks the Word that he has been given to say. Right now that word is “Violence and Destruction.” Because of this he is not a popular man among those who have been assuring people that God will bring them peace almost immediately. Both of these messages cannot be true at the same time. When Jeremiah would team up with his own soul to attempt to keep the Word of the Lord bottled up within him, he simply cannot do it. The Word of God is like a burning fire shut up within his heart. It must come out.

Meanwhile the forces arrayed against the prophet seem to be growing. They plan to denounce him and would gladly celebrate if they could guarantee his downfall immediately. Why such a venomous hatred of Jeremiah? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they believe that they have given their whole lives to the service of the Lord, and the message that Jeremiah brings is seen as a direct attack against their power and prestige.

Despite the fact that there is much here that suggests that Jeremiah feels betrayed and abandoned by God, yet in some other ways, he knows that he is not alone. Even as he is made aware that there are those who seek his immediate demise, yet the prophet also knows that the word is with him, not only as a comfort to the persecuted but also as a dread warrior. As one who seeks that these enemies will face speedy justice from the hand of the Lord, He seems deeply conflicted between the joy of being the Lord’s servant and the misery of facing ruthless enemies among the priests of Judah.

On one hand he knows that God is the One who delivers the needy out of the oppressors’ traps. For this great reason God is worthy of much praise. The people should sing to Him, and He surely will free the weak from trouble. On the other hand the deliverance and vengeance he seeks is not coming as speedily as he would like, and he begins to despair of his own life. He begins to imagine that it would have been better for him if he had died before he was born. He seems to see before him only toil, sorrow, and shame.

There is One who faced the hatred of scribes and Pharisees, of priests and Saducees for us. Our Lord Jesus Christ would feel in some sense utterly forsaken at the cross, and yet would recognize the complete reliability of the power and plan of His Father. We too may face these feelings in the heat of the Lord’s service where we must deal with profound disappointments, and yet be granted resources of faith every day for the battle ahead. The patience that is required for such a ministry must come from God. The Lord who brought us grace through His blood can provide us with both the honesty of a godly lament and the strength of a faith that can move mountains.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Jeremiah 19

In the previous chapter God sent the prophet Jeremiah to observe a potter working at his wheel. God gave words to Jeremiah on that occasion based on what He brought Him to see in that place. In chapter 19, the prophet is a more active player in a second living illustration. Now a vessel will be broken by Jeremiah in order to prove a point.

This does not sound like much to read, but it was probably very startling to see, particularly combined as it was with words that told the spiritual point of it all in a very plain way. The people who were there to witness this event were not insignificant. There must have been some recognition of the importance of the man giving the message in order to gather these religious and political dignitaries.

When He speaks, Jeremiah addresses the highest leaders of the nation, though it is their deputies who are actually present. He makes it clear that He is speaking for God. Perhaps we get so used to the words “Thus says the Lord” in the prophets that we forget that what we have in these accounts is God’s speech to men, words that should be very carefully considered. God is going to bring a shocking disaster upon Jerusalem and Judea.

Judea has faced the danger of being overwhelmed by foreign powers for decades by this point. Perhaps when people live with that kind of trouble for such a long time, they may begin to think that the situation, though precarious, will never reach the awful conclusion that might be feared. Perhaps they begin to lose a sense of the great risks that they face. One thing is for certain, God was not ignoring the significance of their shocking behavior.

It is a sad day when the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob turn to the foolish religious systems of other nations. It is sad when they fill Immanuel’s land with objects of false worship. It is especially sad when they pick up the base immorality of false worship, even burning their own offspring. This is a most unnatural activity to say the least. Judah has filled the land with the blood of innocents. This strange occurrence is not the result of an increase in general violence. It is the fulfillment of their false religious philosophies that they have borrowed from their spiritually-deceived ancient adversaries. These activities are unnatural on a very basic human level. One can be sure that such practices of child sacrifice are traditions that have come from the suggestions of demonic powers. Such gross actions have nothing in common with the heart of our God. His people have agreed to the murder of their own children for some strange religious rituals. Now the Lord announces that they who were a people called by His Name, must die by the sword. They will be eaten by the birds of the air. In their distress they will now be starved to the point where they would even choose to eat the flesh of their own offspring.

This is quite a speech to give before a group of dignitaries, but imagine if you can this extra detail. The hand of the prophet is suddenly raised and a pottery vessel is suddenly smashed to the ground and broken in pieces at the feet of the assembled guests. This is very unexpected and would have had a big impact. The message of the broken pottery is very troubling. God has made up His mind, and He will break this city in such a way that it can never be mended.

In due course men like Ezra and Nehemiah would lead the people the people back into the land, but there would be no son of David to sit on the throne. Israel would remain a subjugated people. The place of idolatry where Jeremiah has chosen to enact this incident will face an abrupt end. It is no wonder that God would bring this judgment since idols have been worshiped from the rooftops there. It will be a place that is defiled by all the dead bodies that will soon be coming. Then Jeremiah traveled to the temple and announced again God’s judgment in the court of the temple. Why has all of this happened? Because the people have stiffened their necks against their Creator, and they now refuse to hear His Word.

One might suppose that this would simply be the end of the story for Judah. The reader of earlier prophetic revelations through Moses and others would have to know that God had mad promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that still had to be fulfilled. Surely there must be the coming of the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. This great Word would not be thrown away. God would still do what He had said in the day of the fall of mankind.

God would send that One most perfect vessel, the promised Son of David, filled to overflowing with the fresh water of the Holy Spirit. The prophet Jesus would take His own body and allow it to be cast to the ground and broken in pieces through the death of the cross. Yet in truth, not one bone of His would be broken, and He would be given a grave with the rich at His death. The Lord would prolong His days, for no grave could ever hold this Seed of the woman from the resurrection that was His destiny.

Now we who claim to be filled with the same Spirit that enlivened Jesus mortal body, must be clear on a few points. The Lord of Glory was crushed for our iniquities. The purpose of the Lord’s grace will be fully accomplished. The time has come for the people of God to have a ready ear to hear the word of the Lord. The day of ignorance and deception is over. The time of the Saints of the Most High has come. Now we follow Jesus outside the camp, outside the gate of the city, and we minister a word of hope to the penitent and suffering outcasts, for we have a God of hope to serve and to love. Not one of His promises shall ever fail.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Jeremiah 18

If we have to make a choice between the potter and the clay concerning which one is in charge of the production of the pottery, there can be little doubt that the clay loses that battle. Not that this is bad news for the clay. There would be nothing created at all if the clay were in charge, since a lifeless lump does not have the capacity to form itself into something beautiful or useful. The clay cannot exercise the necessary judgment concerning what to keep and what to throw away. The potter is the one who is in charge of the process, and that is a good thing. Of necessity, the potter must be the one who determines whether the clay will be used for the formation of a delicate vase suitable only for a fine display case in a museum or a simple rough mug that is meant to hold a hot beverage in a common home.

In the relationship between God and the house of Israel, can there be any doubt as to who the potter is? The Lord God Almighty is the potter, and the nation of His people is the vessel that He has made for His own purpose. If He wills that they exist, then they shall exist. If He wills that they be destroyed by a foreign adversary, that is His decision and it shall be accomplished. God calls on His people to hear His Word and to turn from their evil ways. If they will not do this, then He will exercise the potter’s prerogative. God is shaping a disaster against them. They must repent.

This is a call to submission, but His people have already determined that it would be useless for them to follow the Almighty God. Their own ways are better, they think. When conflict arises between them and the Lord, they will follow their own hearts, and ignore God’s Word.

What a strange thing the people of God have done! It is not common for people to reject their gods, even when they worship only lifeless idols according to the most unappealing and foolish religious system. Yet Israel has forsaken her God, the Lord God Almighty, the only true and living God. His Law is perfect. The history of His dealings with His people reveals His love, His power, and His holy character. His wisdom is like the finest gold. Nonetheless, Israel has rejected Her God, and the result of this bizarre and resolute rebellion is that God has finally rejected Israel. Any other people who may be passing by the land would have to note what the God of Israel has done. He has removed His people from the home that He gave to them centuries before.

This conclusion is something that foreign observers will see, but God’s people will largely miss. They have come to a different thesis: Jeremiah, the Lord’s prophet, is the problem. They simply will not listen to His words, and they have made plans to do him great harm.

What Jeremiah had been bringing to the people was actually the good gift of the sure Word of the Lord, yet they cannot receive this gift as good. Not only was the Word that Jeremiah brought them from God both true and good, He has also pleaded with God for their lives. Without him they would have been closer to the destruction that is coming against them. He has been like a preserving salt that slows down the decay of aging food. Take away the salt and the food will become useless even more quickly. But the people do not want the Salt of the earth. They have rejected the Light of the world.

What can we expect from such a great God when we persistently reject Him and His holy speech? What will happen to those who kill the prophets? What is due to the people who reject the merciful Son of God when He comes to save? A foretaste of a horrific final destruction will come to Judah in the exile of the people of God from the land. Their children will die of hunger and face the sword of an enemy. Their women will lose not only children, but also husbands. Their men will face disease and death. They have dug a pit for God’s prophet in the day of divine warning. They will be overthrown by the Lord.

This, of course, is what they deserve. It is an instructive illustration for us who have received the mercy of the Lord through the cross of Christ. How can we measure the horror of the cross? The cross represents what multitudes of rebellious sinners have deserved. The horrors of loss and pain that we experience in this life are only a small taste of death and hell, but they are a very bitter taste nonetheless. How did the cross taste for the sinless Son of Man who faced the wrath of His Father that was against us? It was a bloody cross that brought us eternal life, but now we who believe boast in that cross, knowing that through this one propitiatory sacrifice, the anger of the Lord has been turned away from us.

This was all the work of our God, the divine potter. It was His eternal plan to build the best of all vessels in forming His glorious plan of salvation. Because of this eternal decree, the Lord of Glory came as a man and suffered for us, yet without sin. He then died our judicial death and won for us a judicial life. Yet God’s free gift to us is more than a writ of justification. We have more than a piece of paper useful among human authorities. This powerful redemption means real life for us. We are the vessels of the Lord’s mercy. Others have been made for the purpose of His final wrath, and we have no right to argue about that. He is the Potter. It must be enough for us to be the vessels of His mercy that He has made us to be. It is a wonder that we have eternal life according to the great purpose of our heavenly Father’s plan. It is ours to give Him eternal thanks. This is why we have been created.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Monday, January 28, 2008

Jeremiah 17

We would rather not have our sins remembered. If they have to be written down anywhere we don’t want them to be visible to others, and we would like to eventually have them removed from our record. A permanent record of our wrong-doing is an unpleasant idea. Yet God says here that Judah’s sin was recorded with a diamond-tipped iron pen upon their hearts and their altars. That record was permanent. It meant trouble for their peace of mind, and public exposure for their enemies to see.

Not only was their offense against God a matter of record, so was their coming sanction. They would lose their wealth and their treasures. They would have to let go of their heritage in the land and people of the descendants of Jacob, and they would have to serve their enemies in a foreign land. Worse than all that, God announces that there will be something about the Lord’s anger against them which will be forever.

Much of the Bible tells us very frankly that there is a big difference between the righteous and the wicked. Here the contrast is made between a shrub in the desert and a tree planted by water. God has always looked for good fruit from his people as a proof of their professions of devotion to Him. The fact is that the hearts of man are deceitful above all things. We claim to have a sincere devotion to Him, but true sincerity of love for God is displayed in the fruit of obedience. God searches the hearts and minds of His people and He cannot be fooled by our words.

Man loves riches, and may be willing to pursue gaining them through dishonesty. Is God fooled by this? The King of saints is aware of His people and their secret thoughts and ways. We need to turn back to Him. When we do this we come to the fountain of living water and the source of all that is good and all that we need. But few are willing to do this. Jeremiah has been willing to speak the true Word of the Lord, and to suffer that the people may know what they should do. Yet so often it would seem that His enemies have the upper hand, and it feels to him like God is absent. Jeremiah is beaten down by opposition, and would like to see His enemies destroyed with the fullness of God’s judgment.

The Lord has commanded that we remember one day in seven as a special day of Sabbath rest. In Jeremiah’s era that day was Saturday, the final day of the week. This Sabbath commandment was a gift of God to His people, but they did not see it that way. The prophet was not afraid to press this matter with those who were violating the Lord’s commandment, but they simply would not listen to His warnings. The choice on this matter is very plainly presented by the Lord’s messenger. If they will listen to God and faithfully receive the gift of Sabbath, He will be pleased to bless them. They will have kings on the throne, and the wealth of nations will be brought through the gates of the city. If they do not listen then God will destroy Jerusalem.

All of these specific violations against the Law of God are a matter of God’s record against them. But now there is another written record that speaks a better word than anything we could ever accomplish on our own. There is a written record of the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf, and this record has become ours through faith in his name. He is the tree of life planted by the waterside. He is the One in whom there is no hypocrisy. He is the Messiah who heals broken people on the Sabbath and testifies to the coming of the most perfect rest for God’s people in Him. This is all a matter of the official record of God, and it is recorded with many other specific acts of righteousness in the gospel accounts that we have in the New Testament. This is a great record of goodness, and it has become ours since we have become His.

But there is another book that completes the story of our acceptance by God, and this book will also one day be a matter of public record. It is the Lamb’s Book of Life, and in this book are the names of those who belong to Him. It is for these people that the obedience of Christ has been accomplished. It is for them that the precious Lamb of God has shed His atoning blood, taking away our guilt and shame forever.

The story of Israel’s guilt is recorded plainly for us in the accounts of the prophets. Our stories are no better than theirs when it comes to the plain evidence of our sinful hearts and lives. But now there is a wonderful account that has been recorded of abounding righteousness from our Savior Jesus Christ. One day the Lamb’s Book of Life will be revealed before all the nations. Those who are His, and who have demonstrated their familial relationship with Him will be plainly and permanently revealed. Our names are even now written on the palms of His hands, and nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Friday, January 25, 2008

Jeremiah 16

In the age that we live in, many have decided to never marry; many more have decided not to have any children. This is an unusual development in the history of mankind. Normally it is an adversary who might like to see his enemy left with no descendants. In our day, childlessness is an option that people seem to be eagerly seeking in increasing numbers. It has not always been this way. Paul instructs believers in Corinth regarding the benefits of the single life “in view of the present distress.” Apparently the challenges for the church were significant enough, that for the one who would be free of the obligations of marriage and family, there would perhaps be greater opportunities for timely sacrificial service than for the one who had the added obligation of a wife and children. Nonetheless, such an instruction was unusual. The rest of the apostles apparently were married. Since the beginning of the world, God instructed men to be fruitful and multiply. While many of the heroes of the story of faith were unable to have children, God’s answer of their pleas was viewed as a great blessing.

Jeremiah surely lived in a time of great distress. One might think that the comfort of a life-long companion might have been a great help to him, particularly during the difficulty of a season of persecution, yet the Lord instructed that he not take a wife. Of course this meant that he would never have any descendants. While undoubtedly this was a great sacrifice, it also meant that he was relieved from the trial of seeing his wife and children suffer through the trouble that was coming upon the land. Children who are never born miss the misery and pain of disease, war, and exile.

Not only was the prophet told not to marry, he was also told not to enter into the normal celebrations of the death and marriage of others. At these times people come together, they eat and they do what is customary to mark the passage of some great event and to acknowledge our oneness among the children of men. But not for Jeremiah. His life was set apart from these normal times of gathering, because the word of God’s judgment was so heavy a reality for his life, and lighter, very normal experiences of the sorrows and the joys of the human condition were simply not to have any place over the course of his days under the sun.

It was an overwhelming part of the life of Jeremiah that he would remind the people of the sins of their fathers in falling away from the Lord and worshipping false gods. Not only had earlier generations done these things, but they themselves had done even worse than those who came before them. For this reason they would be hurled out of the land. Everyone else might swim in the pools of normal sorrows and joys, but it was the duty of Jeremiah to be the one who spoke of the glacial icebergs below the water’s peaceful surface. He was the one man on the beach yelling, “Shark!” while everyone else is enjoying the sun and sand, or riding the waves as if peace and safety could be taken for granted.

We have to see these coming announcements of distress from the hand of the Lord in the right light. It was not as if the Lord had forgotten His promises of salvation for His people, despite their centuries of willful rebellion. This discipline for the nation was not against God’s people in every sense. In a way this was what they needed most. They were ignoring His law and His promises while they remained in the land of law and promise. It now was apparently necessary for them to be drawn nearer to Him and His Word by being sent far away.

God had not abandoned His plan of mercy, and He announces here that future generations will speak of God’s deliverance in bringing His people back from the north, as they have spoken throughout the history of Israel about God’s rescue of His people from bondage in Egypt. First they will face serious discipline, but this will not be the end of the story in God’s gracious purposes. God will display His glory and His might in both their exile and in their miraculous restoration in the days of Cyrus. This is precisely what happened in the years after Jeremiah.

Today we mark the events of the exodus from Egypt and the restoration from the land of Babylon and they serve as reminders to us of a far greater deliverance and redemption. It is a great thing for Israel to be relieved of the whip of the oppressor, but even the worst slave-driver should not be our most-feared enemy. The problems of sin, death, and hell are of greater eternal significance than any problems that we face on this earth. It is our holy God who could well have been our worst enemy, and justly so, since we had violated his laws and treated his promises as fairy-tales that could not be counted on.

But now the Deliverer has come for sinners. Jesus, the Righteous One, has rescued us from the very pit of hell. Hell is worse than prison and slavery in either Egypt or Babylon. It is forever, and there is no way of release for the one who dies and goes beyond those gates into the thick of the place of torment reserved for the devil and his allies. But our great Savior has risen from the dead and His church is making an assault upon the very gates of hell every day through the preaching of the gospel. This is the deliverance we have now as believers in Jesus Christ. Our destiny is the place beyond our greatest hopes. We have been brought back from the land of our worst fears. In that place we have been adopted into a very large and blessed family, through the work of an astoundingly fruitful Lord and King.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Jeremiah 15

If you wanted someone to plead your case before God, to whom would you turn? From an Old Testament perspective, you could not do much better than Moses and Samuel. Moses was the Mediator of the Sinai Covenant. On many occasions he was brought to plead before God for the life of God’s people. The Lord suggested at one point that Moses should get out of the way and God would destroy the people in the wilderness and start all over again with Moses as the beginning of a new people, but Moses interceded on behalf of the people. Samuel warned the people about the dangers of turning away from God as King, and was distraught as the people insisted that they would have a king like the other nations. God comforted him by saying that the people had not rejected Samuel, they had rejected Him.

Of course it was God who raised these men up to be intercessors and prophets as a reflection of His own stable abiding love for His people, but these two men were highly favored by God and were examples of unusual integrity. Yet here in dealing with Jeremiah at this late stage in the Lord’s dealings with Judah, God indicates that He would not listen to even Moses or Samuel if they asked Him to turn His heart again toward Judah and rescue them from the coming disaster. His message is simple: “Send them out of my sight.”

These are devastating words. They have nowhere to go. But they will go to disease, to warfare, to hunger, and to slavery. The wild animals will be appointed to tear them apart, and the name of one king is cited as the reason; Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah. Hezekiah was a great king of Judah during the time when the Assyrians had conquered the northern kingdom and were threatening the destruction of Jerusalem. God heard the petition of the king and the prophet Isaiah, and He gave Judah a reprieve from exile until the days of Jeremiah. Hezekiah’s son Manasseh, who reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem, did great evil in the eyes of the Lord. He went about reversing the good spiritual faithfulness of His father, rebuilding places of idolatrous worship that his father had destroyed. Even though he repented at the end of his life, and even though the Lord heard His prayer, and even though his grandson Josiah was one of the greatest kings in the history of Judah, the mind of the Lord was settled upon the exile of his people.

It is not as if God has been a weak Father. He has disciplined His people over and over again. How often and how severely can a man discipline his son before he finally reaches the point where no more discipline seems possible? God has sent Judah times of great affliction, but they will not listen any longer, and the day has finally come for their removal to another land. Perhaps there they will learn the lessons that they seemed so unwilling to learn while in their Father’s house.

Jeremiah seems to have reached a point of despair in this hard ministry. Speaking as if to his mother, he wonders why he was ever born. He is considered a man a strife and contention by everyone, and for what reason? This is a day of trouble for God’s people, and it will not be easy for the prophet of God. He cries out to God for help as one who is all alone, like a weakened Samson in the midst of an unfaithful tribe of Dan, his pain is unceasing. He knows that all of this has come upon him because he is the one who has brought the word of God to the people. He loved the word of God in his heart, yet now he feels like one with an incurable wound, and He wonders where the Lord has gone.

God hears the cry of His prophet and calls him to a renewed faithfulness. He promises to make him like a wall of bronze to his enemies, provided that he will not try to be a man-pleaser in the midst of an utterly unfaithful people. This is a great promise for the man who has settled it in his heart that he will do what the Lord has called him to do no matter what the cost may be in the loss of face he must endure from those all around him.

When Jesus came as our great prophet, priest, and king, he endured disrespect at every turn. He was hated without a cause. He was completely faithful in speaking the message of His Father, and it cost Him everything in terms of the applause of men. Think of His conversation with His small group of disciples at the end of John 6. He had just given a shocking message to a larger crowd telling them that unless they ate His flesh and drank His blood they could have no part in Him. What did it all mean? It was the word He had to deliver, but it was too much for almost everyone. Most of His disciples left Him at this point.

The twelve did not, at least not yet. They knew that He had the words of life, though even one of them was a betrayer. The rest would abandon Him later at the time of the cross. The shepherd would be struck and the sheep would be scattered. Yet the prophet of God, who was the Lamb of God, would be faithful even to death on the cross, and our sins would be atoned for. Then this righteous Redeemer would rise from the dead.

It is this great Son of God who now intercedes for us before the same holy God who said He would not listen to even Moses and Samuel if they pleaded for the sinful nation in the day of Jeremiah. But we have One who is better than Moses and Samuel pleading for us on high, and Our Father always hears His voice and grants His holy request. Behold the man! In Him there is great hope.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Jeremiah 14

We all love convenience. If we live in a nation with a strong free economy and a good infrastructure, we may find it hard to relate to what people face in a land where drought is a constant threat. How would we react if there were really no water anywhere? How would we live if lack of food and drink was not just an inconvenience that could be easily solved by a trip to a store? What if our need for supplies was actually a matter of survival?

Jeremiah spoke to the people in a day of drought. Even the rich people in the land could not get water. Of course the farmers could not grow their crops, and even the wild animals, resourceful as they are, had nowhere to go where they could drink. In such a situation, death is a present danger for all.

Without the Lord saying a word, the consciences of the people seem to accuse them. They consider their many iniquities. They know the power of the Lord over the elements. They know the way that God can save people in days of the greatest trouble, but where is He now? Has he abandoned His people? The more faithful ones may remember His promise to dwell in the midst of His people, and they call out for His immediate aid.

God is not impressed by their pleas, and He tells Jeremiah not to intercede on their behalf. The people have loved to wander with their feet. Now they may have to travel beyond their borders to preserve their lives. Like Naomi and her husband when they traveled to Moab because of a famine in the land, or Jacob’s sons who went down to Egypt to buy grain, the Lord’s people may soon be refugees in order to preserve their lives. The Lord will not accept them. He will consume them through war, through hunger, and through disease.

Jeremiah points to the message of some of his contemporaries who claim the name “prophet.” These men say that no such disasters are coming. The Lord says that these men are lying prophets. Though they may use the name of the Lord, He never sent them. Their punishment will be that the very disasters that they claim are not coming will in fact overtake them particularly. These false prophets will die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.

God would have the true prophet Jeremiah cry intently for the fate of the people. As one who sees the fate of the young women in a wounded and diseased condition before his eyes, he is to weep for the people. The prophets and priests sell their souls throughout the land. They give false messages and do not stand with the Lord in the correction of the people. They have no knowledge, and they could only lead the blind as those who are blind guides themselves.

The remainder of the chapter is the heartfelt plea of the prophet on behalf of his desperate people. He wonders aloud as to whether Judah has been utterly and finally rejected. They need peace and healing, but terror is overtaking them on every side. They acknowledge their guilt and the guilt of their fathers. The false gods that they have worshipped surely cannot bring rain. They profess to set their full hope in the Lord, who alone can do what is necessary to save them.

Where do you turn in the day of great need? They needed water, and saw the connection between that need and the sovereign provision that comes from the Lord God Almighty. What would we do if we have a desperate need for something as basic as water? A truly thirsty man would have great trouble thinking of anything else other than some life-giving drink at a time like this. As much as we need water, we need the Lord’s provision of relief from spiritual bondage even more. We want true forgiveness and a secure way of hope.

Where can we turn? The woman at the well in Samaria had the great privilege of giving a drink of water to a thirsty Jewish man. If she knew who it was that asked her for a drink, she would have asked him for a different kind of water – water that springs up from the temple of the Lord Himself like a fountain of eternal life. In the true city of God above there is an unending water supply of the flowing refreshment of the Holy Spirit. Only Jesus Christ, our Messiah, could send forth the waters that we need for spiritual life, not just for a few days, but forever.

How could one man do this for so many people? His resources are connected to his atoning ministry for us. We can only have living water through Jesus because He is the only source of sinless perfection, like a spring from an inexhaustible source. Our most desperate drought comes not from a dry well, but from our complete lack of perfect holiness. The Lord has seen our greatest need. He has richly supplied us with His life, and has taken away our guilt through the shedding of His blood on the cross. May we thirst for the waters that He provides to His children as they ask Him for His Spirit, and may the Lord grant to us living water so that we can have new life that never ends.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Jeremiah 13

It is devastating to think of the things that we mindlessly say to our children. We think that they are not listening, but everyone seems to remember every word that was said about them, even when we may have made a light or inconsequential remark. It is not this way between God and His people. They seem to become hard of hearing when He says to them the most important words of correction over the centuries. They simply will not listen, so the curse of the covenant is coming upon them swiftly.

Now God’s assessment of His people is the darkest storm cloud, without any silver lining: “My people are good for nothing.”

Jeremiah lives out these words in purchasing a loin-cloth, and then hiding it near the Euphrates River for many days according to the Lord’s instruction. When He is told to go and dig it up again, of course it is completely spoiled. What a sad parable for the people of God. They are ruined and useless.

God tells them that they should have stayed so close to Him like a garment on a man, but they would not. Mind you, they have been interested in religion – just not in the God who formed them, who provided for them, who rescued them on so many occasions, and who condescended to speak to them over and over again. They have had the inclination to worship other gods, but they will not listen to their Lord.

A drunken man may be quite insensible to the seriousness of danger all around Him. We do not prepare men for battle by plying them with alcohol, placing guns in their hands, and then announcing that there is an enemy in the vicinity. No, we want them to have the full use of all their faculties. They need to have sharp eyes and ready ears in order to avoid the danger of hostile fire. We want them to be in good shape physically, and completely alert mentally. But God’s people have been made drunk. He says that He has filled them with drunkenness, no doubt due to their persistent unwillingness to hear and obey Him.

How are they drunk? They are drunk with their own pride, thinking that they will not face the discipline of the Almighty. They are insensible to the threat of the Lord’s judgments. There is little question from the various historical materials throughout the Bible that they are well aware of the dangers posed by foreign enemies near and far, but have they rightly considered their most significant danger? They can be overtaken by the judgment of God at any moment of His choosing, but somehow they presume upon their status, and forget that God has warned them that He will take action against them through the means of enemies from the north.

The only wise course of action for them would be to turn away from the deep waters of pride in which they are drowning. They need to turn toward the God who has called them by name, and cling to Him. The day of disaster will come upon them suddenly and there will be no way out. Like a woman in labor, there is no way to stop the frightening pain. The child will be born, and in this case the spiritual fruit that they can expect is desolation, grief, and exile, all because of their persistent iniquity.

Their issues are deep. The Ethiopian is a black man, and no one can change the color of his skin. The leopard is a spotted animal, and he will not lose his spots and turn into a zebra or a lion. Similarly God’s people are steeped in their own sinful ways. They are accustomed to doing evil, and they cannot seem to do what is good. They have behaved like the worst lewd woman who should have been a loving wife to the best of all husbands. There is no excuse for their behavior, and no particular hope that they will ever be able to amend their ways.

What we have is a situation of crippling inability. This is why a Messiah was so very necessary for the Lord’s elect. God would never relax His holy requirements. To have fellowship with Him we need perfect obedience. Only the Lord could provide the necessary righteousness that has been credited to us through faith in His Name. His death on the cross has removed the insurmountable obstacle of God’s just wrath against us for our disgusting rebellion, idolatry and hard-heartedness.

We needed to be made clean in order to be in the Lord’s blessed presence, but when would we ever have been able to have what we needed? It is obvious that the answer is that we never could have done what was necessary – not because of some physical impossibility to hear and obey, but because of indwelling sin that has proven our moral inability. Where we were not able, Christ has been and is forever able. This is the way that those who have been given the awful name of whore, could now be called a glorious bride, without spot or blemish or any such thing.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Monday, January 21, 2008

Jeremiah 12

It is hard for us to hear about the wrath of God against God’s enemies and to give a whole-hearted “Amen.” In part this is explained by the fact that we love the grace of God as those who are so completely dependant on the mercy that has richly come to us through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Furthermore, we feel that we ourselves are too similar to those who are the enemies of the Lord. How can we rejoice in the justice of God against the same?

Nonetheless, we do love the righteousness of God, and we know that the Lord is just and must punish sin. This can only happen through Christ, our substitute, taking the unspeakable penalty for us, or through facing the horror of that judgment ourselves without the benefit of a Mediator. God is righteous, and there is simply no other way out of the danger of his righteous wrath than the provision of His Son. In any case, we find it difficult to say the things that Jeremiah says at the opening of this chapter as he seeks the Lord’s action against the wicked.

While it may be hard to understand this, consider the attacks of Satan and his allies against your children and the other young people in the church. Consider the deception that he uses in luring people into a pathway of sin and despair until he destroys them. Now can you appreciate how Jeremiah feels about the way of the wicked? Why do they seem to prosper? Can you appreciate that Jeremiah would like to see the wicked not only disarmed but also destroyed?

Through the Lord’s answer to Jeremiah we begin to see that Jeremiah himself is under assault. Not only that, but God tells him that things are not going to get any easier for him any time soon. He has raced with men, but how would he feel racing against horses? There will soon be people effectively screaming at him to stop what he is saying and doing, and the Lord’s clear encouragement is that the prophet must not believe them even if they speak friendly words to him.

The message of God’s judgment against His people is a hard one to deliver. God says of His house, “I hate her.” Those who were given the sacred task of leading the Lord’s sheep and of guarding the doctrine and life of the vineyard of the Lord, the kings and other leaders, have destroyed the vineyard they should have been protecting. Now the Lord’s fierce anger will come against them all, and only desolation will remain in the land. While God uses the means of invaders and wicked rulers, it is truly the sword of the Lord that will destroy the beloved nation. There is nothing that anyone can do to stop Him when He is on the march against an adversary, and now His nation called by His name have become an adversary to their God. They must face the fierce anger of the Lord.

When angels become demons, a sad thing has happened. When God’s nation must suffer the fate of a pagan enemy, it is so deeply discouraging. It is a frightful thing when the people of God will be treated as outsiders and rebels.

This is the kind of message that Jeremiah must continue to give. His task is a hard one, and He must not shrink back from it. When the Messiah came, though He would perform great signs and teach with amazing authority, the opposition against Him would be determined to destroy Him. They would hate Him when He healed on the Sabbath. They would hate Him when He asked them if John’s baptism was from God or from men. They would despise when He was dying on the cross for us. They could not receive His message of God’s judgment against Israel.

There was a sense in which many might have agreed to a message against the impious in Israel. The difficulty is that Jesus’ warnings were especially against those who thought of themselves as the most righteous in the land. They resisted Jesus, and then were highly offended when they clearly understood that He was speaking against them. They were sure that their understanding of the law, and their own example of law-keeping was the answer for the nation. Jesus was sure that their hypocrisy and law-invention was more offensive to God than the sin of prostitutes and tax-gathering thieves who gladly listened to the preaching of John the Baptist, and had taken steps of repentance.

Jeremiah gave a hard message in His day. Jesus message and ministry was even more offensive to those who stood against Him. Yet the Lord, like Jeremiah, had a message of hope for those who would receive it, even for the evil neighbors of His people. God says that He will have compassion on them. If they will learn the ways of His people, and swear by His Name, then they shall be brought under His covenant protection. What does it mean to learn His ways and to swear by His Name if not to believe in Him and to live a life consistent with that faith? The message of the prophets prepared the way for the Lord’s speech when He came. When we hear His word and follow Him, we respond to the voice of God that had been sounding clearly through His appointed spokesmen for centuries. But now the mouth of the Lord had finally come in person through the arrival of the Son of God as our Savior. Let us listen to Him and obey, for we cannot stand the wrath that is to come against the devil and his allies.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Friday, January 18, 2008

Jeremiah 11

A prophet cannot count on much honor in His hometown. There are probably many possible reasons for that, including the idea that familiarity can breed contempt. That may be especially true with someone who claims to speak for God. Jesus was not treated with the greatest respect in Nazareth, and Jeremiah faced significant opposition in his hometown of Anathoth.

God’s message is bigger than any man’s hometown. While it extends to the entire world, during the days of the Old Testament the Word of God was especially spoken to the people of Israel and Judah. This message first came to them, at least in written form, in the Ten Commandments. This was the moral heart of what we call the Sinai Covenant, that covenant that God made with His people through Moses when they were in the wilderness of Sinai on the way to the Promised Land.

A covenant is a deal. In the Bible, the covenants that God makes with His people are of two kinds. The first is a promissory covenant as God made with Abraham. This kind of covenant, also called an oath or a promise, emphasizes the fact that God will provide the obedience necessary in order to keep the deal in force. The second kind of covenant is a law covenant as God made through Moses. This covenant emphasizes the requirement of obedience upon the people of God. When the Sinai Covenant (emphasizing the obedience of God’s people) came, it did not overrule the promise covenant to Abraham. God still would keep His promise to bring great blessing upon His elect people, but if His nation refused to obey His moral demands in His Law, then they would have to face the sanctions that were a part of the Sinai Covenant. The ultimate sanction would be the loss of the land, as the people were sent into exile, as God had warned them through Moses so many years before. Nothing can change God’s commitment to bless His elect that He especially announced through Abraham, even when His curse would come upon the nation because of their disobedience to the Law given through Moses.

One of the jobs of the prophets was to announce God’s determination that decisive disobedience that would lead to exile. Jeremiah does this in many places. Here Jeremiah makes that case with particular reference to the covenant. Remember that in these Biblical deals, God is the Lord of the covenant. He has set the terms of this arrangement. It is the place of His people to hear the arrangement and to follow the stipulations of the covenant. This they did not do. Instead they walked in the stubbornness of their evil hearts. They worshipped other gods, and they offered sacrifices on other altars, and by these things and many other acts of disobedience they brought disaster upon themselves from which they could not escape. Here God announces through Jeremiah that even though they may cry to Him, He will not listen any more. The time for the sanction of the Sinai Covenant has at long last arrived. God is slow to anger, but eventually His justice is accomplished.

There was a day when the olive tree of the nation of Israel was green and full of life. Then the Lord would hear the cries of His people for help, and He would accept their offerings to Him. But now they offer the blood of animals to some false god. They are dry, dead olive branches, only suitable for burning and destruction.

If this is true of the people as a whole, it is especially true of the men of Jeremiah’s hometown. They have opposed the prophet with secret plots. God has revealed these to Jeremiah. With no sense that they themselves are a dry tree, they want to cut down Jeremiah to destroy the tree with its fruit. God’s prophet is the tree they want to destroy, so that He will have no lasting impact in their town. They would love it if Jeremiah’s name would never again be remembered.

But God will not allow that to happen. He will destroy those who stand against His prophet. None of them will be left. Yet when the final prophet came, the Lord of the covenant and the Son of God, he was put to death on the tree. He was cut off from the land of the living. We deserved the ultimate exile, cast out of any right to the kingdom of heaven because of our violation of the Law of God. Yet He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that the promise of God to Abraham could be fulfilled.

By the law of the covenant, we are dead men. By the promise of the covenant, we have eternal life. The only way this blessing could be secured would be through the Lord of the covenant Himself coming to take the curse of the covenant for us. This He has done. Our situation is wonderfully secure in Him. Shall we then continue in sin? No way! We will hear the Word of the Lord who loved us. We will believe in Him, and follow after Him by the provision of His great presence with us. This is the way for us receive the blessings of the promise, and grow in heartfelt obedience to God in thankful appreciation for the riches of His grace.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Jeremiah 10

Some children are easily distracted. They have a way of paying attention to things that they care about, but then when a mother or father might direct a young one toward an unfinished chore, or a behavior pattern that requires correction, the son or daughter may find everything else much more interesting than the words they need to listen to most. God calls His people to hear Him, but they seem to be more interested in what the gods of the nations seem to be saying or doing.

In this chapter the prophet makes some important contrasts between lifeless idols and the living God. Surely His people should see the obvious contrast and turn back to Him! The idols they have become fascinated by are objects made by a craftsman. They cannot really do anything. They can’t speak. They can’t walk. They can’t really do any evil, then again they can’t really do any good.

God, on the other hand, is great, in fact He is great even among the nations that are completely idolatrous. He is called the King of the nations, because He runs every nation by His wise providence. He should be feared by everyone. There is no one like Him. This is such a tremendous understatement. In the universe we have the Triune God, we have angels and fallen angels, we have man, we have the remaining visible creatures, and that is all we have. There are no other gods. Still men fashion their own idols and dress them up. They make them look like animals or people. In their false worship, these idols are sometimes associated with demons. But they are still nothing.

At root, an idol itself may just be a block of wood. But God is alive and true – the source of all life and truth. He is the One who will bring every work and word into judgment. He has the power to create and to destroy, to reward beyond your widest dreams and to punish you in ways that you could not possibly endure. Of course, all men should fear him, particularly those who have been taught His law from their earliest days.

The idols will not be able to stand the test of the Day of Judgment. They are only stubble to be consumed. The makers and worshipers of idols will be put to shame on that day. Their images are empty and false, and they have become like them. They are works of delusion. But God formed all things, and especially made Israel as His own inheritance. What a great privilege to be part of the chosen of the Lord! What a horrible insult to spurn the Lord and His Word in favor of some painted wood!

God will send His people flying from the land like a stone in a sling. Their homes, their bodies, their children – all will be destroyed by invaders from the North. In the mystery of God’s plan, God will use a godless idol-worshipping nation to discipline His wayward people. His people who remember Him call out for correction, but not in the fullness of the wrath of God that they could not stand. They look for Him to put the full force of His holy wrath only upon those enemies who have hated the Lord’s people.

It is one of the most amazing facts of redemption history that God poured out the fullness of His wrath upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Here was the delight of the Father, known perfectly and eternally, without any fault or sin. This one Savior deserved not the slightest expression of displeasure. This Messiah’s obedience was complete. Furthermore, this one great man was also fully God – God with God from before creation. He was no lifeless idol who could not hear, or speak, or act. As the Lord of Hosts Himself, He had legions of angels at His command when He willingly faced the hatred of evil men and the holy wrath of God against us.

We should hear the plain truth about the Son of God. He is not merely a man. He is no angel. He certainly is no man-made idol. There is no one like Him. No one is like Him in His power. No one is like Him in His wisdom. No one is like Him in His holiness. No one is like Him in His love. This Messiah is our mighty God, visiting us with His mercy purchased by His own blood.

One day He will come again. He will come with the righteous wrath of God against sinners. This time He will not die a death for anyone. That has already been accomplished. This time the fullness of divine wrath will not be against Him, but against those who do not know Him and who do not obey the gospel. Now is the time to rid our hearts and minds of every false idol. Now is the time to worship the Lord God, our Messiah. There is no one like Him. Listen carefully to His entreaties, and turn away from all foolish distractions that you may serve the true and living God.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Jeremiah 9

God has given us the capacity to weep. Some people do so regularly. Others have not been able to weep for decades. It does not necessarily mean that the former are exceptionally sympathetic, and that the latter are especially hard-hearted. God knows our hearts, and He is aware even of our potential for insincerity in tears. He is always true in all that He does, and in this chapter not only is the prophet Jeremiah truly distressed because of the condition of the people, but also God Himself appears to have true grief concerning these matters

Why is God mourning? His people have succumbed to the worst moral failures. They ought to have been holy and righteous as imitators of the Lord, but they were adulterous and treacherous. In particular the prophet very forcefully exposes their lying ways. They are deceivers and liars who keep on adding to their iniquity, moving from oppression to even more oppression, and from deceit to more deceit.

God is so different from this. In Him there is no shadow of turning. The devil is the father of lies, but the Lord is the author of truth. When Christ came He served His Father as the Word of truth incarnate. Truth is most wonderfully tested in times of suffering. The liar can flourish in an environment of ease. It is the martyr who has the most eloquent testimony to the truth that is worth dying for. Christ was largely silent before His accusers, but His willingness to die on the cross still speaks volumes of truth, more than all the books in the world could hold.

God must respond with correction when those who are called by His name have given themselves over to lies. He says “I will refine them and test them.” “What else can I do?” To ignore the deceits of His people forever would be an affront to the character of God. This simply cannot be. Action must be taken. Those who have the honor of reflecting the holy purity of God must never give themselves over to demonic ways.

The specific way of deceit exposed among the people of God is hypocrisy, particularly among the religious leaders that are called to speak about the danger of the nation in rejecting the word and warning of God. They should be regularly sounding the alarm. Instead they continually forecast fair weather, saying that God will give peace to His rebellious children. The people themselves speak words of peace to their neighbors, but then set up traps for their own gain.

God must punish this. Consider how many lies were covered through the cross of Christ. Consider the discipline of God’s providence which corrects us if we will seek the Lord’s good way in the midst of trial. The hard of heart will have nothing of this discipline. They have forsaken the law of God. They seem to hate the Lord, and do not want to be reminded of His Word. They prefer idols who have no real word of correction. They will be thrust out of the land by God, for the land belongs to those who will humble themselves before God’s Word.

This is a very sad state of affairs with disastrous consequences. The land will be desolate. This is a curse in biblical times, and not the result of efforts to preserve open space. A land given over to wild animals is not the goal of a fruitful nation. The land has been cleared of so many people because the Lord has sent them into exile. This is not a happy situation, but a very bitter food and a poisonous drink. There should be loud mourning, since so many will die. The brazen rebellion and sin of God’s people leads to the most heart-breaking loss of life. Death will touch so many families.

How have the people of God gone so far astray? When we will not listen to the Lord who redeems us, we will foolishly trust in something less than Him. We will be impressed with our own wisdom, might, and riches, such as they are. These things are very elusive. Far better than these things is to know the Lord, and to know what the Lord loves – things like steadfast love and righteousness. These are things that God delights in.

The Lord wept over sin and death. He looked over Jerusalem, and mourned about her unwillingness to hear, repent, and draw near to God through the love of His Word. He was brought to the tomb of His friend Lazarus, and He wept, though He knew that He would bring Him back to life. God is moved by sin and by the sad consequences of our hard-hearted rebellion.

Christ does grieve about our sin and misery, but He does more than cry. Through the cross He has defeated sin and death for us. He has taken away our guilt, and He has also changed our hearts. By His Spirit we have been marked as His, and granted an openness and willingness to hear His voice in the Word and to follow. The One who obeyed the Law so perfectly for us will not be left in tears forever. His victory will more than remove His own grief, for He will wipe away every tear from the eyes of His children who have been granted new hearts and lives by His Spirit.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Monday, January 14, 2008

Jeremiah 8

The desecration of a grave is a horrible thing. We must deal with the wrenching grief of death in this fallen world. Survivors do what they can to show respect for the remains of a loved one. When people give an orderly burial for a person who is gone, they do well. They would love to call the deceased back to life, but this is beyond their power. Though it may feel so horribly inadequate, our feeble efforts at such a time are a measure of human dignity. It is a horrible attack against the memory of a person to have that grave disturbed in any way.

It is a measure of God’s judgment against the life and character of a deceased king that God would choose to have his bones disturbed. The kings of God’s people have worshipped the sun, the moon, and the stars. Now their remains are left uncovered before the celestial bodies they seemed to prefer to the invisible God. There is some justice in that destiny. As bad as death and a dishonorable treatment of ones bones may be, life will be worse for the members of the ruling class. They have dishonored their God, and He has driven them out of the place of their former privileges into lives of open shame and dishonor.

God has sent many warnings, yet these have not been heeded. Even birds of very little brain seem to be able to avoid the same foolish thing over and over again. God’s people, on the other hand, show no sensitivity to His hand of correction. They are in a freefall of perpetual rebellion.

Despite the Lord’s words and actions against the leaders of His people, their prophets and priests are stuck on the idea that they are wise, and that they are in the right concerning their understanding of the Law of the Lord, and their obedience to that Law. They think that they will soon experience “peace” from the hand of God, but the future before them is not bright. God will cause some to lose their wives and their fields to conquerors. God has come to His fig tree Israel and examined her for ripe fruit, but has found none.

If such a message reached the ears of the ruling men, they should have returned to the Lord and His law according to His solemn word of warning. Instead, once it was clear that destruction was imminent they simply fled to fortified cities and prepared for their doom.

The Word of God against such rebels has no particular note of hope, and they know this. They will face destruction from overwhelming adversaries. There is no question from the prophet’s word that Judah is missing the fruitfulness that would be the display of a great faith in the Lord. When Jesus came, he found the fig tree of his people Israel did not produce any fruit. Therefore He cursed that fig tree. Many years prior to the Lord’s appearing, it was clear that God demanded the fruit that proceeds from a vital faith in Him. Unfortunately it was sorely lacking.

As the chapter ends it would appear that there is no hope for the Lord’s people. Though they cry out in grief and seek immediate assistance, true repentance seems to be unattainable, and there is no medicine for what ails them. There is no balm in Gilead for the people of the Lord.

It is inescapable that our biggest problem is the righteous judgment of God against our sin – not that God is the problem, but He will punish the wicked. There would one day come an answer to this problem. Christ would come as the Great Physician – not the false doctor who tries to convince the patient that the wound is slight when it is life-threatening, but the man who would cure our disease by taking our soul sickness upon Himself.

He did not share our illness in His own soul, but He took our sickness. That sickness of sin and guilt He had none of, but He took all of our guilt in the wonder of the cross. What a horrible load of sin from all His beloved children He took that day. One sin can destroy a relationship and alter the course of generations to come, but Christ faced the specific penalty of millions upon millions of sins, and was successful in defeating this enemy in his one great act of obedience.

Now our hope goes far beyond the grave. The Lord’s promise for us is so much more than an honorable and orderly burial. The graves will be opened, not for dishonor, but for glory. The dead in Christ shall rise to eternal blessedness, and there will be a final separation between the world and the church. This day could only come through the provision of a sinless substitute. That provision has come, and He has defeated sin, death, and even the grave.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Friday, January 11, 2008

Jeremiah 7

“O God, what do you want from me?” This Job-like cry comes from those who consider themselves servants of the true and living God, and yet they are perplexed by the providences through which they suffer. “How could this be happening to me?”

In the days of Jeremiah, it was not the case that everyone was irreligious. There were many people who were devoted to the temple of the Lord. They were counting on the temple almost as a badge of merit that distinguished them from the other peoples of the world. Surely they would be OK because of the temple of the Lord. But this was not to be.

God says, “Amend your ways and your deeds.” God calls us to a certain way of life. So often people want the safety of the temple of the Lord, but they reject the Word of the Lord of the temple. God will not be mocked. God will not allow his people to continue to dwell in the Promised Land, when they abuse the poor and the widow, shed innocent blood, and worship false gods. This may surprise those who thought that they were accepted by God from merely being in the temple, but it should not come as a surprise to anyone who listened to the preaching of the prophets with any kind of seriousness.

Our words alone will never save us, but a soul that loves the Word of God is sure to be saved by God’s grace. If we steal, murder, commit adultery, lie, and worship idols, we cannot ever hope in a church building saying, “We are delivered.” God will not permit His church to last forever as a den of robbers. He calls our attention to earlier days, and to previous places of holy worship. He invites His people to look at what has become of Shiloh. Once it was a great center of worship. Now it is nothing but a ruin and a memory. Soon even the memory is gone, and all that remains is desolation.

If this were merely the assessment of men, I would not easily accept it. Men often think that they know more than they do. They are prone to be very critical and negative. They do not correct themselves easily, but they quickly call others idolaters and unrighteous. This, however, is not the cynical and fallible sentiment of caustic critics. It is the Word of God against the people of His own heart. He invites us to examine the evidence. The people of Jerusalem make cakes for the so-called “queen of heaven.” They pour out drink offerings to other gods. They are destroying themselves in their idolatry, and God will surely pour out His wrath upon their land.

The whole burnt-offering was to be completely consumed in the fire on the altar of the Lord, but here God says, “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.” He is telling them to eat this food because He does not want it from their hands. If they were to obey His voice then these offerings would have some meaning, but even when idolaters, oppressors, and immoral men do their religious ceremonies just right, the Lord is not pleased. These men are worse than the generation that died in the wilderness.

Jeremiah is told by God to speak all these words to them, yet God informs His prophet that the people will not listen to them. They are blinded by their idolatry. They have brought false objects of worship into the temple itself, as if they were doing nothing wrong. They have even burned their sons and daughters in a brutal system of child sacrifice that pagans seem to think will make God happy. These things have nothing to do with what the Lord requires.

We are so blessed to have the clarity of God’s Word concerning that in which He delights, particularly in the day of disaster. In that Word we have presented for us the way in which we should walk. When the servant of God can’t understand why God is bringing upon him the day of disaster, there is no help that comes from the desperate worship of paganism. We will not find our direction or healing there. The Word of God is our direction through the most horrific day of the Lord’s discipline. We must not abandon the Word.

This Word came in person as the Lord Jesus Christ. He shows us in person what the prophets spoke about through their inspired speech. He is the righteousness of God. He is the Name of God. He is the Word of God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He is the temple of the Lord, and now we have become the temple of the Lord as He dwells richly within us. One day the confusion and heartbreak of the fall will be beyond us. Until then we look to the Word who gave His life for us, and we listen to the Word that speaks to us from heaven, even in the day of Job-like suffering that we do not understand.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Jeremiah 6

“Run for your lives!” If I were to shout that message out in the midst of a Sunday morning worship service, people would not necessary conclude that I was seriously urging them to get out of their seats. However, if there was a massive explosion in the kitchen and flames could be seen from the sanctuary and I said these same words, my guess is that everyone would immediately pay attention to my words. The reason for that difference is that we use these wonderful senses that God has given us in order to figure out if someone is speaking literally or just making some other point that requires reflection rather than swift legs.

If we do not sense danger with our eyes and ears, it is very hard for us to take a strong message of warning as seriously as it is intended. God tells His people to flee for safety. They would have been smart to hear Him and believe Him.

If we are to take a message of warning seriously, we need to know in what direction to run in order to find safety. The prophets call us to run toward God, to run toward His Word, to run toward Christ and the Holy Spirit, to run toward a new humility of heart that is willing to hear, repent, and follow the Lord. This is the only pathway of safety for us. Of course we also need to run away from the grave danger of a life of sin and self-satisfaction.

Many of God’s people are simply not going to respond to a prophetic warning. It all sounds so distant until the northern adversary is alright at the city gates. The lovely and delicately bred daughter of Zion has a very hard heart. She simply will not hear. One day it is too late to flee from the enemy. When the siege mounds are laid against Jerusalem, there will be no way of escape.

To make good use of the prophetic Word, the people of God need circumcised ears. The hearts that are unwilling to listen to the Lord may be marked in the flesh as covenant keepers, but their souls have only the mark of the beast of worldliness, for they will not hear and repent. What can be done when people take no pleasure in the Word of the Lord and God’s message is an object of scorn to those who are far too wise in their own eyes? They are bringing the wrath of God against themselves.

The wrath that is coming upon Jerusalem is not only for one segment of society. God’s wrath will come on husband and wife, the young and the old, the low and the high. Those who should know better try to drown out the warning of the true prophet with a false message of peace for the complacent. There is another way, an ancient path where the humble sinner hears the true call of God and turns to him. This good way is clear enough, but the people of Jerusalem have rejected the clarity of God’s righteous demands, and they insist that they will not walk in the way of holiness.

In the sight of the nations of the world, God will judge wickedness among His covenant people. Through a foreign destroyer the Lord will finally bring terror on every side to the remaining people in the Land. Yet no matter how much the Lord warns and corrects, both with stern words and actions of chastisement, it would appear that the refining of his people will simply not change their hearts.

What we see in the prophets is that a strong clear message from God will not alone change the rebelliousness of his own people. Something more is required. We need a powerful change from within that comes only through the work of the Holy Spirit. This is the promise of God that is so desperately needed. Yet the Spirit will not be poured out until the Son of Man returns victorious from His battle with our enemies – sin and death. Our sin stood in the way of the pouring out of the Spirit of God upon the church. First things first. First the problem of our unrighteousness had to be objectively solved through the perfections of Jesus Christ. Then our debt had to be paid through the highest price imaginable, our Lord’s own holy blood. With that great work completed, our Risen Savior could enter the Jerusalem above. It was better for us that He went to heaven, since from that place of divine victory, He and the Father would send forth the promised Holy Spirit.

This gift so generously distribute to the New Testament Church is absolutely essential. It is what distinguishes our situation from the Old Covenant people, who may have affirmed the Lord in some sense, but who were generally quite unwilling to give in to the way of faith. We praise God for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we thank the Son of God for this great gift bought at such a very heavy price. Through this powerful Spirit, and according to the decree of our glorious God, we are actually being refined for His glory.

Run for your lives! When you hear the warning of the prophets, run away from your sin, and run toward the loving embrace of the Savior who died for your everlasting joy.

posted by Pastor Magee @ 7:00 AM 0 comments