October 25,
2016
Jeremiah
7:17-28
Have you ever looked at all the books
titled “for dummies”? I’m not writing to
dummies, but to many who are ignorant in the ways of God, and to those who are
just beginning this journey called following Jesus. Also, to those like
myself who often forget in our busy life that the Scriptures are living and
active as stated in Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of
God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the
division of soul and of spirit, of joints, and of marrow, and discerning the
thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
So if it is living, then it must be applied
to today, to our lives, and we must recall that God does not change He is the
same today as He was yesterday in Jeremiah’s timeline. In Numbers 23:19,
it is made clear that God has not nor can He change; "God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He
should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will
He not make it good?”
So with that backdrop shall we change a
couple of words with no fear of not being faithful to the Scripture, but first
Jeremiah 7:17, “Do you not see what they are doing
in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?” Now
let us replace for this paper Judah, and place your nation and the city you
live in and not Jerusalem. How is that going to read, what are your
country and city worshiping, are they placing God, the “I Am” as the object of
their worship? If so, please write me
back I want to be part of a nation that is doing that.
We the followers of Christ must return to
right worship, not music as the only source of our worship but a heartfelt
desire to obey our Lord and Father in all areas of life. The people of
Judea and Jerusalem were allowing rituals, such as going to church with the
wrong heart attitude as a sign of worship, but God who sees the heart was repulsed
by those acts, then and now!
Picking up the account in verses 27-28, we
have God telling Jeremiah what is going to happen when he addresses what God
has said about how the people do not have ears to hear or eyes to see, and they
were going to experience judgment, as a people and a nation. The words of
Jeremiah 7:27-28, “So you shall speak all these
words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but
they will not answer you. And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that
did not obey the voice of the Lord
their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off
from their lips.”
Can you see that God’s hand of protection is
removed from your nation can you see that Judgment has begun? I believe it has in the United States of
America, and that most who go by the title of Christian have no understanding
of this fact.
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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