No Grace - No Hope

Jeremiah 16:1-15

The Psalmist tells us in 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”  One morning as I was teaching on this a young man shared this insight, “It is like a flashlight shining at our feet, it is not a spotlight showing the pathway ahead.”  I’ve found it does not always tell me what I want to hear at that time, but it always gives me the ability to miss the pot holes and read the signs that state danger ahead, that is if I abide and hold to the Truth and if I keep my eyes on the Author.

I often wonder if those who teach "a name it and claim it" gospel, the positive guys with the $500.00 suits and the big church buildings, have ever read Jeremiah 16?  Jeremiah was God’s spokesman, a man who loved and was loved by the Father, and yet his life was not one of happiness and joy.  And what about Jesus, the Son, yes the only Son who by the will of the Father took on flesh and became lower than His created angels?  Who ask the Father for a plan that did not include taking on your sins and mine, but chose to do the will of the Father and for the first time in eternity being separated from the Father because He took our place.

God is telling Jeremiah he must not marry, or have parties, or attend any funerals; he was isolated and became a social outcast.  What is so sad is God is bringing judgment on these people for the sin of their fathers and now for their sin in chasing the little gods of the nation holding them captive.  God was letting Jeremiah in on what was coming; deadly diseases were coming to the rebellious nation of Judah.  God told Jeremiah not to participate in a mourning feast; that is close to our funeral wake.  You will also see in verse six that it was forbidden to practice the customs of the pagan nations who cut their hair or cut themselves.

In verse seven God is saying to him, and no food or drink is to be given the ones who have lost loved ones, for it must have been the custom then as it is now to do so.  Verses 8-9 must have been very hard on a preacher who loved the people and the nation but was faithful to his Lord.  Verses 8-9, “You must not enter the house where feasting is taking place to sit with them to eat and drink. For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: I am about to eliminate from this place, before your very eyes and in your time, the sound of joy and gladness, the voice of the groom and the bride.”

I know that some of you may have little or no understanding of the Scripture, you either did not have time for it, or you have sat under one of those guys who told you, God loves you too much to hold you accountable for your sins.  Please read verses 10-13, “When you tell these people all these things, they will say to you, ‘Why has the Lord declared all this great disaster against us? What is our guilt? What is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?’ Then you will answer them: Because your fathers abandoned Me”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“and followed other gods, served them, and worshiped them. Indeed, they abandoned Me and did not keep My instruction. You did more evil than your fathers. Look, each one of you was following the stubbornness of his evil heart, not obeying Me. So I will hurl you from this land into a land that you and your fathers are not familiar with. There you will worship other gods both day and night, for I will not grant you grace.”  No grace, without grace we have no hope!

But in verses 14-15, God is talking about a day in the future, and God tells Jeremiah about a new day, a day of hope; look at verses 14-15, “However, take note! The days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’ but rather, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of the north and from all the other lands where He had banished them.’ For I will return them to their land that I gave to their ancestors.”  Something very close to this happened in 1948 at the end of WWII, and yet today as in the day of coming out of Egypt only a small percentage gives credit to Yahweh.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice