Tuesday, 9 December 2014


JEREMIAH 10:1-25 
v2 Thus says the LORD: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, v3 for the customs of the peoples are vanity.
We all want to fit in. We want to be like others. Churches want to fit in to their day and age. None of us want to be thought of as 'odd'. We live in a particular culture where people think in a certain way. The desire and pressure to fit in, to belong, can be very great.
We live in a tension. On the one hand we know that we are not to be conformed to the world:
On the other hand we desire to remove all unnecessary barriers to belief in the gospel.
Then Paul's instructions to the Romans suggests that it takes real discernment to know the will of God in some issues, to know what is the good and acceptable and perfect.
"Tell me the same old story when you have cause to fear
That this world's empty glory is costing me too dear."
Jeremiah is concerned that the people are becoming too taken up with wanting to be like other nations. They are taking an unhealthy interest in the way of the nations. They are learning from them. so much so that they are beginning to share their same fears (astrology?).
Do not do this - their customs are vanity (like a mist).
There are some things we do not need to know, and are better off not knowing! 1 Cor 14:20 Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.
The Lord's people would be far better off being infants in their knowledge of idols.
Jeremiah 10v5 "Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field,..."
v8 They are both stupid and foolish; the instruction of idols is but wood!
v14 Every man is stupid and without knowledge;
The farm I grew up on had scarecrow. It wore my Dad's old jacket and trousers. It's job was to keep the birds off the strawberry field. After a while the birds used it as a resting place!
An idol may be dressed in silver and gold, but underneath it is no different than a scarecrow - they cannot speak, they have to be carried, they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them.
See Psalm 115v4-8
See Tim Keller: What is an idol - page xvii-xviii
You can make your husband/wife an idol; your children an idol; your job an idol. Things that are good in themselves can become an idol. If anything happens to your idol then you are shattered. Your treasure has gone.
PRAISE 732v1&4
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,
be thou my best thought in the day and the night,
both waking and sleeping, thy presence my light.
Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise:
be thou mine inheritance now and always;
be thou and thou only the first in my heart;
O Sovereign of heaven, my treasure thou art.
[2] v7-10 THERE IS NONE LIKE THE LORD - v6a & 7b
Idols creep into our hearts? How for they cannot move? The same way the Trojan Horse entered the city - the people took it in. We bring idols into our lives without even realising what we are doing.
We need to 'spring clean' our minds and hearts on a regular basis.
Idols once in place are difficult to move. There is only one way we can move them. That is to see how much better, how more desirable, is the Lord.
Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847) preached a sermon called: 'The Expulsive Power of a New Affection'
The only way to remove an idol is to replace it by something greater, more worthy, more glorious - the Lord himself.
So Jeremiah shows that the Lord is greater than their silver and gold idols.
Jeremiah is not ashamed to appeal to the fact that God created the Universe - v11-12. The foreign nations did not believe this but it is the truth.
We should not be ashamed of the doctrine of creation. All people know this is true, even those who most vehemently deny it.
God not only made the world he also is still very active in it - v13
Idols will put their makers to shame, not so the Lord who made heaven and earth - v14-16.
3. v17-25 GOD WILL BE GOD
The Lord is going to sling them out of the land, as he has warned them many times.
Who is lamenting? Is Jeremiah lamenting, but he had no children? Is it Jerusalem or Judah? Do we hear God's lament over his children? Properly something of all these.
Bad leadership resulted in the scattering of the flock - v21.
Once again Jeremiah warns that the enemy will come from the North. The mention of wild animals adds to the picture of desolation.
Jeremiah acknowledges the sovereignty of God. This is something every Christian has trouble with because it goes against the world's thinking, our own before we became Christians, and the devil's against it.
Yet, what peace of mind knowing that God is sovereign gives when we can say as Jeremiah in v23.
When we see God is sovereign we stop questioning all he does for we trust him more than we trust ourselves. We believe all he says about himself and about us. We not only let God be God we are glad that he is.
This however, does not turn us into fatalists! Jeremiah pleads for God not to bring his full anger upon his people - v24; and for him to bring his wrath upon those who devour Jacob, the Lord's people.

Tuesday, 2 December 2014

SAY IT WITH TEARS - JEREMIAH 7:29-8:3; & 8:18-9:26

JEREMIAH 7:29 - 8:3
Jeremiah 7:29 “‘Cut off your hair and cast it away; raise a lamentation on the bare heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.’
What evil had the people in Jeremiah's time done to cause the Lord to reject and forsake that generation?
[1] v30 - they have defiled the Temple.
[2] v31 They have sacrificed their own children: 2 Kings 16:3; 17:31; 21:6; Psalm 106:34.
A practice God had forbidden - Leviticus 18:21; 20:1-5. Deut 12:31, 18:10
How far does a society have to go before God gives them up? Read Romans 1:22-28.
Who would have thought that the Lord's people would engage in child sacrifice? What have we been doing to our children? They have been failed by parents, failed by social services, failed by the Police; failed by society.
God's wrath will fall on the people in the very place where they have sacrificed their children turning it into a grave yard - v32-33.
He will bring silence to the streets of the cities - v34.
Last century saw two World Wars and Spanish Flue that killed more than the 1st World War. How long before the Lord brings his next major judgement?
Even the bones did not escape - v1-2.
What of the living? They will prefer death - v3.
How would you answer the question: If offering children as a sacrifice then how can it be right for God to sacrifice his own Son?
See John 10v11,15, &17.
JEREMIAH 8:18- 9:26
1. LAMENT FOR A PEOPLE - 8:18-9:3
9v1: "Oh that my head were water and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night..."
Hetty Lalleman in the IVP commentary helpfully identifies the speakers in the lament as follows:
v18 Lament of Jeremiah
v19a Listen to Jeremiah
v19b Lament of the people
v19c God's answer
v20 Lament of the people
v21 Lament of the prophet
v22 Lament of the prophet and people
9v1-3 Lament of the prophet or maybe of God
in Gilead the balm from a tree was famous as a perfume and a medicine.
v4 "Let everyone beware of his neighbour"
Further evidence of a breakdown in society.
Lies, deceit, slander, oppression - at the bottom of it all v6 they refuse to know the Lord.
Such behaviour will bring punishment from the Lord - v8-9.
v10 “I will take up weeping and wailing ....and a lamentation..."
God's judgement will be upon the whole nation, nowhere will escape, country and city alike.
4. WHY, WHY, OH WHY - v12-16
v12 "Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness..."
Because they have forsaken God's law, not obeyed it, nor walked in accord with it and followed their own hearts after Baals - v13-14.
Judgement is coming - v15-16
v17 “Consider, and call for the mourning women to come;
It is a time for mourning. Professional mourners, we meet some in the time of Jesus in Jairus's house. There will be death on a massive scale.
Jeremiah had a real message of judgement.
v24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me,
The apostle Paul took up these words - 1 Cor 1v26-31 & 2 Cor 10v12-18.
Jeremiah is part of the 'Bible' that Jesus and Paul read.Knowing the context of the OT quotes that appear in the NT helps us to better understand them.