Good Morning!
In my devotions recently I have been reading through the Book of Jeremiah, partly because this is where I was anyways and in order to be ahead a bit since we are taking this portion of Holy Scripture on during our Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting. In the early chapters of his writing the prophet is challenged by God to go and preach against the sin and evil that is so prevalent in the Judah of his day. Much like his predecessor Isaiah he finds himself wholly inadequate to face the challenge before him, but Jehovah reminds Jeremiah that as long as he stays faithful to the message given to him then he will have the Lord’s blessings upon him. In today’s prayer and worship help I want to ask a few leading questions about how the people took to the preaching of this man of God, and why it was necessary in the first place.
The leaders of the Southern Kingdom in those days had fallen far from the glory days of the reformation of good king Josiah. They had taken his labors against idolatry and returned back to their vomit. Because they had wasted the repentance of the previous generation and had doubled-down on their evil the LORD God was sending them into exile in Babylon.
So what is Jeremiah to do?
He is to faithfully proclaim the whole message of God and not concern himself with what will happen in the future, for the Lord has it in his hand. Good enough. We all know this to be true, but what made it so important for this particular prophet? Well, the Lord had told Jeremiah that not only was no one going to listen to him, but there would be active attempts to destroy him for speaking the truth to the spiritually deaf. But how had Judah gotten to this point? Why were they so hard hearted against the very words of eternal life, as their children would be in the many centuries to come?
Let’s just say the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
In each case whether it was a man of God, or the very Son of God, it didn’t matter who was proclaiming the power of life, they weren’t interested in hearing about it, because they had the god they desired, what the Bible calls the “belly”. They had filled their souls with the world and thought they were full, when emptiness was their reality. They were like bags of chips. Taking up lots of space, but mostly full of air.
I’ve always found it interesting that when the Scriptures want to describe the thought-making process center of a person the reference is almost always to the gut, the bowels, etc… There is wisdom there of course. Think about how often that is the source of our own decisions. Whether it be the stomach or the loins or the heart we often turn to these internal organs to make choices. Most of the time however we take the advice of the spleen and then shockingly act rashly and without much forethought to what is before us. We do this because at the end of the day those are the organs we seek to satisfy. But remember what Jeremiah says about the heart? It is deceitful above all things. When Amasa didn’t pay attention to the sword that was in the hand of Joab his bowels ended up strewn all over the ground. And we know what happened to David when his loins were his guide. You get the picture. So what is the solution to this?
In the well-known passage from Colossians 3 (and its parallel in Ephesians 5) the Apostle pleads with the people in Colosse to fill themselves with the word of Christ. To be singing, in this case, the psalms of David as a means to accomplish it. The purpose is so that their inward parts would look unto the word of God, rather than the ramblings of the flesh, for understanding and intent in doing that which was necessary for life. Being saturated in the words of eternity then the bowels no longer make use of the refuse that dwells there, but find peace and truth in the clean words of God. You tell who a man really is by what he does, and he does whatever it is that brings to him what he desires. If you desire filth, you will take in filth. Paul warns that those who are perishing are being filled with, “…all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful…”
Garbage in, Garbage out.
So what again is the solution?
If you love the Lord, then you will do all that you can to be fed by His richness. If it is your desire to bring glory to the God who made you and gave you life then you will glean in His fields and eat the crumbs from His table. This isn’t rocket surgery. You can’t be said to be a Christian if your table is full of the waste products of the world, if your daily sustenance is the vomit of the dog, and your daily bath is nothing more than the mud of the sow. We must be fed not with the bread and wine of the evil one, but by that food which never spoils, nor molds. That which gives real sustenance to our souls.
Christ when preaching on the Mount says it as plainly as it can be said,
“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”
If this is not true of you then Christ has more to say to you this morning:
“And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Be fed by Christ today. Seek His strength in His word.
For today’s reading here is a word from Ligonier:
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/feeding-four-thousand
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church