August 9th

Today's reading from the One Year Bible Chronological Reading Plan is Jeremiah 12-15

In one of his sermons on Jeremiah, John MacArthur talks about the object lesson that God gave Jeremiah when He asked him to buy and wear a linen belt (basically underwear) without washing it (13:1) and then to take it out to Perath (Euphrates), a 200 mile trip there and another 200 mile trip back (walking!) and to bury is in a crevice in the rocks. After some time God told Jeremiah to walk back (another 400 mile round trip!), dig it back up and see it for the worthless and ruined item it now was. What was the point of this object lesson?
God says, "I wanted it to be the most intimate thing. I wanted you to be close to Me. I wanted you to be that which is the nearest to me and instead of that you will be worthless." That's the judgment of God. That's the heart of the matter. (John MacArthur)

Though there were other wicked nations around them, God's message through Jeremiah was to His chosen people. He was calling them out on their wickedness.

Seems pretty relevant to our times to me!

We live in an evil society, there is no doubt about it. Our society calls evil good and good evil. We have laws that say it's legal to kill the unborn, okaying homosexuality. Divorce is commonplace and having a premarital sex isn't even blinked at. Self-indulgence is skyrocketing - whether it be alocohol, drugs or sex.

And the really sad thing is that the statistics show that the numbers in secular society and the numbers within the church are very similar.

Does this mean that there is no point in following God?

No, it doesn't.

It means that there are a lot of people in our churchss professing something they do not possess. There are lot of people who claim Christ, that have no idea what it is like to follow Him. Lip service that does not reach the soul.

Jeremiah sounds relevant indeed.

And God judged his people for their wickedness. His covenant people, His chosen people.
And we don't even have to claim the covenant relationship that they had to claim. So what would ever convince us that we are protected from something God's covenant people were not protected from? So this was the message. It was a message of sin. And we are called to confront a sinning society. Not make it feel good about itself. But make it feel bad about itself. (John MacArthur)

If we could only see our nation through the eyes of God, we would be like this weeping prophet. We would weep for our nation. We should weep for our nation.

Jeremiah looked at the spiritual condition of his people, of his nation and he was traumatized. Something happened in his heart. There were wellsprings of grief that were broken up as he looked with spiritual eyes and saw what was going on around him. And he wept. But throughout the book he also called for others to weep.....

[Jeremiah] talks in this passage about the influence that weeping women have. He says, "Call for the wailing women to come. Let them come quickly and wail over us till our eyes overflow with tears."

Who's the us? It's the men. So many women today are concerned because they don't feel like the men are concerned. And Jeremiah says, "So you get concerned. You weep, you grieve, you mourn and watch if God doesn't use your heart to influence the hearts of the men around you." You see, we are waiting for the men to get hot-hearted for God; and God is saying: "No, you women, take your role, take your place; and I will influence the men through you."

Not only is there the influence on the men, but also there is the influence on the next generation. He says, "Teach your daughters how to wail, pass on a heritage, a legacy, teach your daughters to take life seriously. Teach them not to fritter their lives away, not to live frivolously. This is a time to weep, this is a time to mourn and teach them how to lament, teach one another how to lament." (Nancy Leigh DeMoss, A Time for Tears: Jeremiah Speaks Today, Part 2)

His heart is grieved over evil. His heart is grieved over sin and over what it does to His creatures that He loves. So the question becomes for us: Do you and I weep and grieve just over the things that break our hearts or do we weep and grieve over the things that break God's heart?...

God's people are sinning in very much the same ways as our nation is sinning. That ought to grieve us. Am I grieved and are you grieved by our lack of love for the Word of God? As the people of God, what a privilege we have to have the revelation of the Word of God. But we treat it as such a light thing. We're characterized today by biblical illiteracy in the church.

We know more about movie stars and entertainers than we do about biblical heroes. We don't know the Word of God. We have an incredible gift in the Word of God. Many of us have in our home a dozen, two dozen, three dozen or more copies in every conceivable size, color and translation. What a privilege to hold this book in our hands.

Do we love it? Do we read it? Do we memorize it? Do we meditate on it? There's a lack of the fear of the Lord in the church today. We don't tremble at the Word of the Lord...

What about our priorities? I'm talking about our priorities as the people of God. So many times, they are temporal rather than eternal. What are the things that concern us? What do we spend our time doing? Do you want to know what your real priorities are? Go look at your checkbook and at your calendar. See where you spent your time. See where you spent your money.

By and large, in the church today, if the truth were known, the fact is we love TV and we love movies more than we love God's Word and prayer. We can tell you all about the current movies. But we can't tell you what God is saying to us through His Word. For what do we have an appetite? We're the children of God. Do we have an appetite for a relationship with our Heavenly Father or do we have an appetite for the world?

There's a lack of holiness that characterizes the church today. There is worldliness. Worldliness is not just things we do or don't do. Worldliness is having a heart for the world and/or a heart like the world. Being attracted to the same things to which the world is attracted is worldliness.....

[Our children] see moms and dads who go to church, who tip God in the offering plate, serve on church boards but don't have a heart for God.

Why is it that children growing up in our Christian homes, by and large, do not have a heart for God today? I'll tell you one big reason is because they have seen our values. They've seen our hearts and they are just like us. They're just a magnified reflection of the values that they've seen in us.....

As women, we have been deceived. I'm talking about Christian women who have prioritized careers over children. I'm talking about women who have broken vows and who have failed to reverence husbands. As women today, by and large, we are self-absorbed.

So few of us think of serving sacrificial lives.(emphasis mine, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Part 6)

I don't know about you but my toes got a little stepped on there.

Tomorrow's passage: Jeremiah 16-18, 35