July 8, 2008

• Jeremiah 17

  Jeremiah 17:1 KJV  The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars;
  
  Their Hearts are stone. Not a good thing.
  
  Jeremiah 17:2 KJV  Whilst their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills.
  
  The Children are learning their sinful behavior. What will your children remember about your faith?
  
  Jeremiah 17:3-4 KJV  O my mountain in the field, I will give thy substance and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin, throughout all thy borders.  (4)  And thou, even thyself, shalt discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever.
  
  Your behavior has brought this judgement.
  
  Jeremiah 17:5 KJV  Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
  
  Cursed are those who depend on something other then God.
  
  Jeremiah 17:6 KJV  For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
  
  Stuff doesn’t grow good in salt land.
  
  (Jer 17:6 NLT)  They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, on the salty flats where no one lives.
  
  Jeremiah 17:7-10 KJV  Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.  (8)  For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.  (9)  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?  (10)  I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
  
  There is nothing secure in this world but Jesus. It doesn’t matter how far up the corporate ladder you are. At one time it was cool to be part of Enron and look at what happened there. There is nothing secure but Jesus.
  
  Some were ridding high til that dot com bubble burst. Then the company they thought was everything collapsed and they were bankrupt. It can happen. We need to trust in the Lord.
  
  The poor are rich in faith.
  
  Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.. The Lord will not fail.
  
  When someone in the world says, “Just trust your heart”, it kind of creeps me out.  We need to be careful about trusting our hearts.
  
  Sometimes you hear people say, “Well, God knows my heart.”
  Yes, He does. Guess what. It is bad. It is like old socks. The heart is deceitful. It is wicked.
  
  Yet even as a Christian, I need to be careful when it comes to my heart.  The apostle Paul, as a Christian, wrote,
  (Rom 7:18-19 KJV)  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. {19} For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
  
  How can I tell where the thoughts are coming from?
  
  God’s Word
  (Heb 4:12 KJV)  For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
  
  Prayer
  (Psa 139:23-24 KJV)  Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: {24} And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
  
  Can I ever “follow my heart”?
  Yes, but make sure you’ve run those thoughts through God’s filtering process.
  (Psa 37:4 KJV)  Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
  
  Jeremiah 17:11-14 KJV  As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.  (12)  A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.  (13)  O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.  (14)  Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.
  
  All you have to do is ask Him.
  
  Jeremiah 17:15-22 KJV  Behold, they say unto me, Where is the word of the LORD? let it come now.  (16)  As for me, I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee: neither have I desired the woeful day; thou knowest: that which came out of my lips was right before thee.  (17)  Be not a terror unto me: thou art my hope in the day of evil.  (18)  Let them be confounded that persecute me, but let not me be confounded: let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed: bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction.  (19)  Thus said the LORD unto me; Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by the which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem;  (20)  And say unto them, Hear ye the word of the LORD, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates:  (21)  Thus saith the LORD; Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem;  (22)  Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.
  
  The fifth commandment was to remember the Sabbath day.
  (Exo 20:8-11 KJV)  Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. {9} Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: {10} But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: {11} For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
  
  Jeremiah 17:23 KJV  But they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction.
  
  But they didn’t do that.
  
  Jeremiah 17:24-26 KJV  And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the LORD, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but hallow the sabbath day, to do no work therein;  (25)  Then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall remain for ever.  (26)  And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meat offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise, unto the house of the LORD.
  
  God says, “Obey and I will bless you.”
  
  Jeremiah 17:27 KJV  But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.
  
  The importance of the Sabbath
  There are a couple of principles at work in the Sabbath, no matter what day you give to Him.
  
  1.  Trusting God.
  Instead of trusting in yourself and working harder and harder to make ends meet, trust God by giving Him a day.  Trust Him to provide for your needs if you will honor Him one day a week.
  
  2. Rest.
  The Sabbath was to be a day of rest.  If God took a day off and rested, perhaps we ought to as well.
  
  In Jeremiah’s day the people were flagrantly breaking the Sabbath.  They worked just as hard on the Sabbath day as every other day of the week.
  
  In Jesus’ day the pendulum had swung so far the other way that Jesus was criticized for healing people on the Sabbath.
  
  In Nehemiah’s day, after the people had been in captivity in Babylon and had finally been restored to the land, there was still a problem with the Sabbath.
  
  (Neh 13:15-18 NLT)  One Sabbath day I saw some men of Judah treading their winepresses. They were also bringing in bundles of grain and loading them on their donkeys. And on that day they were bringing their wine, grapes, figs, and all sorts of produce to Jerusalem to sell. So I rebuked them for selling their produce on the Sabbath. {16} There were also some men from Tyre bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise. They were selling it on the Sabbath to the people of Judah–and in Jerusalem at that! {17} So I confronted the leaders of Judah, “Why are you profaning the Sabbath in this evil way? {18} Wasn’t it enough that your ancestors did this sort of thing, so that our God brought the present troubles upon us and our city? Now you are bringing even more wrath upon the people of Israel by permitting the Sabbath to be desecrated in this way!”
  
  Nehemiah knew that one of the reasons for the Babylonian judgment was the neglect of the Sabbath Laws.  He didn’t want to see them go through it again.
  
  There was a meeting of pastors where they heard a message by Dr. Archibald Hart, clinical psychologist, dean of psychology at Fuller Seminary, often heard on Focus on the Family, and a very Biblically grounded Christian. He talked about a new book he just finished, “Thrilled to Death”, where he discusses the new phenomena in our society called anhedonia (“no pleasure”), a rising problem in the population where people are not able to experience pleasure. The problem seems to be that we’re simply overloaded. People are addicted to adrenaline, always looking for some new thrill. We multi-task, we carry our cell phones everywhere, we are trying to cram more and more things into our lives. People can’t drive in the car without turning on a radio. We can’t live without having a TV making noise. Some churches feel that to keep people coming to their church they have to keep coming up with more elaborate productions. The music has to be louder and faster. The message has to be shorter.
  The problem is that we don’t leave any time for silence and reflection.
  
  And we wonder why we have a hard time hearing from God.
  
  When the prophet Elijah was running for his life, he ended up in a cave in the middle of nowhere. And he had an encounter with God.
  
  At first Elijah felt a strong wind, then an earthquake, and then lightning.  But God wasn’t in those things (1Ki. 19:11-13).  It was with a “still small voice” that God spoke to Elijah.
  
  If we’re expecting God to speak in a loud voice, we just might miss it.
  
  God often speaks with a “still, small voice”. We need to learn to be quiet before Him. We need to give Him time in our lives to hear His voice.
  
  Take time to rest.  Take time to be quiet before God.  Take time to pray.
  
  The Jews don’t believe that the first five books of the Bible were all that Moses received from God.  They also believe that God told him a lot more things, things that were passed down from rabbi to rabbi until they were finally written down 200 years after Jesus.  These teachings – six volumes – are called the Mishna.
  
  The Mishna has an entire book that gives lots of details just about the Sabbath Law (the entire section has 24 chapters)
  Chapter 1: Regulations Regarding Transfer
  …A tailor shall not go out with his needle when it is nearly dark on Friday, lest he forget and go out (carrying it about with him) after dark …nor shall one search for vermin in his garments …
  Chapter 3: Regulations Concerning stones, hearths, and ovens.
  MISHNA II.: (Victuals) shall not be put either inside or on top of an oven that was heated with straw or with stubble; a firing-pot that was heated with straw or with stubble is (considered by the law) as a stone, but if it was heated with pressed poppy seed or with wood it is considered as an oven.
  MISHNA III.: An egg shall not be put close to a boiler to get it settled, nor must it be wrapped in a hot cloth. R. Jose permits it; also it must not be put into hot sand or in the (hot) dust of the road that it be roasted (by the heat of the sun). It once happened that the inhabitants of Tiberias had laid a pipe of cold water through the arm of their hot springs. But the sages explained to them that on the Sabbath this water is considered like any other warmed on the Sabbath, and must not be used either for washing or drinking; and should this be done on a feast day, it is like water heated by fire, which may be used for drinking only, but not for washing.
  MISHNA V.: Into a kettle, the hot water of which has been spilt out and which has been removed from the fire, cold water is not permitted to be poured, for the purpose of heating; but it is permitted to pour water into the kettle, or into a cup, for the purpose of making such water lukewarm.
  Chapter 5: Regulations concerning what may and may not be worn by animals on the Sabbath
  MISHNA I.: What gear may we let animals go about in and what not? The male camel in a bridle; the female cannel with a nose-ring; Lybian asses in a halter, and a horse in a collar.
  Chapter 15:  Regulations concerning the tying and untying of knots
  A woman may tie the slit of her tunic, the bands of her hood, the bands of her girdle, the straps of her shoes and sandals…R. Eliezer, the son of Jacob, says: “One may tie a rope in front of cattle, in order that they may not escape.” One may tie a bucket (over the well) with his girdle, but not with a rope.
  Chapter 18:  Regulations regarding the clearing off of required space, the assistance to be given cattle when given birth to their young and to women about to be confined.
  
  MISHNA: One may set a basket on end for chickens, in order that they may climb up or down upon it. A runaway hen may be chased until she goes back again. One may lead about calves or young asses to exercise them. A woman may lead her son about to give him exercise. R. Jehudah says: “When (may she do) this? If the child lifts one foot and sets down the other; but if it trails (its leg) behind, she must not.”
  Chapter 23:  Regulations concerning borrowing, casting lots, waiting for the close of the Sabbath and attending to a corpse.
  
  MISHNA: A man may borrow of an acquaintance jugs of wine or oil (on Sabbath), provided he does not say to him: “Lend (them to) me….”
  The traditions of the Mishna weren’t actually given to Moses, but made up by the rabbis over the years.  This is one of the things that Jesus confronted the Pharisees about continually, that they held the traditions of men more important than the commandments of God.  They dishonored God with their traditions, including their Sabbath laws.
  
  In the New Testament, we see Jesus getting into trouble for healing people, for asking people to pick up their bed, allowing His disciples to pick grain, and for having someone wash mud from their eyes on the Sabbath.
  
  In one instance Jesus healed a woman who had been crippled for eighteen years…
  (Luke 13:14-16 NKJV)  But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath; and he said to the crowd, “There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day.” {15} The Lord then answered him and said, “Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it? {16} “So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound; think of it; for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?”
  
  You would help your animal on the Sabbath, why not help people too?  In another confrontation over the Sabbath Jesus said,
  (Mark 2:27 NKJV)  “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
  
  The Sabbath was intended to be a good thing for man, not some complicated law that makes life more difficult.
  
  Saturday or Sunday?
  There are some churches that say we must worship on Saturday instead of Sunday because of the Sabbath Law.  Here are some things to keep in mind:
  
  1. It was to be sign between Israel and God (not a Gentile thing)
  (Exo 31:13 NKJV)  “Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you.
  Eze 20:12 “Moreover I also gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I [am] the LORD who sanctifies them.
  
  2. Sunday honors the resurrection
  (John 20:1 NKJV)  Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
  We set aside Sunday as a day of worship because Jesus rose on a Sunday.
  
  3. The early church met on Sunday
  (Acts 20:7 NKJV)  Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight.
  (1 Cor 16:2 NKJV)  On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come.
  
  4. Any day is okay with God
  (Rom 14:5 NKJV)  One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.
  
  The Sabbath is supposed to be a day to get closer to God.
  
  May God bless you today and draw you closer to Him.
  
  

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