#668 11-Mar-12 8:13 p.m.
Jeremiah 9:
Reading #668Crying for the lost
God cries: Jeremiah cries: do we cry? Daniel wept and fasted (abstaining
from fancy foods) for three weeks because of what was coming on his people, and for the explanation as to why! (Daniel 10:1-3.) Do we really understand what the time just before the close of probation for the world will be like? This week we are given another glimpse into those years so that we may act appropriately even now.
Jeremiah’s words:
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Jeremiah 9:
1 Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
2Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them[but there is no place to hide]! For they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. 3 And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not Me, says the LORD.
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Cruel was the mockingthat Jeremiah was called upon to endure. His sensitive soul was pierced through and through by the arrows of contempt hurled at him by those who despised his messages and made light of his burden for their conversion. “I was a derision to all my people,” he declared, “and their song all the day”. Lamentations 3:14. “I am in derision daily, everyone mocks me. . .All my familiars[his peers] watched for my halting[making a mistake], saying, ‘Peradventure he will be enticed[into sin], and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him’.” Jeremiah 20:7-10.
What, then, was the grief of Him whose prophetic glance took in, not years, but ages! He who beheld the destroying angels with sword uplifted against the city which had so long been the LORD’s dwelling place. He heard the voices of mothers and children crying for bread in the besieged city. He saw her holy and beautiful house, her palaces and towers, given to the flames, and where once they stood, only a heap of smouldering ruins.
Looking down the ages, He saw the former representative people scattered in every land, “like wrecks on a desert shore” for hundreds of years. In the temporal retribution about to fall upon her children, He saw but the first draft from that cup of wrath which at the final judgment she must drain to its dregs. Divine pity, yearning love, found utterance in the mournful words: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kills the prophets, and stones them which are sent toyou, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not[let Me]!”Matthew 23:37. O that you, a nation favoured above every other, had known the time of your visitation, and the things that belong toyour peace! I have stayed the angel of justice, I have called you to repentance, but in vain. It is not merely servants, delegates, and prophets, whom youhave refused and rejected, but the Holy One of Israel, your Redeemer. If youare destroyed, you alone are responsible. “You will not come to Me, that you might have life”. John 5:40.
Christ saw in Jerusalem a symbol of the world hardened in unbelief and rebellion, and hastening on to meet the judgments of God. The woes of a fallen race, pressing upon His soul, forced from His lips that exceeding bitter cry. He saw the record of sin traced in human misery, tears, and blood; His heart was moved with infinite pity for the afflicted and suffering ones of earth; He yearned to relieve them all. But even His hand might not turn back the tide of human woe; few would seek their only Source of help. He was willing to pour out His soul to death, to bring salvation within their reach; but few would come to Him that they might have life.
The Majesty of heaven in tears! The Son of the infinite God troubled in spirit, bowed down with anguish! The scene filled all heaven with wonder. That scene reveals to us the exceeding sinfulness of sin; it shows how hard a task it is, even for Infinite Power, to save the guilty from the consequences of transgressing the law of God. Jesus, looking down to the last generation, saw the world involved in a deception similar to that which caused the destruction of Jerusalem. The great sin of the Jews was their rejection of Christ; the great sin of the Christian world will be their rejection of the law of God, the picture of His character. The precepts of the LORD will be despised and set at nought. Billions, in bondage to sin, slaves of Satan, doomed to suffer the second death, will refuse to listen to the words of truth in their day of visitation. Terrible blindness! Strange infatuation!
This is why we are given these words of warning:
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Jeremiah 9:
4Take you heed every one of his neighbour, and trust you not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant[try to move you from your position as a Christian], and every neighbour will walk with slanders. 5 And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.
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“Stand in awe[of God’s power], and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still[don’t trust anybody with your religious life]. Selah. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness[Hebrews 13:15-16], and put your trust in the LORD. There be many that say, ‘Who will show us any good?’ [Our answer must be,] “LORD, lift You up the light of Your countenance upon us. Youhave put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for You, LORD, only make me dwell in safety”. Psalm 4:4-8.
Jeremiah was told:
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Jeremiah 9:
6 Your habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know Me, says the LORD. 7 Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of My people?
8Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaks deceit: one speaks peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in heart he lays his wait[to kill him].
9 Shall I not visit them for these things? says the LORD: shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this? 10For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled; they are gone. 11 And I will make Jerusalem heaps[of rubble], and a den of dragons[wild animals]; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.
12 Who is the wise man, that may understand this? And who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it, for what[why] the land perishes and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passes through?
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We need to come to Christ and drink; drink freely of the water of salvation and not to appeal to our own feelings. We must not think that sentimentalism is religion. We need to shake ourselves from every human prop and lean heavily upon Christ. Our words, our actions, have an influence upon others, and we must meet their influence in the day of God. Jesus says: “Behold,
I have set before you an open door, and no man can shut it”. Revelation 3:8. Light is shining from that door, and it is our privilege to receive it if we will. Let us direct our eyes within that open door and try to receive all that Christ is willing to bestow.
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Jeremiah 9:
13 And the LORD says, Because they have forsaken My law which I set before them, and have not obeyed My voice, neither walked therein; 14 but have walked after the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim[the various gods of force in religion], which their fathers taught them: 15 therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. 16 I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.
17 Thus says the LORD of hosts, Consider you, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may come: 18 and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters. 19 For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, “How are we spoiled! We are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out”.
20 Yet hear the word of the LORD, O you women, and let your ear receive the word of His mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation. 21 For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets. 22 Speak, Thus says the LORD, Even the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather them.
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While Jeremiah was giving his sad message in Jerusalem, Ezekiel was being shown an equally sad vision of the events while he was in Babylon.
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Ezekiel 9:
1He[the LORD] cried also in my ears with a loud voice[in my vision], saying, “Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand”. 2And, behold, six men[angels in the form of men] came from the way of the higher gate, which lies toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them[a seventh] was clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brass altar[in the courtyard].
3And the Glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherubwhereupon He was[the angels who were carrying His throne], to the threshold of the house.
And He called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side[the recorder]; 4 and the LORD said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark[the seal of God] upon the foreheads of the men[and women] that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof[for they are like Him]”.
5And to the others He said in my hearing, “Go you after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have you pity: 6 slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark[of My protection]; and begin at My sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men[the leaders] which were before the house. 7And He said to them, “Defile the house[the temple], and fill the courts with the slain: go you forth”. And they went forth, and slew in the city.
8And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, “Ah LORD GOD! WillYou destroy all the residue of Israel in Your pouring out of Your fury upon Jerusalem?” [Will there be anybody left?]9Then said He to me, “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, ‘The LORD has forsaken the earth, and the LORD sees not’. 10And as for Me also, My eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head”.
11And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, “I have done as Youhave commanded me[and the saints are sealed”]. (See Revelation 7:1-3.)
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The more our faith fastens on to Christ in perfect trust, the more peace we shall have that He is doing the right thing. We will know that He does not arbitrarily bring this punishment upon His people, but that it is the result of their own behaviour and their rejection of His protection. Faith will grow by exercise. God's rule is, ‘One day at a time’. We should day by day do the work for each day as if we were conscious that we are working in the sight of the angels, cherubim and seraphim, and God and Christ. We are “a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men.” 1 Corinthians 4:9. “Give us this day our daily bread”. Matthew 6:11. “As your days, so shall your strength be”. Deuteronomy 33:25. “Looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith”. Hebrews 12:2. Living thus, the Holy Spirit helps our memory, sanctifies every faculty, and keeps us reminded of our daily and hourly dependence upon our heavenly Father's careand unceasing love.
This is the childlike spirit Jesus declared His disciples must have in order to enter into the kingdom of heaven – trusting as a little child in God their heavenly Father. Then Satan's temptations are discerned and more easily resisted, for there is in the heart a constant drawing near to God. The feeling of self-sufficiency which works the ruin of so many souls does not have an atmosphere in which to flourish. “Seek you first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you”. Matthew 6:33.
In this age of controversy, where many voices are calling, “Come this way,
I have the truth”, many of those upon whom the light of the Saviour's self-sacrificing life is clearly shining will not live in accordance with heavenly principles. They desire to make a different showing than Christ made. To counteract the influence of these men and women, we must uplift the Christian standard, for many have turned away from Christlike principles. Truth and righteousness have lost their full meaning to them.
When the Holy Spirit works human minds, there will be a much higher standard in speech, in ministry, and in spirituality than is now seen. Then we will be refreshed by the waters of life, and the labourers, working under the one Head, Christ, will reveal their Master in word, in spirit, in every form of ministry, and will encourage one another in the grand, closing work in which they are engaged. There will be a healthful increase of unity and love, which will bear testimony to the world that God has sent His Son for our redemption. There will be a pruning of the branches of the vine, and a bringing forth of much fruit. The branches that bear not the precious fruit of the Spirit – Christlike words and deeds – will be cut off from the parent stock. Divine truth will be exalted, and, as it shines forth as a lamp that burns, we shall understand it more and still more fully.
Those who hold the truth in righteousness will arouse, and put on the gospel shoes. Their feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, they will make no false paths in which the lame would be turned out of the way.
God requires every one of us to stand free, and to follow the directions of the Word. In every actionwe are to reveal our regard for Christian principles – loving God supremely, and ourneighbours as ourselves; reflecting light and blessing on the pathway of those who are in darkness; comforting those who are cast down; sweetening the bitter waters in the place of giving our fellow pilgrims gall to drink. We are to have a pure, growing Christianity. In the heavenly courts we are to be pronounced complete in Christ.
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Jeremiah 9:
23 Thus says the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:
24 but let him that glories glory in this, that he understands and knowsMe, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, says the LORD.