Author: missionspaul

JEREMIAH 35

Are you a Recabite?
This was a nomadic people, descendants of Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, through the Kenites. The Recabites had a history of knowing evil and why it was important to get it out of their lives.
God wasn’t trying to test the Recabites by asking them to drink wine. He was exposing the disobedience of His people in comparison.
Can we live within this culture without losing who we are?
Learning from the Recabites …
We can if we have conviction.
We can if we know what to say and how to give an account for our actions.
We can if we keep the values of those who have gone before us.

JEREMIAH 34

During the nineteenth century a group of missionaries in what is now Surinam in South America, wanted to reach the inhabitants of a nearby island with the gospel. Most of these islanders were slaves on the large plantations that covered the island. The plantation owners feared the gospel and its results, and would not even allow the missionaries to talk with the slaves. They would allow only other slaves to talk with slaves.
So the missionaries sold themselves into slavery in order to take the gospel to the islanders. Working in bondage in the harsh conditions of a tropical climate, they reached many of them with the good news. Ray Hoo, “Turn Your World Upside Down,” Discipleship Journal (July/August 1982)

Restoration
JEREMIAH 33

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is one of the greatest artistic triumphs in history. From 1508 to 1512, the artist Michelangelo lay on his back and painted the Fall and the Flood.
But Michelangelo’s magnificent art started to fade almost immediately. Within a century of completing his work, no one remembered what his original frescoes had really looked like. Painter Biagio Biagetti described it in 1936: “We see the colours of the Sistine ceiling as if through smoked glass.”
In 1981 a scaffold was erected to clean the frescoes that adorn the chapel. With a special solution, Fabrizio Mancinelli and Gianluigi Colalucci gently washed a small corner of the painting.
They invited art experts to examine the work. The result was stunning. No one had imagined that beneath centuries of grime lay such vibrant colours. This was not the Michelangelo known by art critics. That artist was the master of form, his paintings resembling sculpture more than painting. This “new” artist was also the master of colour azure, green, rose, and lavender of amazing nuance.
Their success prompted the restoration of the entire ceiling. The task was completed on December 31, 1989. It had taken twice as long to clean the ceiling as the artist had needed to paint it. But the result was breathtaking. For the first time in nearly 500 years, people viewed this masterpiece the way it was intended, in all of its colour and beauty.
Al Janssen, The Marriage Masterpiece
Perhaps you have begun to fade?
Jesus is our righteous restorer.

JEREMIAH 32

Buy a field now whilst the enemy is coming against you.
Buy a field now whilst you are in prison, confined and limited.
It sounds crazy to invest in land in such situations.
This is faith.
Jeremiah knew God was asking him to prepare for the future.
If all you do is for now. If all the decisions and plans are about the circumstance you are in now what happens when it is all over?
Prepare for your future because there is one. Do something to demonstrate trust that God will bring you through.
Buy a field.

What has God wanted all the time?

JEREMIAH 31

God has always wanted to be our God and for us to be His people.
Mentioned many times in the Bible and 6 times by Jeremiah we read today that in the context of the new covenant, “I will be their God and they will be my people.”v33.
How?
God writes His law on our hearts.
Our heart is who we are as a person, what defines us; the reason why we act and react is our heart. It is our very being.
Thomas Keneally, the author of Schindler’s List, was asked what he thought was the difference between Oskar Schindler, rescuer of Jews and hero of his story, and Amon Goeth, the Nazi commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp. His answer was revealing. “Not much”, he said. “Had there been no war, Mr. Schindler and Mr. Goeth might have been drinking buddies and business partners, morally obtuse, perhaps, but relatively harmless”. What a difference a war makes, especially to the moral choices that lead to good and evil.
We do not know when war will break out. We do not know what stress will be placed upon us. But we do know that we need to let God write upon our hearts so that when that day comes we act like people who belong to Him.

The outcast is an inside job.

The term ‘outcast’ in the OT means ‘thrown out’.

Jer 30:17 I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the LORD, ‘because you are called an outcast, Zion for whom no one cares’ – this is a person who is degraded in society.
We can think of many people who may fit this category.
But perhaps there exists an outcast in normal clothing. Maybe they are not the beggars on the street, the drunks in the bar, the criminals and low-life.
Maybe the outcast are God’s people v3; people who have not been where they should have been v3; people who have been oppressed for many years v8; people who struggle with fear v10; people who are hurting from their wounds v12; people with guilt v14; people with enemies v16.
Maybe you are the outcast, uncared for:
I will restore … and heal, says the Lord.

7 things to do whilst you’re waiting for things to improve!

JEREMIAH 29

1. Accept God knows where you are, He may have even put you there! v4
2. Make things as easy as you can for yourself, v5
3. Think of ways you can be sustainable in this place, v5
4. Grow, increase, don’t diminish just because you are not where you want to be, v6
5. Get on with the people of your circumstance and bless them, v7
6. Pray for everyone around you, v7
7. Do not be deceived into thinking short-cuts out of this circumstance is God, v8

CAN v WILL

JEREMIAH 28

By the end of the year you will be pregnant.
At this time next year you will have found the man of your dreams.
As quickly as this sickness came so as quickly it will leave.
Receive NOW.
We are all familiar with these kind of statements.
Nothing new.
Hananiah was one of those who gave such statements.
In 2 years I will break the yoke that binds you, I will bring back what your enemy has stolen from you and I will also bring back people that have left you.
Wonderful words! But …
Within months Hananiah had died, a false prophet. A prophet who not only spoke the truth of what God can do but what He will do. However, he stepped over the mark to say what God would do and when He would do it simply because he knew God could.
There are still prophetic words centring on the CAN, we focus our lives around His ability. But His CAN is in submission to His WILL and so must we be.
Not my will but yours be done.

It doesn’t always have to be a good day.

JEREMIAH 27

With a very clear illustrated prophecy, Jeremiah counters the prophets who say that the exile under Nebuchadnezzar will be short-lived. It won’t be.
God called Jeremiah to wear the yoke that oxen would wear. He told the Kings to come under Babylon for the people will remain controlled for the allotted time.
There are always prophets prophesying that life is going to get better. That a believer will not go through difficulty. They can be in fear of saying the truth.
Why do we think that God would make sure we did not have tough times and face the challenge of our enemy? It is wrong. It is not God. We need to speak truth. Life is tough.
Maybe staying in a difficult situation with no change is actually God.
Come under the yoke, submit and learn how to live with patience.

Everyone has mates
JEREMIAH 26

Baruch was the scribe for Jeremiah. We will see this stated in chapter 36. As secretary and friend he wrote down all of Jeremiah’s prophecies. We are reading Jeremiah today because of Baruch. We can see Baruch in today’s chapter in v20-23. Read it again, see the brackets? This is Baruch, adding his own insight into the situation where Jeremiah’s life is on the line as he faces his attackers. He mentions Uriah, another prophet like Jeremiah, but who in similar situations fled to Egypt but who then was killed.
The point is this: Baruch tells us that just like Jeremiah did, we must face up to that which opposes us and not run from it. Do not flee in fear, stand in faith. The Apostle Paul wrote “we face death all day long” (Rom 8:36); Isaiah prophesied the Messiah would set his face like flint (50:7) and Luke records how Jesus “resolutely set out to Jerusalem” (9:51). I used to sing as a child: “Because He lives I can face tomorrow …” So face it, don’t run from it.

Thanks to Baruch we are introduced to another friend of Jeremiah early on, Elnathan. He was an accomplice to the murder of the prophet Uriah. However by chapter 36 he has become one of a group of godly leaders who defended Jeremiah and Baruch.
The point is this: How you start, what has happened is one thing but how you turn out, what you will become, is another.

The third friend of Jeremiah is Ahikam, v24. As one of King Josiah’s counsellors he had been sent to seek God over what the finding of the book of the Law meant in 2 Kings 22. His past work meant he had authority, power and influence in the present and he used it to support Jeremiah.
The point is this: Use your influence to help those who are doing God’s work. Use your skills, your status, the people you know to do all you can to give support and the hand of friendship.