What Will the Children Remember? – Day 288 Through the Bible

In Celo Lands - near Mt. Celo Church

My Meditations on Today’s Readings

(Ellipses are mine and are used for contemplation.)

What Will the Children Remember? - Jeremiah 17 and 18 – Facts: What It Says – Summarized) A sobering thought, isn’t it?  God is telling the prophet Jeremiah that the mission on which he is sent, is doomed.  God’s conditional covenant with His people has been habitually broken by the people. “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron…with the point of a diamond it is engraved…on the tablet of their heart…and on the horns of the altars…WHILE their children remember…their altars and wooden images…by the green trees on the high hills.”  The sin, the forsaking of God has been and will continue to be generational.  Three times in this book of the Bible thus far, God tells Jeremiah do NOT pray for this people.  God will plunder their wealth, their high places, will cause them to serve their enemies, “and you, even yourself, shall let go of your heritage, which I gave you.”  God’s Proverbial Reminders to Jeremiah on Blessings and Curses: 1) “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength…whose heart departs from the LORD….he is like a shrub in the desert…shall not see when good comes…inhabits the parched places in the wilderness.” 2) “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD and whose hope is the LORD…he is like a tree planted by waters….he will not fear WHEN heat comes nor be anxious in drought…but green in leaf and yielding fruit.”  3) “The heart is deceitful above all things…and desperately wicked.  Who can know it?  I, the LORD, search the heart…I test the mind…even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”  4) Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth BECAUSE they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.”  Jeremiah’s plea to God for His Word:  “Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; Save me, and I shall be saved, for You are my praise. Indeed they say to me, Where is the word of the LORD? Let it come now!”   God’s response regarding His Word: “Go…stand in the gate…Say to them…’Hear the word of the LORD…you kings and inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.”’ Blessings are promised if they heed and obey the word; curses will follow disobedience.  Another object lesson for the unrepentant people – always tied to His Word: “Arise, (Jeremiah)…go down to the potter’s house…and there I will cause you…to hear My words.”  There the potter is making a marred vessel into something good.  The LORD says, “O house of Israel…as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand!...to pluck up, to pull down, to destroy.”  God is yet merciful: “IF that nation… against whom I have spoken…turns from its evil…I will relent of the disaster I thought to bring upon it.  IF that nation…I speak concerning to build and to plant it, does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I would benefit it.  Turn now…ever one…from his evil way…and make your ways and your doings good.”  But the people chose “to walk according to their own plans – every one obeying the dictates of his evil heart.”  Then they verbally attack the prophet for bringing them God’s Word.  Principle:  Our walk of faith or of faithlessness has generational, earthly, and eternal consequences.  God continued to call His Chosen Nation and People and he continues to call us through His Word today to obedience.  The choice, and the resultant consequences, are ours.

A Prayer for the Soul Wishing to Turn to God – Psalm 118:25-29 (Facts: What It Says – Summarized) “Save now…I pray, O LORD.  O LORD, I pray…send now prosperity…Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!  We have blessed you from the house of the LORD.  God is the LORD, and He has given us light…You are my God…I will praise You…exalt You.  Give thanks to the LORD…for He is good!  For His mercy endures forever.” Principle:  The psalmist wrote this centuries before Christ, yet the principle is the same:  Acknowledge God as sovereign, acknowledge Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior (He who comes in the name of the LORD), praise Him, exalt Him, give thanks to Him for His mercy that endures forever.  (Matthew 23:39 – Jesus said, “…for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’)

Enduring Faith in the Midst of Persecution and Affliction – 1 Thessalonians 3 – (Facts: What It Says Summarized) – Paul has likely retreated to Athens after the Jews there cast his team out of Thessalonica for his effective teaching leading to many conversions (See Background – Grace to You).  Timothy was sent back to the Thessalonian new believers to “establish and encourage you concerning your faith…that no one should be shaken…by these afflictions; for you yourselves know…that we are appointed to this.”  But Timothy finds the young church “with faith and love and having a good remembrance of Paul and his fellow laborers in the gospel.”  The Thessalonians are encouraged to “stand fast in the Lord.”  Then the Apostle Paul prays for them – and us, “May the Lord make you increase…and abound…in love to one another and to all…SO THAT He may establish your hearts…blameless…in holiness…before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.” Principle: True faith will endure, stand fast and grow in the midst of persecution and affliction.  Often those persecutions and afflictions will come as a result of genuine faith, which is “sharing in the sufferings of Christ."

My Lessons and Applications: Note in the OT reading God's emphasis on hearing His Word and the prophet seeing the absence of God's Word as being tied directly to the downward spiral of the people. It is also noteworthy that both Jeremiah and Paul were persecuted for fulfilling their mission callings - taking God's Word to specific people.  They both knew beforehand, that they would suffer tribulation.  From today’s OT reading:  “Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah…for the word will not perish from the prophet…come, and let us attack him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.”  In the OT reading, Paul says “no one should be shaken for these afflictions…for you yourselves know that that we are appointed to this.  For, in fact, we told you before when we were with you that we would suffer tribulation, just as it happened.”  As believers today we are mocked and ridiculed at every turn of the corner – especially through media that shapes most thinking in contemporary society.  There are times when we need to get alone, need to be together to build each other up, always need time alone with God and in His Word with the Holy Spirit , need to constantly keep our eyes focused on Jesus, not the world.   In Philippians 2:15, Paul exhorted us to “be blameless and unoffending, the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world."  In today’s reading, he exhorts us to “be blameless in holiness before our God."  This is His kingdom call for believers is to be separate (holy) unto God while living to God’s glory within the world and fulfilling our great commission.  Then there is the individual call from God that each of has.  Oswald Chambers speaks to that personal calling in his beloved book:

"Fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ"  1 Thessalonians 3:2

After sanctification it is difficult to state what your aim in life is, because God has taken you up into His purpose by the Holy Ghost; He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of salvation…I have to learn that the aim in life is God’s, not mine.  God is using me from His great personal standpoint, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him.  Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

Gathered to Our People---Day 94 Through the Bible

                       A tradition in Western NC is an annual family reunion that centers around remembering those 
              who have "passed on".  It can be sobering to realize that we, too, will one day "be gathered to (our) people".

The realization of death--our own death, has the potential for humbling us and making us aware that a job, our family, or life in general will go on without us.  This is not something we want to consider.  Moses realized in Deuteronomy 31, that he was at the end of his life.  "I am one hundred and twenty years old today. I can no longer go out and come in" (verse 2).  I, myself, am less than four short years from attaining the 70 year life span that God says we are allotted on average (Psalm 90:10).  There are things I am physically unable to do any more (things you would probably laugh at unless you are my age). I am not "grieved" just yet, however I think I can understand a little about how Moses must have felt as he realized he was as close to the Promised Land as he was ever going to come.  My Dad lived to be almost 95, and I know there were things he really wanted to do, but was physically unable. This was not easy for him to accept.

I wonder if Moses had tears in his eyes as he gave his final instructions to the nation of Israel and prepared Joshua to lead.  During times when we see we are going no farther, there's no doubt a tendency to become self-centered and feel sorry for ourselves.  Our scriptures today offer much wisdom for this time in our lives. Without God's direction, Moses may have had "a break down" at this point.  The song God gave Moses for Israel, no doubt also served to help Moses focus on God's love as the end of his life was in view.  It doesn't seem Moses was feeling sorry for himself although this was surely a sad time for him. (We all basically share the same physical, intellectual, and emotional make up, whether we live now or lived a thousand years ago.  We all think alike in some basic areas and this can be deduced from historic figures in the Bible.)  Moses desired in his heart for Israel to know and love God.  "Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God and carefully observe all the words of this law" (verses 12-13).

Joshua's inauguration as Moses' replacement had to be a bittersweet milestone for Moses. God, our Provider, saw fit to give Moses this song for Israel that was actually a prediction of their future in the Promised Land.  Moses was busy finishing what God had instructed him to do.  He completed the writing of God's law in a book and entrusted this Book of the Law to the Levites to place in the Ark of the Covenant. God told him it would serve as a witness against Israel.  Moses knew the people's hearts.  He knew they would continue in rebellion and stubbornness even after they mourned his passing. He warned them that carefully observing God's law was "not a futile thing for you, because it is your life" (Deut. 32:47).

The song gave to Moses for Israel is recorded in Deut. 32: 1-43.  In essence, God says that regardless of our failure, He and His love for us will always remain the same.  "Greatness" can always--at any point, be "ascribed" to our God.  He has no end of days as Moses and as we have.  He is always just.  He is without injustice!  He is perfect.  He will always remain "A God of truth".  We are blemished and corrupt.  We fail to recognize we are His children.  All generations could no doubt fall under the category of "perverse and crooked" (Jesus referred to the generation of His time as "faithless and perverse" in Matthew and Luke (KJV).  We are foolish and unwise to reject the idea that God is our Father, that He bought us, made us, and establishes us!  We can trace what God has accomplished all the way back to Adam.  Oh, that we could see God's love for us--that "the Lord's portion is His people" (Deut. 32:9).  God's care over His people has been astounding and continues to be so (then, it was Israel; now it is those washed in His blood). He says He is to us "As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings" (verses 11-12), so the Lord leads us even in our generation.

This is an indepth song that God gave to Israel.  Moses must have been blessed by this review of Israel's history and God's journey with them every step of the way.  As I live out the remainder of my life, I pray God will help me live each day without regrets.  May I treasure the past--even the hard lessons I insisted upon learning and could evidently have learned no other way--and see that God has been with me every step of my way, also.  The song ends with God's promise to "avenge the blood of His servants, and render vengeance to His adversaries; He will provide atonement for His land and His people" (Deut. 32:43).  God never gives up on us! He knows that we are dust (Psalm 103:14) and has made provision for us even in this--perhaps especially in this.  Philippians 1:6, assures us that,"Being confident of this very thing, that he which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ"!

I have seen many in my family come to the end of their lives--all my grandparents, my father, my mother.  I know I will go the way they have gone.  Maybe God provides some comfort for us even in this (If they can do it, so can I).  He told Moses he was going up the mountain to die, "and be gathered to your people, just as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people".  God allowed Moses to at least "see the land before you, though you shall not go there" (verse 52).  It is so rewarding to know God!  We cannot go back at the end of our lives and fix things.  But at any point before we die, we can begin a new life in Christ by believing on Him.  I'm convinced that the only regret we will have by waiting until the end of our lives to do so, will be regretting that we waited so long to begin a relationship with our heavenly Father.  Yet, even in this scenario, we can be assured we will be spending eternity getting to know God and enjoying the security His love and His power offers!