Jeremiah 15:16-18 - Why is my pain unending?

15:16-18

Jeremiah continues to stress his devotional credentials. He loved the word of God and devoured it with joy. It was his joy and his heart’s delight, and he bore the name of the Lord God Almighty. He was utterly devoted to God. He did not sit in the seat of mockers (Psalm 1:1), for he was appalled at their behaviour and words. One might have expected some reward for this level of devotion, and the price he paid, but instead his pain was unending. He was suffering much. So God was “like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails”. Jeremiah is calling God a liar, He is utterly unreliable! We should not seek to soften what Jeremiah is saying, for if we are honest there are times in our lives when we feel like Jeremiah. And God has recorded these words for us. They are for our strengthening and instruction, and we will get God’s response in the next few verses. These thoughts are wrong, but we are allowed to express them!

Matthew 7:16-18 - By their fruit will you know them

7:16,17

So how do we recognise them? And recognise the implication that we should be watching out for them (and the direct command in the previous verse that we should be doing this). We recognise them by their fruit, by the fruit of their lives, and the types of “disciples” that they produce. A bad tree will not produce good fruit, but a good tree will do so. What we believe matters and has real effects in life.

7:18

“A good tree cannot bear bad fruit ...” This ties in with Jesus’ later words that it is what is in our hearts that matters, much more than outward appearance. Jesus came to change our hearts, we needed to be born again, and the Holy Spirit needs to be continually working on the inside. This should also guide us in how we approach the Sermon on the Mount. If we view it as a set of rules we have really missed the point and will get nowhere. For the inside will not have changed at all. In fact we will be even worse off because the “rules” are even stricter than the Law. Instead we need to see it as the direction that the Holy Spirit is leading us in. He will be working on our innermost being to make us people who do live in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount.

Jeremiah 15:12-15 - Remember me and care for me

15:12-14

God warns Jeremiah that nothing is going to stop the Babylonian invasion. Jeremiah was hearing all sorts of voices that said everything would be alright. This would have been disconcerting for Jeremiah. Today we may hear many voices saying we should support LGBTQ, even voices from within the church. God reminds Jeremiah that it is His voice that Jeremiah should listen to. Then we get the real reason why resistance would be futile, and it is not because of the strength of the Babylonians, it is because God is the one bringing the destruction, Babylon is but an instrument. There is actually good news in this, for if a people repent the invasion would have failed or never happened at all. Once in captivity, if the people turn to God they will be saved.

15:15

Jeremiah continues his tale of self-pity. I say this not to judge him, for he had an incredibly difficult task, and we would act in at least the same way, if not far worse. Jeremiah calls on God to remember him and care for him. He also asks God not to take him away, and reminds God of all that he has suffered “for your sake”. Jeremiah was indeed “not taken away”, but remained in the ruins of Jerusalem.

Matthew 7:13-15 - Enter through the narrow gate

7:13,14

People like the idea of Jesus as a good teacher and a great example (though we are less keen on what He actually taught, and on putting His teachings into practice!). People want a wide open gate, open to all in any way. That is not what Jesus taught. We are to enter through the narrow gate. There is only one God, only one way to the Father. We are not free to pick and choose. Jesus is absolutely inclusive in that anyone can come to Him, repent, believe and seek to follow Him and live according to the word of God. Absolutely anyone, no matter what we are like, or where we come from, or what we have done. But Jesus is also absolutely exclusive. We need to repent, we need to believe in Christ, we need to choose to walk in His ways. There is no alternative.

There are many other ways, but they all lead to destruction. Jesus also says that many find the broad way, and few find the narrow way. There is a severity about Jesus’ words here, and we need to take them seriously.

7:15

There have always been warnings about false prophets, right back to Deuteronomy, and throughout the Old Testament. Nothing has changed. Jesus warns about them here, and the letters in the New Testament have plenty to say about false teachers and prophets. We learn something about how they operate. They come in sheep’s clothing, rather than wearing a t-shirt proclaiming their status as a messenger of falsehoods and lies. They will seem to be harmless, claiming to have the best interests of the church and of being faithful to Jesus. Just listen to the false teachers/prophets of today, whether they be from the prosperity gospel end of things, or the so-called progressive end. In reality they are ferocious wolves. They are destructive of people’s lives. We are far too tolerant of false teachings.

Jeremiah 15:10,11 - I will deliver you for a good purpose

15:10

Jeremiah is feeling sorry for himself! In the latter half of this chapter we have an interaction between Jeremiah and the Lord. The Bible does not condemn us for arguing with God, we just need to understand that we will lose? At least in the sense of losing the argument. In actual fact we will win, for when we are feeling disgruntled, even in utter despair, it is a sign that we are not seeing things as they really are, for God is always right, always just, always infinitely wise. Our arguing with God will lead to our perceptions changing. Job is perhaps the prime example. He spent many chapters complaining to God about the unjust treatment he was enduring, but the end result was that he realised God was so much greater than he was, and he ended up knowing God so much better than he had before, and being blessed more than he had been before. 

Anyway, at this stage Jeremiah regrets ever having been born, he thinks everyone and everything is against him. He reckons he is pretty much blameless, yet everyone curses him.

15:11

God then responds, and it is a reminder of the promise of His protection and favour. God would deliver him, and would do so for a “good purpose”. There were those who opposed him, who were his enemies, but there would come a time when they would plead with Jeremiah. The times of disaster would cause them to come to Jeremiah, the one they had so despised, and to look to him for help and wisdom. This is actually a repeated principle in the Bible. Those who oppose us, will one day look to us for wisdom.

Matthew 7:11,12 - Do unto others

7:11

Jesus continues with this theme. Notice the casual “you who are evil”. Jesus was under no illusion as to our true state! Yet even we demonstrate a high level of love and care. So if we who are evil can do that, how much more will our truly and wholly good Father do the same. God gives good gifts to His children.

7:12

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the prophets.” This is the so-called Golden Rule, and Jesus is probably using it to sum up everything He says in the Sermon on the Mount that refers to our attitudes and actions towards others. He has given several specific instructions or guidelines, but it is impossible to cover every specific situation (though the Rabbis had tried, which is why they had such an enormous number of rules). We need a guiding principle, and this is that guiding principle.

Jeremiah 15:5-9 - Who will mourn for you

15:5-7

The church often does things in a vain attempt to be more popular with the world, in doing this it increasingly drifts away from God’s word, and so from God. Eventually this leads to disaster, and then he world which the church so assiduously courted will not do a thing to help the church. Judah would experience the same phenomenon. She had looked to the other nations for help, the result of abandoning God would be a disaster, much of this would be at the hands of other nations. Why would all this happen? The answer is in 15:7 “for they have not changed their ways”.

15:8,9

The promise to Abraham was that his descendants would be more numerous than the grains of sand, that is the fruit of faith. The fruit of faithlessness is that it is widows who expand in numbers. So the men would die first, but then the mothers and other survivors would die.

Matthew 7:8-10 - Everyone who asks receives

7:8

So we are to ask, seek and knock. We will receive, find and doors will be opened. This will not be a “name it and claim it” type response, but a relationship and an adventure with God. We learn through an active relationship with God. And we pursue God prepared, even expecting, to be corrected and changed by God. Because we need correcting and changing. But we do not sit still.

7:9,10

So these two verses comes straight after Jesus urging us to ask, seek and knock. We might fear “what will we get?” “what will we find?”, “where will the open door lead to?”. But we have no need to fear, and Jesus talks about fathers and sons. A father is not going to give his son something harmful. We tend to look at life as though we are here on our own, subject to many dangers. I write this while we are in the midst of the Coronavirus crisis, and of course we are subject to dangers, but we are not on our own. The truth is that we live this life as children of our Father in Heaven, our good Father. Jesus is the Son of God, He showed us how to live life in the midst of trouble as the Son of God, in relationship with His Father. We need to learn to live life in relationship with our Father.

Jeremiah 15:3,4 - I will send four kinds of destroyers

15:3

Four destroyers are mentioned here. The sword to kill, but even death would not be the end of the humiliation. For the dogs, birds and wild animals would drag the bodies away and then devour them. There would be no dignity. God is really rubbing it in, leaving Judah in doubt to the horror that was about to befall her. This sort of stuff offends our Western ears, but think about it for a moment. Is sin really sin? Is it something that is terrible in itself, and has terrible consequences, or does it not really matter much at all? The Bible is clear that it is the former, and we only need to look around to see that the latter answer is not at all tenable. So if sin matters, and a people are bent on continuing down a road of sin, what should God do? Should He stand idly by and just let a people carry on, even though that is going to have increasingly terrible consequences for the people themselves, and for many others? A just God could not do that. Sinful man fully deserves all the judgement we read about in this book. Thankfully, that is not the whole story, for there is an offer of salvation as well, but we are not there yet.

15:4

God then turns from the metaphorical language to the actual historical situation. Judah would become abhorrent to the nations of the earth. The people of God only have glory when they are faithful to the Lord, otherwise they are abhorrent. And the same principle applies to the church. When we stick to the word of God we will have glory, when we abandon the word of God we will be despised by the world, and many church leaders would do well to ponder on this thought. Manasseh is singled out here, and he was the worst of Judah’s kings. 

A Mission Like No Other - A sermon on Jonah Chapter 3

A sermon on Jonah Chapter 3 can be found here:

Audio only - A Mission Like No Other

Video - A Mission Like No Other

Matthew 7:6,7 - Ask and it will be given

7:6

This is a difficult verse.Dogs is a term that Jews sometimes used to refer to Gentiles, and pigs were unclean animals. Perhaps Jesus is saying be careful about whom we share spiritual truths with, for they will not understand and it will not produce a good reaction. If we look at it in the immediate context then perhaps it is a warning that just telling people what is wrong with them will do no good.

7:7

The Christian life is not one of sitting around passively. Nor is it one of relying on some priest, guru, prophet or preacher to do all the thinking for us! We should actively ask, seek and knock. We pursue God, as He pursues us. Sometimes asking is presented as a kind of second rate type of prayer. This is a deeply unbiblical view. Scripture is clear, Jesus is clear, God wants us to ask of Him. Now He may well give us something very different, or in a very different way, than we envisaged. But our Father delights when we ask of Him. And we are to seek. We are to seek answers, to seek to understand, to seek His will. The process of seeking is important in itself. Again, we may find something very different from what we expected, but let us seek. And we are to knock. God wants us to try things out, to see if there is a way through this door. No passivity!

Jeremiah 15:1,2 - My heart would not go out for this people

15:1

Jeremiah has just pleaded on behalf of the people again, God responds by declaring how firm His decision is. Even if Moses or Samuel were to plead on behalf of the people God would not respond. Indeed, He has twice instructed Jeremiah not to pray for the people. In our church sessions there will always be someone who asks that someone be given another chance. In many ways this is commendable, but there comes a point where all a person’s chances have been used up and it is time to take firm action. 

15:2

No doubt the people would ask Jeremiah, “where shall we go?”. God gives him the answer he is to give to the people. “Those destined for death, to death ...” Oh, but we should give kind words!”. Sometimes we should give the blunt truth. We find a similar message in Rev 13:10, “If anyone is to go into captivity they will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword they will be killed”. There comes a point where the action that God has decreed will take place and there is no stopping it.

Matthew 7:3-5 - Should have gone to Planksavers!

7:3,4

“Why do you look at the spec of dust ...” The dust and plank analogy is a deliberate exaggeration. If we look back at the root of the issue, seeking to judge a person on the basis of a particular action, we get more of what Jesus is talking about. The person is basing his assessment of a person on a single action, but if any of us look at ourselves honestly and fully we will see a whole nest of sins and sinfulness. Maybe a plank isn’t an exaggeration after all! Moreover, you cannot base an assessment of a person on any one action. All of the heroes of the Bible had serious faults, look at David! So unless we are aware of the sinfulness in ourselves we are in no position to help the other person, nor are we if we are full of the notion that we are better than them.

7:5

Now look at this carefully. “You hypocrite ...”, so outright criticism. But then “first take ...” Jesus is NOT saying we should never seek to correct each other, but if it is done from a position of judgementalism then we are badly mistaken. If, instead, it is done from a position of humility and genuine care for the other person then we may indeed do some good.

Jeremiah 14:17-22 - Let my eyes overflow with tears

14:17,18

In some ways these verses seem rather strange. God has just been declaring the utter devastation that is about to engulf the land, the judgement upon Judah. Yet now God tells Jeremiah to declare to the people that His “eyes overflow with tears” at the extent of the devastation. One might be tempted to ask “if it upsets you so much why not stop it?” The reason is that the sin is so great, and the consequences of the sin are so great. People sometimes ask “how can a God of love send people to hell?” This is the wrong question, or we ask it looking at things from the wrong end. God does love all of mankind, and if the God who loves us deems it necessary to send us to hell our sin must be truly awful. God does not delight in the destruction of anyone, but, without Christ, it is the only thing that can be done.

14:19-22

Jeremiah then calls out to God, “have you rejected Judah completely?” “Have you afflicted us so that we cannot be healed?” Then in verse 20 Jeremiah speaks on behalf of the nation, acknowledging their sins. Of course, at this point the people of Jerusalem were doing no such thing, just as when Jesus was on the cross humanity was not acknowledging its own sin. Then Jeremiah calls on God not despise them, for the sake of His name. In a similar fashion Moses had called on God not to destroy Israel, for the sake of His name. Then even in the darkest hour Jeremiah puts his hope in God. Unlike Israel he knows that God is the only one who can help them. Look at the phrase “do the skies themselves send down showers?” The atheist's answer to this question is yes! But that is not the truth. It is God who sends down the rain. This does not mean the physical laws are not real, they are, but it is God who determines everything.

Matthew 7:1,2 - Do not judge

7:1

Oh dear, this is one of the most oft quoted verses in the Bible, but also the most misused. If someone says “do not judge” then you can be almost certain that the next thing they are going to say is unbiblical nonsense. This is primarily an instruction about judging people not actions, yet people often use it as a weapon against anyone who says what they are doing is wrong. Obviously we are not to be perpetually fault finding, such people really are a menace, but there is a time to say that certain actions are wrong. However, if a brother does something wrong, and that is not a sin that I commit, that does not mean that I am a better person than he is. Only God knows that, and all of us have fallen short of the glory of God.

7:2

If we do have a judgemental attitude towards others, then God will treat us in the same way. Now why would He do this? In order to bring us to our senses. So if we do point out a sin or fault to a person we do not do it in order to prove ourselves better than them, or to do them down. We do it in order to get them back on a growth path.

Jeremiah 14:15,16 - I did not send them

14:15

The false prophets were talking rubbish, yet would sound so confident, and were speaking things the people wanted to hear. However, events show up the rubbish they were peddling, and the false prophets themselves would die by sword and famine. The words we speak are important, and if we speak falsehood we can expect nothing good to come of it.

14:16

The fate of the hearers of the false prophets would be no better. One might say this is unfair, but it is not. The hearers had responsibility as well, they chose to listen to falsehoods. Note the implication that they could have detected that the false prophets were speaking rubbish. We have a responsibility to listen carefully to our preachers, to weigh what they say against the Bible. If it is consistent with the word, then good. But if it isn’t then we should reject what we hear.

Matthew 6:31-34 - Seek first His kingdom, and His righteousness

6:31,32

So now we get the upshot of all this. We are not to worry, spending all our time thinking about our daily needs. This is a command! However, it is one we find very difficult to observe. So what are we to do? Are we to live in condemnation? No. Jesus said that He did not come into the world to condemn the world. Rather, He came to save us from our sins. So we look to Jesus to teach us how to be different. We are to learn from Him. Moreover, we are meant to be different than the world, to be different and to live differently. Then Jesus adds that our Heavenly Father knows that we need the basics of life. We need to understand that one of the things that God is doing in our lives is to build up a relationship of trust in us with Him.

6:33,34

So we are not to worry, that is the negative. The positive is that we are to seek first the kingdom and His righteousness, “and all these things will be added unto you”. Note that it says “and”, not “so that”. If we “seek first the kingdom” thinking this is the best way to get our daily needs met we are badly mistaken. God has a far higher calling and purpose for us. Our daily needs are not to be a driving force in our lives. The final verse is very practical. It doesn’t mean we never think about the future, but that we don’t spend all our time worrying about tomorrow.

Jeremiah 14:13,14 - The prophets are prophesying lies

14:13

Jeremiah was not the only prophet around, though one of the few genuine prophets. These other prophets told the people what they wanted to hear. They told them that they would not suffer, but instead they would receive lasting peace in the Jerusalem. Such comforting words! But such false and worthless words. Things are no different today, nor have they ever been much different. There will always be teachers and prophets who will tell the people what they want to hear, rather than what God is actually saying.

14:14

God replies to Jeremiah quite directly, there is no beating about the bush that they might be “mistaken” or not quite right, or had a different perspective!. God declares that these prophets were prophesying lies in God’s name. They were not sent by God, were not appointed by Him and had never heard a word from God in their life! Instead they spoke out of the delusions of their own minds, as fo many today.

Matthew 6:27-30 - Why do you worry about clothes?

6:27,28

As well as God caring about us, worrying doesn’t actually do any good! No one can make their life better by worrying about it. Yet most (all?) of us have wasted an awful lot of time worrying, and caused ourselves much needless anxiety. Jesus then applies His lesson about the birds to the flowers. We all recognise that there are many beautiful types of flowers, and can marvel at them. Yet the flowers spent no time worrying about how to become so beautiful!

6:29,30

Men (and women!) spend great amounts of effort on trying to achieve beauty. Solomon created many great things, but none of them matched the beauty of nature. So if God provides beauty for the flowers, will he not also look after us? Moreover, flowers are here for only a short time, and yet God provides them with great beauty. “Oh you of little faith!” Notice that faith here is not believing things without evidence, but looking at the evidence that is all around us and deducing the truth from that. The problem is not that God has not provided sufficient evidence, but that we do not have eyes to see it!

Jeremiah 14:10-12 - Do not pray for them

14:10

God responds to Jeremiah by telling him, or reminding him, of what the people are like. The people loved to wander, they did not wish to follow God’s ways.  Indeed, they made no attempt to “restrain their feet”, to stop themselves from wandering from God’s ways. As an aside, we should make attempts to avoid wandering into sin. We should be careful with what we watch or read. We should be careful about our thoughts. We should do things that encourage us to do good, and avoid things that tend to lead us into temptation. “So the Lord does not accept them: He will now remember their wickedness”. God’s judgement, terrible as it would be, was not capricious or arbitrary. It was just. And Israel had had many warnings and much time to repent. She had not done so.

14:11,12

This is the third time that God has told Jeremiah not to pray for this people (Jer 7:16; 11:14). And the people’s fasting, crying out and making various offerings would do them no good. If Jeremiah saw them doing these things he may have been tempted to think that the people were repenting, and then prayed to God to call off the judgement. God says that even if they do these things it will do no good. Sword, famine and plague will come. Is God being unfair? Absolutely not. What was required was repentance from the heart, and God knew that such actions would only be concerned with avoiding the punishment, not about a change of their ways, not about a fundamental change of life. They would be outward actions only, and outward actions designed to appease God as though He was like the idols that the nations worshipped.

Matthew 6:25,26 - Do not worry about your life

6:25

Notice the “therefore” here, “therefore I tell you , do not worry ...” This follows on from what Jesus has been saying about treasures in heaven, and not serving money. Why are we so prone to serving money? It is because we believe that we need money in order to survive, in order to live. Sometimes it is pure greed that makes us serve money, but insecurity is by far the more common cause. So Jesus is addressing the root cause of our propensity to worship money. He tells us not worry about our daily needs, and that life is more than our daily needs. It is not that we do not need food and clothing, as Jesus will explicitly say later, but that we have a far higher purpose for our lives. 

6:26

Jesus then draws our attention to the birds of the air. They do not spend their time worrying, they just get on with being birds! For God provides for them. Of course, this does not mean they do not do anything to get their food, they have to go and look for it, but God does provide for them. So we should live our lives on the assumption that God will provide for us, especially as we are far more important than birds. These days there are some nutters who think we are just like birds and animals, and are no different from them. This is simply not true, and observably not true. We should care for animals and birds properly, but we are the only creatures who were made in God’s image.

Jeremiah 14:1-9 - Our sins testify against us

14:1-6

The coming invasion was not the only calamity to hit the land, there was a period of drought as well. These verses give a graphic description of the effect of this on everyday life. God speaks to our imagination as well as to our intellect. He wants us to get a graphic picture of the situation. We should also note that “natural” events are seens as God’s direct action. This does not mean the laws of physics do not apply! They do, they were created by God as part of the whole of creation, but events that happen can also be part of His decree. 

14:7-9

Jeremiah knew that all this was happening because “our sins testify against us”, yet he still calls on God to “do something for the sake of your name”. Jeremiah confesses the sins of the nation on the nation’s behalf. He appeals to God’s character and His relation to Israel. Yet God seemed “like a stranger”, He seemed to be far off. We often say God is in control and is never taken by surprise (all of which is true), yet it seemed as if these things were not true.

Matthew 6:22-24 - No one can serve two masters

6:22,23

“If your eyes are healthy “. How we view life, our outlook or worldview is so important. If we look at life with an earthbound perspective we get things wrong. We need to look at things from a Jesus perspective, a Biblical outlook. If we do that “our whole body will be full of light”. Conversely, if we look at things from a self-centred perspective, or a worldly perspective, “our whole body will be full of darkness”. It will have a deadly serious effect on everything about us, on our own well being (or lack of), and our effect on other people and the world around us. But if we have a Godly perspective then we will have a positive effect on the world around us.

6:24

This verse rounds up the whole discussion. We cannot serve two masters, and this verse makes clear that the two masters that Jesus has in mind are God and money. We will love one and hate the other. We need to put God first. So what do we then do about money? Does that mean it becomes irrelevant? No. If we serve money it becomes an end in itself. We want to horde more and more of it, and then God seems to be an enemy, for He has other purposes. A key question we can ask ourselves is how do we view giving to the church? Do we see it as reducing the amount of money we have, or do we see it as a good use of our money? Money becomes a means to an end, not an end in itself. So serving God is the end, is what we live for, and money is one of the means of doing that.

Jeremiah 13:20-27 - I will scatter you like chaff

13:20-23

At various points the so-called wise of Jerusalem had sought to make diplomatic overtures to Babylon, and other nations. Very soon they would see these same nations invading their land. We need to be careful whom we make alliances with. It can seem all so reasonable at one point in time, but can then result in our either being corrupted by the alliance, or being devoured by our “allies”. Why would this happen? Because of the sins of the people. It may surprise you to know that the phrase about a leopard not changing its spots comes from the Bible! Anyway, God uses the idiom to describe Israel’s inability to do good.

13:24-27

“I will scatter you like chaff ..” The people would be driven from Jerusalem and Judah. This is what God had decreed for Israel. This was not an arbitrary decision, but one based on their forgetting the Lord and turning to foreign gods. The nation would be put to shame. Worship of idols often involved sexual acts and God condemns the nation for them. They followed religious rituals in an effort to make themselves clean, but it was their sins that made them unclean. They needed to repent and turn to the Lord.

Matthew 6:19-21 - Where your treasure is

6:19-21

Man in his rebellious state is here and now focused, earthly focused. This can apply most obviously with money. Money is very powerful. In itself it is neither good nor bad, but it reflects what is in our hearts, and it can affect what goes on in our hearts. Our natural tendency is to store up treasures here on earth, but these are subject to decay and all sorts of disasters. They can be gone in an instant. Instead we are to be heavenly minded. This does not mean being other worldly in the sense of being clueless, or totally divorced from the world. When we give, be it to the church, or to various good causes, we are acting in a heavenly minded manner (as long as we are not doing it for show!). It means we are trusting in God, that we are concerned about His purposes. The result is that our characters will be formed to be more Christlike, and nothing can take that away, it is absolutely secure. Where our treasure is, our hearts will be also. If we store up treasures on earth money will tend to corrupt, if we store up treasures in heaven, our characters will be molded to be like Christ.

Jeremiah 13:15-19 - All Judah will be carried into exile

13:15-17

These are the words Jeremiah proclaimed to the nation in the light of what had been said. Note that the prophecies of doom were not final. They were given to bring home to the people what was going to happen, but there was a way out! Just as today there is a way out! That way is to turn to God, to repent and turn to Him. The way that people were heading would lead only to darkness, the way we are heading today as a nation is leading only to further darkness. While Jeremiah uttered this call, he knew that they would not respond. So he would weep bitterly for the people because they were going to go into deepest darkness. Jeremiah took no pleasure in the destruction of his people.

13:18,19

The king and queen were probably Jehoiachin and his mother Nehushta (2 Kings 24:8). Jeremiah tells them to come down from their thrones, for their crowns would be taken from their heads. They needed to humble themselves and repent, but they would not. So the people would be carried off into exile.

x

Matthew 6:14-18 - Do not look somber

6:14,15

We then get a very stern warning about the consequences of not forgiving others. We can view this legalistically, or we can view it as showing how the kingdom works. It is interesting that this is the aspect of the prayer that Jesus highlights. This may be because the religious leaders focused on proving how “good” they were. In reality, the kingdom works in a very different way. So we are not to be looking for reasons to condemn someone.

6:16-18

The hypocrites made a show of fasting, just as they did of giving and praying. Fasting, praying and giving are meant to be done for God, not to win the praise of men. So the hypocrites made sure they looked as though they were fasting, ie they looked pretty miserable. Instead, if we fast, (and the principles apply to anything we do for God) we are to look normal, not to make a show of it. Note that in all these things, Jesus tells us that when we do them in the right spirit our Father in Heaven will reward us. This is all about relationship building, and we will indeed get to know God better if we do things in the right spirit.

Jeremiah 13:12-14 - I will allow no pity

13:12-14

These verses seem hard to us, especially verse 14. Before we consider that, we will start with verse 12. The Jews saw Jerusalem and especially the temple as a place of safety, a place where God would protect them. The reality was somewhat different. Judah and Jerusalem were places where sin and unrighteousness abounded. So such a place was ripe for judgement. The people did not realise the state they were in, and judgement was sure to come. This would affect everyone, even the children. How terrible for God to include the children? Is what we might think, but let’s consider a different thought. How terrible for us to go down a road that would lead to our children suffering with us. There was no need for the Israelites to down the road they had chosen, even having gone down it, they could have repented. We are responsible for our own sins, and our sins affect other people.

Matthew 6:12,13 - Forgive us our debts

6:12

Next comes forgiveness. If we wanted we could take this as a command and almost treat it as a Law, but I do not believe this is helpful (this is not in anyway to belittle in anyway the seriousness of having an unforgiving heart). Rather we should look at the spirit of this, as Jesus has done with the Law as a whole. Forgiveness is the oil which keeps the church going. A car engine, no matter how good it is, will cease up if there is no oil. Likewise any relationship, any church will cease up if there is no forgiveness. The church is founded on forgiveness. If God had not forgiven us the church would never have started, neither you nor I would be allowed into the kingdom. In the same way we need to forgive each other. Every church leader, every husband or wife, every mother or father, so or daughter, church member will get some things wrong and do some things wrong. If there is no forgiveness then when this happens relationships or churches will break down. There does, of course, also need to be repentance when things go wrong as well.

6:13

We can very tied up in debates about why would God even think of leading us into temptation. “Temptation” can also be translated “testing”. Perhaps we should take a more practical approach. We need help, left to our own devices we will fall into temptation at some point, especially if we become proud or over-confident. We also need to be delivered from the evil one. We do need to fear Satan, but we do need to be aware of him, his plans and his power. And we need to pray for God’s protection. The “for yours is the kingdom ...” is only found in later manuscripts and is probably an addition.

Jeremiah 13:10,11 - But they have not listened

13:10

How had this pride manifested itself? First, they refused to listen to the word of God. Denigrating the position of Scripture is always a sure sign that a church is going in the wrong direction. So instead of listening to the word of God, they followed the stubbornness of their own hearts. Ironically, instead of freeing them from God, they merely tied themselves to other gods! The result of this would be that they would be completely useless. It is always a tragedy to leave God and will never result in an enrichment of life.

13:11

We get something of the heart of God here. A belt was bound around the waist. The houses of Israel and Judah were bound close to God.  And they were bound close to God for His renown, glory and honour. But they refused to listen to God. It might strike some as being rather selfish of God when He says “for my renown, glory and honour”, but this is not the case. Consider what happens when God’s name is honoured, the people flourish. Consider what happens when a people rebel against God. Crime, injustice and suffering abound.

Matthew 6:10,11 - Your kingdom come

6:10

“Your kingdom come ...” We were once rebels against God. Now we are still rebels, but this time rebels against the world. The Romans persecuted the Christians at various times ultimately because they would not say that Caesar is Lord, only that Christ is Lord. We are looking for the overthrow of the present world system. Of course, this is not a human rebellion, and certainly not a violent one, but we are most surely looking for the world to change, for rulers to be overthrown. We are looking for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. When the world goes down roads that are distinctly ungodly we must object. The sin affirming parts of the “church” are acting in disobedience to this prayer. Moreover, it is the Lord’s prayer that is truly radical, for it looks for the replacement of the whole world order with a new heaven and earth.

6:11

Later Jesus will say “seek first the kingdom of heaven and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you”  (Matt 6:33). This pattern is modelled in the prayer, for only after saying “thy kingdom come ...” do we get the prayer for our daily provision. We seek God’s kingdom first. This verse can be taken as saying meet our needs each day. There is value in taking each day as it comes (Matt 6:34), but we should not get too hung up on this. God does sometimes provide several days (or even years) worth at once!

Jeremiah 13:6-9 - I will ruin the pride of Judah

13:6,7

Sometime later God told Jeremiah to go and get the belt. Jeremiah obeyed. When he retrieved the belt it was ruined and useless. So the Israelites would suffer greatly during their time in exile. They would be reduced to nothing at all.

13:8,9

God now gives Jeremiah a clear explanation of what the purpose of the belt exercise was, although he may well have had a good idea by now. This is also a demonstration that using “non standard” methods of teaching (ie not just straightforward preaching) are somehow not godly. Problems arise when other methods (eg drama) dominate and preaching receives less and less attention. Anyway, the purpose was that the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem would be ruined. Jerusalem had become proud, thinking she was inherently great, instead of realising that her greatness was entirely dependent upon the grace of God.

Matthew 6:8,9 - Your Father knows what you need

6:8

“Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him”. Now this might raise the question for some of why do we need to pray at all then? At least part of the answer, and an important part, is that God is interested in us having a relationship with Him, of us knowing Him. Prayer should be natural. Part of the fruit of salvation is that we pray to God, He hears us and answers us. Another important part of the answer is that we have been told to pray, so just do it!

6:9

Having told them how not to pray, Jesus now provides positive instruction. This the the well known “Lord’s prayer”, though some say it is better to call it the disciples’ prayer. The former is actually better, as disciples Jesus is teaching us how to pray. He is not giving a form of words that must be used at all times, but a pattern for prayer. 

It starts with “Our Father in heaven”. We are praying to our Father, not to some remote deity. We do have a problem with this in that our modern concept of fatherhood does not match that well with the Biblical concept. In the Bible the Father has authority over the son (as was demonstrated in Jesus’ life). We have a relationship with the one who created all things, and sustains all things. When we pray we look beyond the here and now. And His name is to be honoured. Society does not do this, but we pray that it will happen.It is just not that we honour God’s name, but that we look for the time when every knee shall bow. This prayer is a spiritual warfare prayer, as the next verse will make even clearer.

Jeremiah 13:1-5 - I bought a belt

13:1,2

God now gives Jeremiah some instructions, and Jeremiah obeyed each instruction promptly. The first one was to buy a linen belt, to wear it and keep it away from water. The linen belt was symbolic of Israel’s holiness, and what she meant to God, of the closeness of the relationship. Jeremiah wore this belt around his waist. This was not a belt as we imagine it (eg to hold our trousers up!), but was worn close to the body.#

13:3-5

Jeremiah was to take the belt off and go and hide it at Perath. Perath was also used to refer to the River Euphrates. So the hiding of the belt in a crevice in the rocks represents the time of captivity in Babylon. Judah which had once been close to God, would be cast off for a period. Jeremiah once again obeyed God immediately.

Matthew 6:6,7 - Pray to your Father who is unseen

6:6

Having shown how not to do things, Jesus tells how to do this. We are to go into our own room and shut the door. No one will know we are praying except God and ourselves. Notice that Jesus refers to God as Father. This is communication between our Father and His child.  And He will reward us. Sometimes this will involve prayers being answer in exactly the way we expected, but much more importantly than that, it will involve God hearing us, and our relationship with Him being built up, and God working in our lives. Now this does not mean we should never pray in public, of course there are occasions for this. But we must never pray for show.

6:7

Being heard by God is not difficult! We might think it is, but we are mistaken. The pagans babbled away. This might be incoherent babbling, or just using fancy phrases. We so easily think that we have to do something special in order to get God to hear us. This is not true. He hears us because He is God. Trust, faith and obedience are the best ways to ensure God hears us. Of course, He always hears us, it is rather a matter of God responding positively towards us, and here faith and obedience are the keys. Nor should we think that praying in tongues is “magic”. It isn’t. At the same time praying in tongues is a good gift, and is a good thing to do.