Month: March 2020

205. Lovingkindness, Judgment, Righteousness

Jeremiah 9:24 But let him that glorieth glory in the this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.

Glory in the Lord and boast in the cross. Glory in this, that you understand and know the Lord. This understanding and knowing is not your doing, but it the Lord that reveals Himself and opens your eyes to see. Jesus brings us to faith, which sees and knows both who the Lord is and what He does. God is who He is; He is, He was, and He always will be. Jesus is the great “I AM.” Thank God that He gives us the wisdom and understanding and vision to believe in Jesus for who He is. This is the promise.

Understanding what the Lord does is just as important as knowing who He is. God exercises lovingkindness, judgment and righteousness. This is His promise for He does this for us in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit convinces us of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. By the Spirit we have wisdom and understanding. Glory in that. 

God is Love, and He exercises that Steadfast Love in the world and in our own lives. He is Good, and He always will be. God’s lovingkindness is exercised in this way: He gave His Only Son. And believing in Him is eternal life. The Lord loves totally and unconditionally and eternally. We know it is so because He gave us Jesus and we see the love of God on the Cross, and He assures it to our hearts in the Resurrection. That’s a promise.

God is the Judge, and He exercises perfect and just judgment upon Sin, Death, and Satan on the Cross of the Son. His judgment is sure, final and eternal. Our enemies are completely vanquished. Thank God for His judgment at the cross, in our lives, and at the Last Day. All Evil is utterly defeated, once and for all. Trust the promise of judgment on the thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

God is Righteousness, and He exercises that righteousness by giving it to us by grace through faith in Christ. After the Word and Spirit convinces us of our sin and the judgment of evil, then He convinces us that the Lord has declared us righteous, and this righteousness we have received is God’s righteousness.

These are the things God loves to do: He delights in them. He acts according to His character. And this is a promise we can live with.

204. Dwell in the Land Forever

Isaiah 7:5-7 For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to you hurt: Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.

The conditional promise continues the previous verses with the promise to dwell in this place, with the additional promise “in the land…forever.” The ultimate fulfillment of the promise of living in the land forever cannot be the physical land of Palestine, for that land, as well as heaven and earth itself, will pass away and not last forever. The forever land is the eternal life, dwelling with God in the kingdom and in heaven forever, world without end. This promise has been fulfilled in the New Testament with the coming of Jesus Christ to bring in the kingdom of God. To dwell in this place signifies Jerusalem, Zion, and the Temple. This is the place where God dwells on the earth. This place, this temple, this dwelling-place becomes the physical body of Jesus when He is on the earth. After His resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, the dwelling-place of God on earth is the body of Christ, the Church, and the individual believers in it. And this place is a forever place. This wonderful paradise place is shown in the Book of Revelation. The promise is that in this forever land we will dwell forever in the glorious presence of God.

The condition, however, is spelled out a little more fully: If you amend your ways and doings, if you execute judgment, if you do not oppress, if you do not murder, and if you stop worshiping idol-gods, then you will dwell in the forever land. The conditions mentioned are pieces of the Ten Commandments. In other words, if you obey the Law you will have eternal life. So Jesus says in response to the ruler’s question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” [Luke 18:18ff.] He lists the Ten Commandments in order to say, “No one is good.” No one, not even one, has ever been good or kept the commandments. It is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

The condition of perfect obedience has been fully satisfied and met by Jesus Christ and His life. This holy life has been given to us who believe in Him. Therefore, Jesus can promise: “Believe in Me and you have eternal life.”

203. Dwell in This Place

Isaiah 7:3 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

The conditional promise: if you amend your ways, then you will dwell in this place. The “place” is the kingdom of God, the Church, heaven, the place where God dwells on earth. You will live with God in eternal life if you amend your ways and your doings.

“Amending your ways,” on the one hand, includes repentance and determining to live differently than you did before. True repentance is changing your ways and your doings. It is change for the better. But we fail in this endeavor so often that we seldom actually change our behavior for good. But keep doing it. Failing to keep our promises does not mean that we should give up and stop amending or repenting. Even when we fail to keep our word we need to make amends again and again, over and over, until it finally works. No matter how many times we do it, we should never stop repenting and believing.

On the other hand, the deeper meaning of “amending your ways” is simply “believing in God,” that is, worshiping the Lord alone and trusting in Him for forgiveness and salvation. It is turning away from other gods and fearing, loving, and trusting in the Lord only. Amending in this case is “changing your religion,” or looking to Jesus for forgiveness and salvation instead of trusting in self or others for help. You can’t change yourself, but the Lord can change you if you are willing to amend your trust, and believe God. 

The promise, in NT terms, says, “Believe in Jesus Christ and you have eternal life.” This gospel message changes us. “Dwelling in this place” in NT terms, means “living with God,” or better, God lives with you. This is eternal life. The more we are aware of and remember where we are and whose we are the better chance we have of actually changing our ways. We need this constant reminder because we are prone to sin and unbelief. Unbelief causes us to trust our own effort and strength and will power to amend our ways. Amend = believe in Jesus. Then God is with you and you are with Him.

202. God will Pardon

Jeremiah 5:1 Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it.

“If you can find a man, then I will pardon the Church, the city of God.” This is a conditional promise of pardon for God’s people, the condition being if there would be one man who executes judgment and seeks the truth. The problem is that there is no one, no one who will execute judgment and seek truth. Thus there is no pardon. The solution is that God Himself will come to earth and be the man who will execute judgment and seek truth. His name is Jesus. Thus there will be pardon.

The goal is pardon: it is a goal for God, for He desires to pardon His people and bring them to heaven with Him; it is a goal for us humans also for we need pardon desperately. The promise is that the Lord will pardon because He found a man, His own Son. This solution was a surprise for Sin, Death and Satan, who continued to rule because there was no man. God confounded the enemy by accomplishing the impossible. This is how He loved us: He sent His Son. Because of the innocent death and resurrection of this one man, who is also God, God can justly, fully, graciously and absolutely pardon those He loves. We have the fulfillment of this promise by believing in Jesus Christ, The Man.

If God could find a way to do the impossible and pardon us, we can also believe our God to do the impossible and find solutions for all of our problems. Very often the Lord will make a way where there is no way. Jesus is The Way. God pardons, and when He does he does a complete job, and He goes on to restore what was lost, fix up what is broken, and rebuild what is destroyed. Pardon not only frees but it also gives back to us what was in God’s original design for each of His people.

201. Salvation in the Lord

Jeremiah 3:23 Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel.

Salvation is of the Lord. Because God promises salvation only from Him we are obligated and motivated to “have no other gods,” meaning, we will fear, love and trust in God above all things. Jesus is the only Way, and He is also the sure and certain Way. There is no other way of life or way to God or way to life. There is no other name by which we must be saved. The Lord our God is our salvation. Jesus is the Lord our God. He is our salvation.

The “hills” and the “mountains” signifies the idols and the shrines on the high places where the people of the Lord would go to worship and see what good they could get from the demon gods. The Bible is clear: these other gods and demons cannot help you or save you. God is our salvation. We may not worship the demons on the high places any longer, but we sure do look to many other gods for our good and trust in other gods for blessing. These other things in which we trust don’t look like idols or demons, but they surely are all the same. The “other gods” do not seek your good, but they seek to do you harm. They threaten you with harm if you do not look to them for good. We need protection and salvation. God promises to give it by grace. Even our worship and sacrifice will not earn it. Jesus saves.

The biggest idol on the high place that we trust in is our own self. People soon learn in life that they cannot trust in other people, but it takes a long time and a hard time to learn that we cannot trust in our self. “I” become the demon idol god that represents the strongest competition to faith in Jesus Christ. It is hard to give up trust in Self: in vain is salvation hoped for from ME. Giving up on self and trusting in the Lord alone is a daily lesson that the Lord is trying to teach us constantly. Thus we need to learn over and over that “in the Lord is salvation.” We look only to Jesus for all good. And He never fails.

200. Heal Backslidings

Jeremiah 3:22 Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the Lord our God.

Return (repent) and the Lord will heal. Backsliding children are serious problems for God: those for whom God has done marvelous thing spurn that gracious love by ignoring the Lord and turning to self, to other gods, things, and people. Backsliders are considered to be on a slippery slope sliding out the door of the kingdom. But the good news is that they may return, and when they return God will heal.

The Lord is calling all to repentance since all sin; the Lord is constantly calling all to return since all backslide at some time or another to one degree or another. The Lord still loves and calls and causes the backslider to return. The promise then is that God will heal the backsliding. If it were not for this promise we would never return. Even the Prodigal Son could not initially believe the grace and kindness of the father when he returned, but he had hoped that maybe the father would take him on as a hired hand, since he knew he had rejected the father-son relationship. But Grace is surprising, even though that is God’s promise. God’s love is always greater than we can imagine.

The Lord promises to heal the backslidings. The healing involves two aspects: 1) He heals us of wanting to backslide again. We will backslide again, but the backslidings will be less frequent and not so far. It gets better once we are secure in the Father’s arms. And One Day the time will come, when we die, that we will definitely never backslide ever again for ever. 2) He heals us of the results of sliding back away from God. Backsliding always causes pain and poverty of soul. The Lord can and will heal this. We may deserve the messes sin causes us to get into, but the love and saving power of God is stronger still. He heals the sickness of soul; He repairs the broken; He restores the soul to the designed wholeness; He cleans up the mess; He puts us back on the path to life in place of tending toward death. All of this is included in the promise: “I will heal your backslidings.”

Our response to the loving kindness, tender goodness, and unconditional love of God is this: “we come unto thee.” We believe and confess: “you are the Lord our God, our Savior and Healer.” By the power of the Spirit we say: “Jesus is Lord!”

199. Turn and God will Bring

Jeremiah 3:14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you : and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

This is a conditional promise: if you turn, then I will bring you to the Kingdom of God. Backsliders were once in the faith and in the kingdom, but sliding backward they are sliding out of the kingdom and abandoning the faith. The Lord says, “Look at where you are and where you are heading and turn around. Turn back to me. We were married and faithful once. Now come back to me.”

The Lord promises that He will bring returners to Zion. Zion is the kingdom of God, the Church, the faithful people of God. When we turn, or repent, the Lord takes hold of us and brings us all the way back to Himself. We need to hear and believe this promise of God to turn back to God where we belong. Turning = Repenting. We honestly admit we erred, made mistakes, did wrong, went astray, ignored the Lord who bought us, and just plain sinned. It is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. True repentance includes faith in the mercy and goodness of God. When we repent and believe the Lord brings us all the way back. 

Repentance and faith do not get us into the kingdom, Zion. God’s mercy does. God does the bringing; our turning simply gives up on the self and the mess that sin got us into. We put ourselves at God’s disposal: “Thy will be done on earth.” Then He brings us into the fold and there keeps us safe and comfortable. God, the Holy Spirit, preaches the Gospel to the heart and convinces it to turn. He turns us around by loving and promising kindness. Then He brings us back to the Lord.

If we turn (or, let the Lord turn us), then the Lord will bring us to Himself. This promise motivates us to let God turn and bring. This “turning” is not a once in a lifetime event. It is necessary daily and weekly. If left to ourselves alone we will backslide; if left up to the Lord He will turn us and bring us back. That’s a promise.

198. Mercy Trumps Anger

Jeremiah 3:12 Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever.

Though the Lord is justly angry with Israel for their rejection of the Lord, their idolatry and spiritual adultery, and punishment is surely coming, He is still merciful and will not keep anger forever. In this prophecy is included a message of promise for all of us believers: the mercy of God trumps His anger. Mercy is stronger than judgment. The Bible is full of the anger of God and His righteous judgment on sin, idolatry, and disobedience, but the Bible is even fuller of the mercy of God.

This is in line with God’s nature and character: in Exodus 34:5 the Lord appears to Moses and says to him, “The Lord the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” This essential formula is repeated several times in the Scriptures so that we know who God is and what He is like. What we learn is that God does get angry, slowly, and he will by no means clear the guilty, but we also learn that God’s overriding character is mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. We take this promise to heart: God’s anger is real, but He will be merciful. God died for sinners and because of Christ forgives them in mercy.

We take heart and comfort and have hope in the mercy of God. “God, be merciful to me, a sinner,” and we go to our home justified. We confess that God is right: He is right to be justly angry at our sin, and us, and He is also right to be merciful and gracious and forgive our sin. On the basis of this promise we can live, today and forever. God does not overlook sin and just ignore it; He is angry. God forgives the sin: He is merciful. We acknowledge and confess both truths. God is angry, but He will not keep it forever: Jesus will come and die for the sin that makes God angry. The mercy of God does last forever, and because it does so do we. The Lord proclaims this promise in His Word and we believe it.

197. With You to Deliver

Jeremiah 1:19 And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.

This promise was given personally to Jeremiah in the midst of the Call to Jeremiah to become a prophet of the Lord. God had to make several promises to Jeremiah to convince him to speak the words the Lord will give him. Evil agents will come against him for speaking God’s Word of truth, but he should not be afraid of them. Enemies will fight, but fear them not for they will not prevail. Then the promise: “I am with you to deliver.”

This promise is the same and similar to other promises from God to us believers in the Word of God. Several times the Lord promises, “I will be with you,” and, “I will deliver you.” These promise are for all of us generally, and they are meant to be taken to heart in specific situations in which we are threatened or scared. This general promise is specifically for Jeremiah as the Lord is calling him. When you prophesy my words you will encounter resistance and threats, but fear not, for I am with you to deliver. The same promise is true for us: when we obey and live according to the law and will of God we can expect resistance and threats, but the Lord promises powerfully: “Fear not, for I am with you.”

The Word says that we can expect difficulties and opposition from the Enemy when we believe in Jesus and live accordingly. This warning is always connected to the promise “I am with you to deliver.” And we are told to pray and believe: “Deliver us from evil.” When Jesus commanded us to “Go, make disciples, baptize, teach…,” he concluded the Great Commission with the promise, “Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” In other words, do not be afraid of rejection for standing up for Jesus, for He is with you to deliver. The Enemy may manifest himself in human flesh from time to time, but the enemies of Sin, Death, and the Devil are the spiritual enemies of the soul from which we need deliverance daily. They never leave us alone, but the promise of Jesus is stronger, “I am with you, I will not leave you alone. Fear not!”

196. Seed and Name Remain

Isaiah 66:22 For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith he Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain.

God promises that our seed and our name shall remain. Heaven and earth will pass away along with everything and everyone in it, but Jesus says His word endures forever and will never pass away. After the universe passes away the Lord will create a new heaven and a new earth; this new universe will remain forever. This present age has a death sentence upon it; it will definitely pass away. But those who are connected to Jesus Christ by faith have His word and have eternal life, which will never pass away. We remain forever.

Our seed remains. Those who believe in Jesus have His seed within them and the seed inside remains: what is in us is eternal, and it will never perish. How do we know which seed we belong to? If you believe in Jesus you have the eternal seed. You will not die, perish, or come to an end; you will remain and live without end.

Our name remains. Our present name will be gone with the passing of this age, but we are promised a new name. This name that God gives us will last forever. The name is the person, the character, and the essential personality that makes us unique. This is what remain and lasts. In a serious sense, we can laugh at the present time of troubles, issues, and problems we deal with every day. Nothing will last except the New Creation made by God. And He has made each of us a new creation in Christ. I am not just a new creature, but I am a new creation, so that each of us may fit into and be compatible with the New Creation that God will make for us. This new creation is inside us now; we just don’t see it. What is unseen is eternal, and the new life earned by Christ and created by the Spirit remains forever, just like God. Since we have this promise we would do well to look at and focus on this new life, instead of getting bogged down on the old life. The old life is short and it will end; it has no promises. Which life will we look at and trust in?