Messenger Marcus proclaims the glory of the magnificent Jesus, and how we as believers should always boast in Christ alone – and no other.
HOPE OF GOD’S MERCY
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Jeremiah chapter 9 verses 22, 24
“Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”
This passage has a true new covenant feeling to it; the feel that God is with us, that we are walking with him and talking with him and rejoicing in Him. That our faith should cause us to boast in Christ alone! But the strange thing about the passage of scripture is that it is found in the context of divine judgment! In the middle of a message of divine judgment threatened by almighty God through the prophet Jeremiah to Jerusalem, this glistening verse shines out of the middle of God’s thundering voice as a beacon of the hope of God’s mercy!
GOD’S MERCY REACHES OUT
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This precious portion of scripture sandwiched in a chapter full of God’s judgment. is a picture and reminder to us that the grace of God is always there to reach the sinner. In a world full of rebellion against God; in a world full of pride in, a world full of darkness and iniquity God is weeping over the lost ones. He is desiring so greatly that they come to know him. He wants them to change their prideful rebellion and their independence from him to a dependence of love and deep friendship. This will be an amazing bond of love with him that will bring in their lives peace, salvation, prosperity, and everything that is good. It is precious to know the Lord. To rejoice in him is the most precious thing that can happen to a man or woman’s life.
So let’s look at the time that this was written. It was written around the time of king Josiah. Good king Josiah’s entry into Judah came after the kings of Amon and Mannasah who were two of the most wicked Kings in Judah. There had been some kind of of religious reform and the worship of Jehovah God had been reintroduced, but this was mostly ritualistic and religious tradition. King Josiah’s reforms had not really touched the hearts of the people who had gone from worse to worse in their rebellion against the Lord. The people were trusting in religious ritual to avert the judgment of almighty God. As Jeremiah confronted Judah’s leaders at the gates of the temple with God’s message of judgment, the religious cry came out again and again, “ the Temple of the Lord, The Temple of the Lord”. The people of Judah were trusting in religion, not understanding that God was not interested in ritual but he wanted their heart of obedience and the returning from the sin of cruelty and lies and adultery and dark things that they were committing.
AN EMPTY BOAST
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The reality is that no amount of religion – no amount of religious ritual can make a man clean in the eyes of God. There are people going through religious rituals all the time thinking that this makes them holy. But an empty religious ritual with its “smells and bells” cannot make them right with God; only a faith that has its boast in Christ alone. God requires truth in the inner parts. The tragedy about these people was that they were boasting. They were proudly boasting in their wisdom’. They were boasting in their strength; boasting in their supposed military might. They were boasting in their riches.
They supposed that they were secure by their wisdom in forging alliances with other nations. They thought themselves secure because they were going up to the temple of Jehovah. They believed themselves to be secure in their military strength and might. And they thought they were secure in their wealth.
All all the time the prophet was crying out, “ if you don’t repent God is going to send Judgment from Babylon. It was going to be a terrible judgment and the prophet was weeping. He was called a weeping prophet and he wrote……..
The weeping prophet
Jer 1:1, 2 – 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! Oh that I had in the desert a travelers’ lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a company of treacherous men.
THE CONVULSIVE SOBS OF JESUS
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Reading this passage reminds me of the CONVULSIVE SOBS OF JESUS our lord as he stood centuries later gazing at the Temple in Jerusalem. He knew that soon the people would be destroyed by the Romans who came in AD 70. The Bible doesn’t say he just wept. the bible says in the original Greek language that he sobbed convulsively saying ………“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (LUKE13: 34, 35 ESV)
A worldly Unbelieving man may make a fool of himself by not believing in the God who created this marvelous universe. An obviously and wise designed universe with the stars in space and the planets that circle so accurately. Gods creation of the mighty mountain ranges and every small flower. Everything that is beautiful. But even a born again Christian can be subject to this very very sneaky sin.
A born again Christian can even become proud about his or her spiritual gifts. A preacher can even have lofty boastful thoughts and become proud about a sermon he preached. He can even be proud about his on humility. How crazy! Someone can become proud about the money he has given to the church, or how many prayers he has prayed.
It’s vital that a Christian wars against spiritual pride of any sort.
I will now quote what Charles Spurgeon ( who is called “the prince of preachers) said about the sin of pride …………
“It is of the utmost importance to us to be kept humble. Consciousness of self-importance is a hateful delusion, but one into which we fall as naturally as weeds grow on a dunghill. Often we cannot be used by the Lord without dreams of personal greatness. We think ourselves almost indispensable to the church, foundations of the temple of God.
But the reality is ( as Spurgeon continues) – we are totally dependent upon God. He continues ….
“We are nothings and nobodies, but we do not think so! As soon as we are ‘put on the shelf ‘ we begin anxiously to ask , ‘How will the work go on without me?’ God sometimes weakens our strength at the very time when our presence seems most needed. Does this to teach us that we are not indispensable to His work, He shoes us that when we are most useful he can easily do without us. it is beyond all things desirable that self should be kept low and the Lord alone be magnified.”
