The Heart, Part 2
Notes
Transcript
Heat
Pressures at work
Pressures at home
cars, possessions break, costs money
financial pressures
relational pressures
health
Frustration
Decay
Groaning
Pain, suffering
This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.
“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
Last week spent more time on the man who trusts in self and/or things of man
Trust in God
does not wither
green full of life
not worried in the drought
bears fruit
This section is included in Jeremiah’s confessions…
Confessions - dialogues with the LORD, which flowed from the heat he faced in his life. what was the heat?
His message was constantly doom and gloom, he saw the evil coming and wept for his people who would not listen
Jer 11.18-23 after the Lord showed him the plot of his family
Jer 12 - even though he said what God wanted, he saw the wicked prospering
Jeremiah 12:1–6 “You are always righteous, Lord, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts. Yet you know me, Lord; you see me and test my thoughts about you. Drag them off like sheep to be butchered! Set them apart for the day of slaughter! How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered? Because those who live in it are wicked, the animals and birds have perished. Moreover, the people are saying, “He will not see what happens to us.” “If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan? Your relatives, members of your own family— even they have betrayed you; they have raised a loud cry against you. Do not…”
Jer 14 - do not pray for this people
Jer 14 - all the other prophets kept saying there would be peace
Jer 16 - he could not marry, or go to funerals. do not mourn or show sympathy
Jer 18 - verbally attacked and ridiculed, ignored
Jeremiah 18:18–23 “They said, “Come, let’s make plans against Jeremiah; for the teaching of the law by the priest will not cease, nor will counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophets. So come, let’s attack him with our tongues and pay no attention to anything he says.” Listen to me, Lord; hear what my accusers are saying! Should good be repaid with evil? Yet they have dug a pit for me. Remember that I stood before you and spoke in their behalf to turn your wrath away from them. So give their children over to famine; hand them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives be made childless and widows; let their men be put to death, their young men slain by the sword in battle. Let a cry be heard from their houses when you suddenly bring invaders against them, for they have dug a pit to capture me and have hidden snares for my feet. But you, Lord, know all their plots to kill me. Do not forgive their crimes or blot out their sins from your sight. Let them be overthrown before you; deal with…”
Jer 20 - Priests in Jerusalem had him beaten and put into stocks at the gate
Jeremiah 20:7–13 “You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. I hear many whispering, “Terror on every side! Denounce him! Let’s denounce him!” All my friends are waiting for me to slip, saying, “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we will prevail over him and take our revenge on him.” But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten. Lord Almighty, you who examine the righteous and probe the heart and mind, let me see your vengeance on them, for to you I have committed my cause.…”
Jeremiah 20:14–18 “Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me not be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought my father the news, who made him very glad, saying, “A child is born to you—a son!” May that man be like the towns the Lord overthrew without pity. May he hear wailing in the morning, a battle cry at noon. For he did not kill me in the womb, with my mother as my grave, her womb enlarged forever. Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow and to end my days in shame?”
Jer 26 - Priests and prophets wanted him put to death
Jer 37 - Officials falsely accused him, beat and imprisoned him
Jer 38 - arrested and put into a well that ran out of water and was just mud that he sand down into
Alas, my mother, that you gave me birth, a man with whom the whole land strives and contends! I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.
The Lord said, “Surely I will deliver you for a good purpose; surely I will make your enemies plead with you in times of disaster and times of distress.
“Can a man break iron— iron from the north—or bronze?
Lord, you understand; remember me and care for me. Avenge me on my persecutors. You are long-suffering—do not take me away; think of how I suffer reproach for your sake.
When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, Lord God Almighty.
I never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me and you had filled me with indignation.
Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? You are to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails.
You are to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails
Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land.
They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.
Streams of water - Jer 2.13
“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Water in the desert
Water of life
Water of cleansing
Water of refreshing
Water - Ps 36.9, Is 55.1
Therefore this is what the Lord says: “If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me; if you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be my spokesman. Let this people turn to you, but you must not turn to them.
I will make you a wall to this people, a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you to rescue and save you,” declares the Lord.
“I will save you from the hands of the wicked and deliver you from the grasp of the cruel.”
Heart is deceitful
What is the heart?
Expository Dictionary of Bible Words: Word Studies for Key English Bible Words Based on the Hebrew and Greek Texts lēb [לֵב, 3820]; lēbāb [לֵבָב, 3824]
the inner person, the mind, understanding, and underlying attitudes of human beings...
the seat of a person’s inner being, guiding motivation, or moral conscience.
what was his motivation?
What was it he wanted?
Jeremiah realized that he was guilty before the Lord for not trusting the LORD.
He was doing the LORD’s work. But he had started to look at all of the heat, and was not trusting the LORD.
He was not wanting the LORD’s will, but his own… no suffering, acceptance, recognition
So, what does Jeremiah need to do?
God calls Jeremiah to repent… to turn back again to truly trusting in the LORD.
Only acknowledge your guilt— you have rebelled against the Lord your God, you have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every spreading tree, and have not obeyed me,’ ” declares the Lord.
Let us lie down in our shame, and let our disgrace cover us. We have sinned against the Lord our God, both we and our ancestors; from our youth till this day we have not obeyed the Lord our God.”
We acknowledge our wickedness, Lord, and the guilt of our ancestors; we have indeed sinned against you.
I think being called to repent was a jolt for Jeremiah, which led him to realize what we find back in our passage in Jeremiah 17.9.
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
The human mind is more deceitful than anything else. It is incurably bad. Who can understand it?
Heart is deceitful
heart - for the Jew of Jeremiah’s day - the mind, the thoughts
God and...
but my desires are good...
I, the Lord, probe into people’s minds. I examine people’s hearts. I deal with each person according to how he has behaved. I give them what they deserve based on what they have done.
where does that leave us? hopeless?
The Lord Knows the heart - our thinking
examine the mind - kidneys - emotions…
A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary.
Lord, you are the hope of Israel; all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.
Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.
God revives the heart of the contrite and lowly Is 57.15
For this is what the high and exalted One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.
After I strayed, I repented; after I came to understand, I beat my breast. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth.’
“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
What about me?
What about me?
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.
Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers.
A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;
idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions
and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Is 58 & 59 Give a glimpse into what God means by searching the heart. We see a people that seem to be following the Lord, but what is going on?
Is 58 - lack of true humility, do what they want
Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken falsely, and your tongue mutters wicked things.
No one calls for justice; no one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil.
They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched.
Their cobwebs are useless for clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are evil deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands.
Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. They pursue evil schemes; acts of violence mark their ways.
The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks along them will know peace.
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.
Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
