Welcome to another podcast of Struggling Well. We hope that you have had a good week and we're glad to be with you this morning, this afternoon, or this evening whenever you listen. today Jimmy's going to do the bulk of the talking. Well, not really. You know, I always interject, but there have been a couple of things on his heart from the book of Jeremiah that he'd love to share with you. So, Jimmy, tell us what's going on.
Yeah. Well, to confirm how just I'll use the word weird I am, my favorite book in the Old Testament is the book of Job. We all know that. We all know what Job's out. my second favorite book is the book of Jeremiah. a 40-year prophet who had a failed ministry in terms of people listening to what he had to say. No one listened to what Jeremiah had to say.
He was called the weeping prophet.
He was called the weeping prophet. Yeah. So, those are my two favorite books in the Old Testament. And with that, you can do your own psychoanalyzing of me. but the interesting thing is Jeremiah began his ministry, we're told, in the 13th year of Josiah, who was a good king in southern Judah. And so in so many ways, life on the surface in Judah at the time looked really good. So here comes this prophet with kind of a doom and gloom kind of God's going to judge you. And I'm sure people are wondering what's going on. But Jeremiah says this in the fifth chapter in the first verse. He says, "I searched for a man who would do justice and seeks truth and I couldn't find one." And so if you d begin to dive into what was going on in Judah and Israel at that time. What you find out is that people lied about who the Lord was. They were foolish and senseless. their hearts were stubborn and rebellious. they weren't ashamed. All those things are in the fifth chapter of the book of Jeremiah. Well, in the sixth chapter in Jeremiah, Jeremiah says this, and this is the context for this verse. Thus sayeth the Lord, stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient paths. where the good way is and walk in it and find rest for your souls. So, here we are, a man who's prophesizing on behalf of God to a people who are basically seemingly in a good spot and yet when you begin to look at what was going on in their lives and in their hearts, they weren't walking in the ways of God at all.
Can I ask you Oh, I'm sorry.
No, go ahead.
No, I wanted to ask can you give context to what the word prophesy means? What was what Why had God chosen him? And what was he wanting him to tell the people?
Well, the why, I don't know. God chose Jeremiah as a prophet. That's true.
and he was supposed to speak forth God's words for what God saw when he looked at his people
and said this, you know, this is going to take place. This is going to happen
because their behavior was
their behavior was wrong. Okay?
Their behavior was wrong. And so, he then says that in chapter 6 and verse 16 to find the ancient has find a good way and walk in them. And you would think that when this spokesperson for God said those things that people would listen, but the people said this, "We will not walk in it." So they basically said, "We're not going to we're not going to listen." They refuse to listen or to live in the manner that Jeremiah had talked about.
And it for us, we read that and we go, "Well, you're why would you do that? But the question I have is, do we do the same thing today?
In verse 15, what's interesting is, and I'm reading from the NLT, it says, Jeremiah says, "Are they ashamed of their disgusting actions?" Not at all. They don't even know how to blush.
Yeah. Yeah. So, so I try to take those passages and bring them forward. We're not living in Judah in the day of Jeremiah, but we are living still as God's people in a world that has turned its back on him and his ways. And it reminds me that the ancient paths to me are the truth of biblical faith, the gospel. And then the ethical demands that places on my life, the ethical response, the way I should live, how I should live in light of the gospel and the truth of the gospel, in light of biblical faith and the truth of biblical faith. And Jesus asked the same thing of people in a different way. and he wanted people to find and walk in a way that would produce a rest and a peace with God. And yet I think so many people today still are refusing to walk in the ways that God has asked us to walk.
And God had laid it out and you have it here on our notes that he laid it out in the book of Deuteronomy, the law. He laid out what the ways that people were supposed to live in or for several reasons. One, it was being obedient to him. and then another way was protection for them and the ability to be unified together because they were following the same standard.
Yeah. And so you fast forwarded into the New Testament for those who are saying, "Well, that's the Old Testament. This is the New Testament we live in." Jesus said this in Matthew 11. Come to me all you who are labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly. in heart and you will find rest for your souls. Take my yolks. My yoke for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So Jesus is calling us to this new covenant that he established. and yet it's still sometimes we fail to do that. We don't listen to that.
It's kind of shocking, isn't it? It was shocking every time I read in the Old Testament Jeremiah, any of the Old Testament books where prophets were speaking God's word to do them. It is shocking how they will obey for a short amount of time and then they're like, "Ah, forget that. That's my version." And they go back to their evil ways. And yet, it shouldn't be shocking because isn't that what we struggle with the world on a large scale, but then us individually, God does reveal something in our lives that needs to go or we need to consider and we either will sit with it and ask God to continue to show us a way that might be offensive in us or we carry on. We just refuse to obey.
Yeah. And so here here's the thing that I remind myself of because it's not about rule following. you've listened to me long enough to know that I don't believe in that. But it is going this is the designer of life. God is the one who designed life to be lived a certain way. Why would I look to the designer and say your ways aren't good?
And it comes down to the issue of my heart. It comes down to the thing it was still true for Israel in the day when Jeremiah spoke. It was not just a command. It was but it was the issues of their heart. So there was no they thought they had it all because they were God's people because they had the temple, they had the law and all these other things. But it was the fact that they couldn't translate that into their everyday life and how they treated people. And so the ethical demands of how to live life never really caught hold and I fear sometimes the same thing for us today.
This is just percolating in my mind right now. So I don't know how exactly how it's going to translate but so let's bring it forward. Let's bring it to today. And the question that is stirring in my mind right now is when was the last time I felt conviction for sin? And I asked that because we are all sinful people at our core without when we Our sin has been paid for by Christ, but we still wrestle with our old nature. So, how often do we do I stop and go, Lord, where where's the sin in me? Show me the places where I am not being obedient to you. And I think that's a place we need to consider.
Yeah. I'm going to add one word to what you just said, not just sin, relational sin, which I think is the part that is so hard for us to come to grips with how we treat other people, how we respond. other people. And that was not all of the issues for the people of Judah in Jeremiah's day, but that was a big part of the issue was how they were treating each other and the ways that they were poorly treating, injustly treating, unkindly treating. And so to me, it's all about relational sin.
And I think we see a lot of it today. and just thinking about which I hate to go here, but we'll go here for a minute. Just looking at the political uproar in our nation across the world, not just here, just how we treat somebody who thinks differently than us. and usually it's not just intelligent discourse, it's often times sinning against one another in the way we respond or judge one another.
Yeah. So, as we leave you this week with these thoughts, I hope that you will consider the ancient paths, walk in them, and find peace and rest for your soul. Have a great week.
Thanks foring joining us. To learn more about the Struggling Well podcast, visit tandemspirituality. com.