Saturday 1 October

Jeremiah 2:31-4:9

Spoken warnings, internal motivations and actual actions are often different.  People regularly tell me that they struggle with how angry God seems to be in these great prophetic books.  But is that right?  Most of the prophets are made up of God’s spoken warnings to Israel - language chosen by him to communicate the severity of a situation and intended to provoke a response.  These spoken warning are often harsh, including accusations of brazen prostitution and promises of coming destruction.  They often speak of God’s unmoving and always-declared hostility to such actions.  God’s spoken warnings are like the signs on a harbour wall telling holidaymakers not to drive their jet-skis into it.  Indeed the spoken warnings are often more than that; they are like a huge public-address system bellowing at blind-drunk jetski-riders who are surging towards the wall at literally break-neck speed.  These are the spoken warnings.  They sound harsh - and they need to, they need to provoke a response.  Then there are internal motivations.  Jeremiah more than any other prophet seems to live-out and therefore expose God’s internal motivations for speaking.  Jeremiah shows us the wailing heart of God over the waywardness of his people.  “How gladly would I treat you like sons and give you... the most beautiful inheritance of any nation”.  “Return, faithless people; I will cure you of your backsliding”.  And then there are actual actions.  God acts by continuing to send prophet after prophet and prophetic utterance after prophetic utterance but the Judeans take no notice at all and smash themselves into the harbour wall.  The people have rebelled against God so long that they end up like rebels - expelled from the promised land and distanced from the provision of the covenant.  But that is not God’s last action.  After that came Jesus.  God came to sort things out himself.

Philippians 2:12-30

Paul says he rejoices that he is like a drink offering.  I’ve been like a drink offering for much of my life.  I’ve been like a toast - well intentioned words declared in public following by a little bit of clinking against others and then rapid pouring of sweet things down my own throat.  But Paul’s drink offering was not like a toast.  Paul’s drink offering was taking the sweet and pleasant nectar of the vine and pouring it out onto the burning altar then watching it disappear into the atmosphere.  Paul’s drink offering was taking his life-blood, his sweat, his brain cells, his money and his skills and pouring them out in service of the saints.  Paul’s drink offering was like Epaphroditus’ drink offering - life risking endeavours for the work of Christ, almost dying to provide help to other believers.  This is the kind of drink offering I would like to offer from now on.  Because this kind of drink offering creates an aroma that is pleasing to the Lord. 

Psalm 115:12-18

The Lord remembers us.