ANOTHER SCROLL

Today’s Reading: Jeremiah 35-36

Click scripture link to read online or HERE to listen online (then click the symbol of the audio speaker above the scripture portion).

Sometimes hard to spot, Bedouin tents can be seen as you drive through the wilderness around the Jordan Valley. Jeremiah 35:7 tells us that, like some Bedouins, the Rechabites lived in isolated places.

GOOGLE MAPS – To see where the photo was taken, click HERE.

Key Verses: Jeremiah 35:13; 36:28

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Go and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, ‘Will you not receive instruction to obey My words?’ says the Lord…Take yet another scroll, and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned…”

Jeremiah 35 reverts back in time at least 11 years before the immediately preceding chapters. King Jehoiakim and his court had turned away from God, but there still were true believers in Jerusalem. The Rechabites (35:2) were a clan that had lived as nomads, living for the most part in tents in the wilderness, something like the Bedouin tent pictured above. They would not allow themselves to be under the influence of the corruption of the city, even though they had moved in for protection. They remained steadfast in their loyalty and obedience to God. They had maintained this for 300 years, ever since their ancestor, Jonadab, had helped King Jehu eradicate the worship of the false god, Baal, from Israel (read 2 Kings 10:15-23). They stayed away from the idolatrous cults in which intoxicating drink played a major role. The Lord used a test of the Rechabites’ obedience as an object lesson to show the rest of Jerusalem’s people how they had sinned. They would be put to shame by this example and hopefully repent! Let’s think about this example for us today.

Jeremiah 36 shows us that, even though the King burnt the first scroll which contained Jeremiah’s message from God, God’s Word will ultimately prevail.

Therefore, let us be loyal to God as were the Rechabites, and let us be determined to make the Word of God known as were Jeremiah and Baruch. Amen!!!

PRAYER FOR TODAY:

Lord God, there were Church of England priests by the names of John and Charles Wesley who, like Jonadab, the son of Rechab, left a legacy. The Wesley brothers’ legacy was known as Methodism. This message, and that of other men and women of God in other movements of revival, has reached down to my generation hundreds of years later and has had a profound influence on me. May I be faithful and wise in passing such a legacy on to future generations. In the Name of the One Who is Faithful and True, the Lord Jesus Christ (Messiah), Amen!!!

100 PERSONAL WORDS:

In a way, this blog is something like the efforts of Jeremiah and Baruch who had to do their scroll writings twice to make sure that God’s Word was maintained for current and future generations. I don’t understand much about the technology I’m using in making this blog. Sometimes I’ve made a technical mistake and my blog has been burned up somewhere in the “blogosphere.” I just pray for patience and write it again. Writing on a scroll would be simpler. I could understand that. Here is a way of writing that will last! I’m told that as long as the laws of God’s creation allow this blog to exist in the blogosphere, it will continue to be available all over the world! These words I’m typing will be here for anyone who takes the trouble to Google anything that approximates 100words, Crossroads, 100huntleystreet, etc. Please help share this blog with others. Remember, a person can start any day and in just 24 months complete the reading of the Bible from cover to cover, New Testament to the Old Testament and back to the New, book by book.

Yours for making absolutely sure that God’s Word is faithfully communicated!

David