Lessons From Jeremiah – Part 24 – Never, Never Remove The Godly Ways God Mapped Out For Us – Listen And Repent Series

LESSONS FROM JEREMIAH – PART 24 – NEVER, NEVER REMOVE THE GODLY WAYS GOD MAPPED OUT FOR US – LISTEN AND REPENT

PART 24 - Jeremiah 6:16-19

CHAPTER 6

[B]. THE WILFUL REJECTION OF THE PEOPLE TO GOD’S CALLING

{{Jeremiah 6:16 Thus says the LORD, “Stand by the ways and see, and ask for THE ANCIENT PATHS where the good way is, and walk in it, and you shall find rest for your souls, but they said, ‘We will not walk in it. Jeremiah 6:17 “I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet,’ but they said, ‘We will not listen.’ Jeremiah 6:18 “Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. Jeremiah 6:19 Hear, O earth. Behold, I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their plans because THEY HAVE NOT LISTENED TO MY WORDS, and as for My law, they have rejected it also.”}}

(a). VERSE 16

Here we have an important verse in 16 for its universal truth applies to all ages. Through Jeremiah the nation was told to stand in the ways, that is, where the paths meet, and there observe, and then he had to ask for the ancient paths (“old paths” AV), literally “the eternal paths” which were declared to be where the good way is, and hen he had to walk in that way.

This is according to the word of God so it is most valuable for us. There were many paths being mapped out by the people all criss-crossing and confused, but among these paths were the good ones, the ancient paths, the ones designed by God. The early Christians were known as “the people of the way” and they followed the way given to them by the Lord Jesus Christ and by Scripture. That is the ancient way, because it was initiated by God, and His way is righteousness. Scripture speaks of a way that seems right unto man but the ways thereof are the ways of death. That is man’s self-religion his own way of attaining God like Nimrod building in arrogance and disobedience.

There are the ways of man and the ways of God and they are so different because one leads to eternal death and the other to eternal life. The ancient paths were the ones charted by God for the good of human beings and declared through His holy patriarchs of old and through His Law of old. These righteous men of the past walked in those ways as they followed God and we don’t have to guess how to do that because the instructions are clearly given by God Himself. We only need ears and/or eyes. But Judah chose to forge new paths inspired by human wisdom and sin. Those paths lead to death, and Judah sadly encountered that.

Once deviation occurs from the declared path given by God, then man has cut his own path in the wasteland. Today we live in a world with an unbelievable number of paths, ones forged by individuals, but worst of all, those legislated by Governments and by any in authority. As a result God’s ancient paths on marriage, gender roles, discipline, homosexuality, punishment, righteousness, creation/evolution in the school curriculum, and so many more, have been either reversed or expunged.

(Americans take note also – this applies to you, or it will soon). It is alarming the way successive Governments in Australia since 1975 have been overthrowing the edicts along the ancient paths as they bulldoze them out, and is it little wonder now that the nation is lost and is in all sorts of economic and moral and terrorist problems. Gentleness and discussion is replaced by belligerency and treacherous arrogance. What is declared to us through the Bible has been mapped through the collective wisdom and experience of the righteous men of the past with God’s instruction, but modern man glibly dismisses all that for his own modernity.

Even the ancient paths of culture and history have been slaughtered. Artistic talent and artistic discipline up to the end of the 19th century, produced works of absolute majesty in line with appeal and skill, so grand, it was as if the hand of God had painted the works. Whether it was a biblical portrayal or a portrait or landscape, the works appealed to goodness and a sense of harmonious balance, but in modern art, so called, anything goes, even to the most disjoint and confronting rubbish, and it is declared art.

People like Andy Warhol produce a whole canvass of repetitive baked bean cans and it is considered a masterpiece. Others who are abstract in their brains because of the maze of modern paths they tread (along with altering drugs), produce such weird abstract paintings, and others like Jason Pollock can throw paint at a canvass while drunk and that is considered art, and woe betide you if you criticise it. I was in the Australian National Art Gallery in Canberra and on one wall were two very, very large framed “paintings” or “works of art”, maybe 4 metres by 4 metres (13 feet square). Both were painted white all over and one had a straight vertical strip of a colour traversing it, and the other was the same, but a differently coloured strip. It must have cost the taxpayers a lot for that and they call that nonsense, art. Indeed, we have lost our ancient ways.