THE TRAGEDY OF A WASTED LIFE - Jer 13:1-11
Ever stop to examine your life? What is it lived for? Am I placing priorities on things that really matter in the big picture?
YOUNG MAN had an accident while driving his car that was quite spectacular. When the policeman arrived he found the young man standing near his car mumbling. As the officer approached he overheard the young man saying, ’Oh, my BMW, oh my BMW, oh my BMW’.
Looking at the young man the policeman said, "Are you nut, look at the condition of your arm, your left are is all mangled’. The young man looked down and said, ’Oh my Rolex, oh my Rolex, oh my Rolex’. Where are your priorities? Did you do anything that really mattered this week? TV you watched? Money you spent? Time you wasted?
Jer 13 teaches us about the judgment of God.
1) Illustration of it 2) Manner of it 3) Reason for it 4) Reason for God people
ILLUSTRATION OF GOD’S JUDGMENT
1. Go and purchase (1) Thus the Lord said to me, ’Go and buy yourself a linen waistband and put it around your waste, but do not put it in water. (2) So I bought the waistband in accordance with the word of the Lord and put it around my waist.
a. LYNNE’S FAVORITE VERSE: ’Go and buy’. She quotes it all the time. Sometimes God’s will just makes sense.
a. Sporting a brand new waistband: Get used to having it. Don’t think Jeremiah was gaining weight but God had a different purpose.
GIRDLE: used for different purpose(flatten tummy today). A belt made of leather, cloth or cord and was worn around the waist much like a belt of today. To bind up garments in order to prepare someone for service.
OT PRIEST: wore a girdle symbolizing a readiness to serve God.
JESUS: Luke 12:35 Spoke of His servants having, ’their loins girded about’. He girded Himself in order to prepare to wash the disciples feet.
ELIJAH: 1 Kings 18:46 girded up his loins in order to run
AGABUS: bound Paul’s hands and feet with his girdle Acts 21:11
PETER: urged early Christians to gird up the loins of your mind 1 Pet 1:13
a. Don’t wash it: Confusing but Jeremiah obeys
1. Go and Leave (3) Then the Word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, (4) ’Take the waistband that you have bought, which is around your waist, and arise, go to the Euphates and hide it there in a crevice of the rock.’ (5) So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord had commanded me.
a. Take to the riverside: not fearful of the lions & tigers near the Euphaties: They were all just a bunch of Euphratie cats.
a. Hid it in the rocks: Now God is not making sense
PASSOVER LAMB: Cute cuddly, spent days with family, killing the family pet.. Jeremiah had just learned to enjoy this new possession. Many compliments. Is that new? Wow? Looks good on you Jeremiah!
1. Go and see (6) After many days the Lord said to me, ’Arise go to the Euphrates and take from there the waistband which I commanded you to hide there.’ (7) Then I went to the Euphrates and dug, and I took the waistband from the place where I had hidden it; and lo, the waistband was ruined, it was totally worthless.
a. Jeremiah found the waistband that had been left to itself: ruined and worthless.
b. Not torn by animals or ripped by rocks but exposed to the elements.
DEMONSTRATION OF GOD’S JUDGMENT (8) Then the Word of the Lord came to me saying, (9) ’Thus says the Lord, Just so will I destroy the pride of Judah and will I destroy the great pride of Jerusalem.
1. Target of God’s judgment: PRIDE (city people more prideful than country)
a. PROPHETICALLY: Jeremiah is describing how God will deal with his people by putting them into captivity in Babylon for some time(70 years) and then to retrieve them back to the land.(Nehemiah/Ezra) The main target is pride: The more prideful we become as a people the larger a target we are for God’s judgment.
JAMESTOWN:First permanent settlement in the new world. Interesting attitude towards religious practices. 2 HOUR church services - EVERY DAY and 5 HOUR ones on Sunday. Attendance was mandatory. Missing church was considered a sin and dealt with in a criminal manner.
1 MISS: loss of food rations for an entire day.
Second: A public whipping
THIRD: placed in stocks daily for 6 months
Historians tells us that research has not revealed anyone in the Colony ever missing church 3 times. God’s judgment and man’s judgment can be quite different.
1. Not judgment by lightning, tornado, earthquake or flood but by simply the giving over to the consequences of rejecting His blessings.
a. MAL 3 promised open windows or consequence of closed ones - promised rebuke devourer or let it run free
JN 10 promised abundant life or mediocre life
Phil 4 peace beyond comprehension or fear, anxiety, anger
He didn’t give you what you got but you just didn’t get what He could have given you.
a. Earthquakes floods…etc are all part of the curse and are not necessarily sent but just are there.
REASON FOR GOD’S JUDGMENT (10) This wicked people, who refuse to listen to My Word, who walk in the stubborness of their hearts and have gone after other gods to serve them and to bow down to them, let them be just like t his waistband which is totally worthless.
KARL MENNINGER ’What ever became of Sin?’ The very word ’sin’ seems to have disappeared from our language, it went away. ’Doesn’t anyone ever sin anymore?
MARTIN LUTHER: ’The ultimate test of a sinner is that he doesn’t recognize his own sin’ DENIAL, JUSTIFICATION, EXCUSE, BLAME OTHERS…confession means I take the blame
1. There is a lifestyle that ends up like this waistband: totally worthless. It is based less on what I have done and more on how I have responded to three different things. They are called ’wicked people’.
a. Word of God - refuse to listen to My Words
1) They were listening to something: ’avoid worldly and empty talk…for it will lead to further ungodliness’
KID ENAMORED IN TV or WITH HEADPHONES ON HEAD They are not only tuning in whatever but tuning everything else out. God has been tuned out of many lives: not that some things is as bad as it is just the fact that it replaces God and His truth in our lives.
1) How can I actively give myself over to God’s voice in my life? Can I expect His Word to be shouted at me? Burning Bush
a. Ways of God - walk in the stubborness of their hearts
1) What words come to mind when you hear the word stubborn?
Hard, callus, numb, set in ways, hard to penetrate
1) Description of people’s hearts. Seen in how they live their lives. Persistent in the pursuit of self-centered activities. Unyielding form their pleasures to consider God’s priorities.
a. Worship of God - have gone after other gods to serve them and to bow down to them.
1) OTHER gods: They are giving their time, energy, resources and desires to something: the things of this world instead of God.
a. SERVE - Do what is necessary to please
a. BOW DOWN - give allegiance to(RED MONDAY/FRIDAY)
FOOTBALL SEASON: hundreds of thousands fill stadiums all over our nation. I have watched the Chiefs at Arrowhead. #1 parks a mile away #2 pay high price for privilege to park #3 Pay big bucks for ticket to get in stadium #4 Sit on hard seats next to inconsiderate people(smoke in your face, spill drinks and peanut shells, pass things across you) No one really speaks to you although they are within arms reach…….temperature is never right(swelter in heat or shiver in cold) HUNGRY pay $5 for cold hot dog and $3 for small watered down coke. Walk back to car down endless ramps and stairs, across mile of parking area, dodging traffic and then sit in line of cars f or 45 min to get to freeway and get home and say, ’WE HAD A WONDERFUL TIME’.
WHAT IF PEOPLE WERE THAT ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT GOD? Willing to park down at high school lot or even across in shopping center? Willing to pay $50 for that seat you are in right now? Thousands we would save in utilities if we didn’t have to keep climate just right. Willing to pay $3 for your Lord’s Supper items. What would the world think of people who cared that much about God?
REASON FOR GOD’S PEOPLE (11) For as the waistband clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole household of Israel and the whole household of Judah cling to Me, ’ declares the Lord, ’that they might be for Me a people, for renown, for praise and for glory; but they did not listen.’
1. God’s purpose in a life is realized when they ’cling’ to Him. What does this mean to you?
a. Same language used of husband/wife. If we treated our spouse as some people do God, how healthy would our marriage be?
MOODY ’God always uses the vessel closest at hand’
2. What happens when we ’cling’ to God:
a. A PEOPLE FOR RENOWN: Known primarily for one thing. Different jobs, homes but having one heart and passion.
b. A PEOPLE FOR PRAISE: One excitement in life that surpasses all others. JESUS. Enjoy other things but none replace Him.
c. A PEOPLE FOR GLORY: ’ornaments’ People who beautifully portray and symbolize an attractive image of God.
Psalmist said, ’The nearness of my God is my good’. How close do you feel to God today. Are you clinging to Him. Return to His Word, Walk in His ways, and Worship Him and not the things of the world.
1921 - DAVID AND SVEA FLOOD: went with 2 yr old son from Sweden into the heart of Africa. Met up with another couple named Ericksons and the four of them sought God’s direction and left the mission station and entered a remote area.
The chief of a village would not let them enter so they built mud huts 1/2 mile away on the slope of a nearby hill. They prayed for a spiritual breakthrough. Their only contact with the village was with a young boy who was allowed to sell them chickens and eggs twice a week. SVEA FLOOD(4’8") decided that if this was the only African should could talk to she would share Jesus with the young boy and succeeded in leading him to Christ..
No other breakthroughs came and Malaria began to strike them. The Ericksons decided to leave and soon SVEA became pregnant and gave birth in a state weakened by Malaria. 17 days later she died. DAVID FLOOD snapped inside: He dug a grave and buried his 27 yr old wife and then walked down the mountain to the mission station. He gave his newborn son to the Ericksons, ’I’m going back to Sweden, God has ruined my life’.
8 months later the Ericksons were stricken with sickness and died within days of each other. The bay was turned over to American missionaries who called her ’AGGIE’ and brought her to the US at age 3. They thought that returning to Africa might cause legal problems for the girl so they stayed in the US and pastored in South Dakota.
Aggie grew up and attended North Central Bible College and married Dewey Hurst. Together they entered ministry and Dewey became president of a Christian college in Seattle.
A Swedish religious magazine appeared in their mailbox one day. Aggie couldn’t read the words but turned through looking at the pictures. All the sudden a photo stopped her cold: A grave with a white cross in a primative setting: SVEA FLOOD. She hurried to the college where a faculty member translated the article for her.
Story of missionaries who came long ago…birth of a white baby….death of young mother….one little African boy led to Christ…boy grew up, persuaded chief to let him build school in village…won children to Christ…children led parents…Chief became Christian. Today 600 believers in one village. Attributed to the sacrifice of David and Svea Flood. NOT END OF STORY.
ALSO: 25th wedding trip to Sweden: Sought and found father David. Remarried with 4 children. Alchoholic….recent stroke…still bitter at God. Family warned. ’he has one rule..never mention name of God because God took everything from me’. Aggie found in apartment littered with squalor and liquor bottles. 73 yr old man in rumpled bed. PAPA. He began to cry, ’I never meant to give you away’. ’Okay, God took care of me’. God? God forgot all of us. Our lives have been like this because of him. Turned face back to the wall.
Aggie told him the story. ’Mama didn’t die in vain, papa…that little boy grew up and won an entire village to Jesus Christ. The one seed you planted kept growing and growing….Papa, Jesus loves you and has never hated you’. That afternoon David Flood came back to God..within weeks he was gone into eternity.
ALSO: few years past and Aggie was at Evangelistic Conference in London. Report was given from the nation of Zaire(former Belgian Congo) by superintendent of national church representing 110,000 believers. Aggie came to afterwards, ’Have you ever heard of David and Svea Flood? ’Yes, maam….it was Svea Flood who led me to Jesus Christ. I was the boy who brought food to your parents and to this day your mother’s grave and her memory are honored by all of us’ ’You must come because your mother is the most famous person in our history’.
THEY WENT: welcomed by cheering throngs of villagers…met man who carried her down mountain….escorted to see her mother’s grave. She knelt in the soil and gave thanks for a life that was not wasted. SHORT LIFE LIVED FOR GOD’S WILL BROUGHT ETERNAL REWARDS
A.W. TOZAR described to a young pastor how to gird up his life for service:
1. Keep your will surrendered to God.
2. Keep you heart & thought life clean
3. Keep your eyes on Jesus all the time
4. Stay dead(in compliment & criticism)
