Turn to Jeremiah 8 and we will continue our study through the word of God.
As we remember this message of Jeremiah began in chapter 7. The background for it is the reinstituting of the temple worship. Under the reign of Manasseh the temple had been neglected, it had come into a state of disrepair. It was really just filled with rubble and trash and they had stopped having the prayers and sacrifices. So when Josiah came to the throne in his eighth year of his reign he began a spiritual reformation. It began with ridding the land of its idols and the places of worship of the pagan gods. He then collected money and ordered that the temple should be refurbished, it should be cleaned up and remodeled and just spiffed up again. So they hired the workman to do this job of remodeling the temple.
During this remodeling project Hilkiah the high priest found a copy of the Law. So he sent it by Shaphan the scribe to king Josiah, who when Shaphan was reading in the Law of God he saw in the Law how that God had promised a blessing if the people would worship Him and keep His commandments but the curse that would come upon them if they turned to other gods and worshipped other gods. So he realized that the trespass of Judah the nation was much greater than what he originally thought it to be. He ordered even further spiritual reforms.
They also read in the Law of God concerning the holidays that were to be kept, the feast days that were to be kept by the nation. So he ordered that they have the feast of the Passover. The temple is reopened. And now the glorious feast of the Passover is going to be kept. That was in the eighteenth year of his reign. So as the people gathered into the temple and were excited that the temple has now been remodeled and back into use. They are going to the temple with their families for these feast days and to worship God.
The Lord sent Jeremiah down to the gate of the temple to cry this message to the people. And as we looked at the beginning of the message in chapter 7 the thought was: don’t rely upon the fact that you are going to church, so to speak, again that this is going to be your salvation. It is more than just a formality. God is looking for a change of heart. God is looking for a thorough spiritual reformation within. Don’t trust in lying vanities saying, “the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” The fact that you are going to the temple, that that is going to suffice. God is looking for a true worship from your heart, a true cutting away of idols. And they were trusting now in the fact that the temple was rebuilt that it would bring them security from their enemies, that they would now be preserved in the land, that now just because the temple is functioning once more we don’t have to worry about an enemy invasion.
But the Lord is saying that it is more than formalized religion. That is not going to save you. It is only a relationship with God that is going to save. And so he is still at the gate of the temple as the people are passing by and here is this young kid as he is announcing the message of God to the people. He can’t be more than twenty years old or so at this point, twenty or twenty-one, just a young fellow. He is down there at the temple gate crying this message. So chapter 8 verse 1, the message of the temple in the temple gate there. This is the time when verse 34 goes back naturally to verse 34 of the previous chapter when he talks about how he will cause Judah to cease to exist as a nation. The streets of Jerusalem will no longer will be filled with the voices of partying and the voices of gladness or the brides and the bridegrooms, it is going to be desolate, they are to be destroyed, the cities of Judah will be destroyed, the carcasses of the people will be for meat for the birds. The vultures will be feeding on their carcasses. And at that time, that is when Babylon conquerors Jerusalem.
At that time, saith the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves (8:1):
Probably they practiced what was often practiced in other cultures, and that is when a person of prominence, a king or when a wealthy person died, when they buried them they often buried some of their possessions with them. And so the burial spots became treasure troves for the treasure hunters. The place that they would dig to find treasure would often be in the graves of the dead.
In Egypt of course we have discovered the riches of king Tut that were buried with him and they have been on display through the U.S. and all. And that was a common practice when the person died to bury some of his most valued possessions with him, some of the treasure with him. So they are talking here about opening the graves. The idea would not be to desecrate the skeleton but to get the treasure, in so doing they would pull the bones out and scatter the bones there on the ground.
And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped(8:2):
They will just be scattered out on the ground, under the son to be bleached in that hot desert sun. The irony of it though, is that one of the indictments that God had against Judah was that they had turned from the worship of God and they were worshipping idols and false gods. Now, usually in the pagan cultures those that worship the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars, the constellations are quite common in most of your primitive type cultures to worship the moon and the sun. You can go today down into Bolivia to the area they call the green hell country of Bolivia and there among the Saranoy Indian a very primitive tribal group, every full moon you will see them dancing all night long under the full moon. They are worshipping the moon. You will find the same is true in Irian Jaya and in Borneo and New Guinea there is that worship of the planets or of the sun and the moon. And it is very common among the more primitive type of cultures.
It was very common in the Bible days. In Egypt they worshipped the sun as the chief god, Ray was the chief god of the Egyptians. In Greece they were worshipping Jupiter and Venus and Mercury and the various planets as well as the sun and the moon. In Babylon they were worshipping constellations and they devised their astrology and the first horoscopes came from Babylon.
And the Jews, God’s people, had adopted these pagan practices. Now, it is manifestly wrong to worship the creation. We should worship the Creator. There mistake was stopping short of the Creator and they worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator who is blessed for evermore. And so Paul follows this in Romans 1 how that when they knew God they did not glorify Him as God and they became vain in their imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkened and professing themselves to be wise they became fools because they began to worship and serve the creature more than the Creator. And we have often talked about the rational and irrational ways of observing nature. A person picks a rose, he sees the deep reddish color in the rose, almost a velvety sheen on the pedals. He bathes his nose in it, he takes a deep whiff and just spaces on the glorious aroma and with a far away look he says, “Oh, that is God.” NO! That is not God that is a rose, but it was created by God and God was the one who designed the beauty of the pedals and the colors but it is a creation of God and so you don’t worship the rose, you worship God who created and designed the rose.
So they made that mistake of worshipping and serving the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever more. Man is doing that today. The worship of nature today is very common. And all of the movements that are revolved around the worship of nature and the saving of the earth and all of this. It stems back to worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator. And so because they did not want to retain God in their minds God gave them over to reprobate minds and He describes the downward trend there in Romans 1. You have a classic example of that whole thing a couple weeks out here of what Paul is describing in Romans 1 when people no longer want to retain God in their minds and they are given over to reprobate minds. Just read Romans 1 and you will understand exactly what is going on. So these people of God who knew God, they no longer glorified Him as God, they began to worship the creation of God, they worshipped the stars, they worshipped the host of heaven, the constellations, they worshipped the sun, they worshipped the moon like the pagan nations around them. They developed a love for these pagan religions.
The pagan religions all appeal to the flesh. In the pagan religions there was that worship of the reproductive capacities of man. There is always a marvel that man has the capacity to reproduce himself, to bring forth new life. The birth of a baby has to be one of the most exciting and thrilling experiences that a person could ever have, to see that new life come forth and to realize that within that little body there is all the potentials for the development of the muscles, the mind and the whole thing that is there, the personality and you feel like you are standing in the presence of God when you stand there at the birth of a child because there is new life and the creation of life and it is an exciting experience. But for the ancients, they began to deify the reproductive capacities of man and they then began to make idols and images that would represent these capacities and they worshipped it as god. But again it is just a beautiful illustration of the wisdom of God in design. How God has designed from that combination of cells that there can come with the gene information, all of the information coded there to create the color of the eyes, the shape of the face, the color of the hair, the whole thing, it is all there. It is a marvelously designed work of God.
If you would take and decode just one cell of your body, decode the information that is in the DNA of just one cell of your body, in decoding the information it would fill a thousand books of a thousand pages each, just one cell of your body there is that much information coded in to the DNA if that cell. And so you look at that and you say what a marvelously wise God, but they were stopping short of that, they were worshipping instead the reproductive capacities rather than God who gave the reproductive capacities. And in so doing they were changing the use, rather than using it as God intended as a bond in marriage and a way of uniting the two to become one in a commitment of life to each other they were using it as instruments of pleasure and excitement and thrill and changing the purposes of God.
So their bones, they worshipped the sun and the moon, all right, your bones of your princes and the chief people and the kings will be spread out under the sun and the moon and the host of heaven which you have worshipped. But the worship begins with love, whom you have loved. And then from love it goes to serving. As we mentioned this morning when you love a person you actually are sort of surrendering to that person, surrendering a portion of your will. You live to please them, you do thing to please them, there is a denial of your own desires many times and the surrendering in order to please them, serving. And then it begins to alter the course of your life, you begin to walk and then you begin to seek after and finally you worship. And so with the false gods; they loved the worship, they began to serve these false gods, they began to walk after these gods, they began to seek after them and finally they worshipped them.
they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth (8:2).
At that time the siege by Babylon and the destruction by Babylon will be so severe, the times will be so hard that death will be preferable to life. They would rather die than live under the hardships that will be forced upon them by the Babylonians.
And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of them that remain of this evil family, ( the family of the king, of course the descendants of Josiah became progressively worse, Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin and all).

And where they will be driven they will be carried away captive but their lives will be so miserable they will wish that they were dead.
Moreover thou shalt say unto them, thus saith the Lord; Shall they fall, and not arise? shall he turn away, and not turn?
Now the natural thing if you fall down is to get up. When a child falls and he is lying there, you say, “Get up.” That is the natural thing. If you go straying off the natural thing is to return. Now the Lord is saying they are not natural. They have fallen into this idolatry, but they haven’t come out of it. They didn’t really rise out of the practices. They have strayed from the path of the Lord, but they won’t return to the path of the Lord. But the Lord said,
Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast deceit, they refuse to return.
The natural thing would be for them to come back to God when they see what the worship of these false gods has brought them to, when they see the destruction, the desolation, the horror that it has brought, surely they would turn back to God. Surely it would cause them to really seek the Lord. But the Lord is astonished that in spite of all of the judgment that is coming there is not really a seeking God or a returning to God.
You would think that with the aids epidemic people would think twice concerning the lifestyle into which they have turned. They would think that would cause them to say, “Wait a minute. This is the path of death, not of pleasure.” And God marvels that they refuse to return to Him.
It is interesting to me in the book of Revelation as it describes the great judgment of God that is going to come upon the earth. As Jesus said, “ The time of great tribulation such as the world has never seen before or will ever see again.” As you are in the midst of the great tribulation and these judgments of God that are coming upon the earth, horrendous, cataclysmic type of judgments. It says concerning the people that are living on the earth enduring these judgments, going through it experiencing it, neither repented they of their fornication or of their drug use, or of their blasphemies but yet in the midst of this they blasphemed the God of heaven. Their hard impenitent heart. And that is something that is hard for us to grasp who have come to that place of repentance and sorrow for our sin and asked God to forgive us and when we have been brought into fellowship with God it is hard for us to understand a person who is so obdurate in his stance against God who refuses to repent, who goes on in spite of the fact that God has begun may times judgment in their lives, yet they just harden their hearts rather than turn in repentance to the Lord. And thus with the nation of Judah. If he falls he stands up again. If he turns aside, he returns, “But why don’t they return,” God said, “to me.” They refuse to return. They hold fast to this deceitfulness. They have been deceived and they hang on to it.
I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright:
God was listening. God was listening for people to begin to express sorrow and grief over their sin and over their wickedness.
It is sort of interesting to me that God listens. One thing that God always ease drops on is when you talk about Him with your friends in a nice way. You get together and start talking about the Lord and what the Lord has been doing and all. And it says, “And they who loved the Lord spake often one to another concerning Him, and God kept a record and they shall be accounted as His jewels in that day.” It is something that God enjoys for people just to talk about Him. Of course, you like to hear people say good things about you too. God is not willing that any should perish so He is looking for some sign of repentance. Some sign of a turning from the sin.
I hearkened and hear, but they spake not aright: no man, repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done?
When all of this calamity came upon them, God was listening, but no one was saying, “What have we done?” “What are we doing?” And I look at what is happening and I am always saying, “What are we doing?” But it wasn’t there. God was looking for this sign of repentance.
Every one returned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle.
They just seem to be filled with madness and rushing right into death actually, as a horse rushes into battle. All the excitement and adrenaline and right on into the pit.
Now the Lord said,
Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle [dove] and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord.
God has planted within the birds that instinctive knowing the time. We see the migration of the birds. We see the swallows returning to Capistrano. In fact, so regularly that on the day they are to return in March there is always a bunch of people down there with their cameras to get their pictures of the swallows returning to Capistrano. And there is something instinctive in those little birds that they come at the same time, the same date every year. They return to begin nesting through the summer months in the area here. So with the migration of birds, they know the time to get out of cold frigid places and head south because winter is coming and they can’t swim on iced over lakes. But God says my people should have more brains than a bird, but they don’t seem to know and understand they fact that the time of God’s judgment has come and it is time to flee the judgment of God by turning your life over to God.
How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain.
The law of the Lord has no value if you don’t keep it. Paul was bringing out this, what seemed to be a common kind of a mistake in the Jewish mind, in that because they had the law of the Lord they felt that they were justified. But Paul said having the law does not justify you. It is in the keeping of the law which they were not doing, which they were incapable of doing. So we often think, “Well, because we have certain standards and all that we are justified.” No, unless you keep those standards. You say that you are wise. You say that you have the law of God, but in reality the law is in vain if you don’t keep it. The fact that the scribes are writing it and copying it, they are doing it in vain.
You can carry this one step further. In reality for many people the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross was in vain. If you do not accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, if you do not receive the forgiveness that He purchased for you in His death upon the cross, He died in vain as far as you are concerned. He should have just as well stayed in heaven and enjoyed the presence of God rather than have come down to this sin cursed world to receive all of the horrible indignities by man that He experience for you. It is in vain if you have not received it.
So that is the idea that Jeremiah has here. It was in vain that they wrote the law of God if you are not keeping the law of God.
The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them?
They are not really wise. They are fools. If you reject the Word of The Lord you are not wise, you are a fool. It is interesting how so many people today are professing to be so wise. But if you reject the Word of God you are a fool. It is the fools that has said in his heart there is no God. It is interesting that people think that that is the intelligent position. “I am an agnostic.” Oh, so intelligent. And they try to say it with a Harvard nasal accent just to make it sound more sophisticated and intelligent. It is a joke. Because the word agnostic in Latin is ignoramus. “ I am a ignoramus.” That is what the prophet is saying. Where is your wisdom. You don’t keep the law of God you are a fool. And so than where is the wisdom of the path that you have chosen. It is a path of death. It is a path that is destroying you. It is not wise to destroy yourself. It is not wise to embrace and do those things that are destroying you. So what wisdom is really in them.
Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields to them that shall inherit them: for every one from the least even unto the greatest is given to covetousness, from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.
It was mass corruption from the false prophets to the priests to the whole nation. The whole moral climate had disintegrated. There was no real ethics or moral and that lead to the collapse of that society. And no society can continue when you have a collapse of the morals and ethics. When a man’s word no longer can be trusted, when he signs and says he will make his car payments and makes no payments, when you have a break down in ethics and morality that society can not last. Society is just going to cave in on itself. That is exactly what happen to Russia and look how quickly the whole thing caved in. And even the leaders of Russia are recognizing the whole that the whole failure to the communist system came about as the result of their lack of morals and ethics. They took God out of their nation, out of their educational system and they had no base for morality or ethics and they recognize that as the mistake that brought the down fall of the nation. And even as we have removed morality and ethics from our nation taking God out of the national life and so afraid in school to talk about the Ten Commandments, to talk about God’s law and all, it is going to lead to the same kind of collapse. How far does it have to go.
Look what is happening in the Saving and Loans industry. Why? Because the men who were governing these Saving and Loan institutions were not men of morals and ethics they ripped them off and the whole thing collapsing. It is coming down like a house of cards. And every society that lacks morals and ethics is going to cave in. And we are seeing the signs of it all around us and we need to take note, because even as Judah could not stand because of this eroding of the moral and ethics of the society, neither can we.
For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
It is really a surface kind of thing. You read, “Oh, we are going to have a new upturn in the economy and it is going to be rosy as we get close to elections again.” They are all going to tell you how things are going to change. Look what is happening to us here in the state of California. They are cutting all kinds of services and yet they are raising our taxes. Now that doesn’t make sense to me. But the whole system is corrupt.
They are healing the hurt of the daughter of the people slightly. It is not really a healing it is only covering over, the sore is still there. They are saying , “Peace, peace.” and here were the false prophets during the time of Jeremiah saying, “Peace, peace, the Babylonians will never sling a stone into this city. We are safe, we are secure, peace, peace.” And it was giving the people a false hope, a false sense of security. But there was no peace.
Where they ashamed when they had committed abomination? The last sign of a decadent society when it is just on its final way out is when people become what the Scripture terms, wanton. Now there is sin. And there is that person that when he sins is sorry for his sin. He feels guilty about his sin. He is genuinely sorry and repentant of his sin. Then there are those sinners who are not sorry that they have sinned. They have no remorse, no feelings of guilt. Paul speaks of them as having their conscience seared as with a hot iron. And we see that sometimes as a person has committed a horrible, viscous kind of a murder or a crime and he sits there impassioned as the journey reads the verdict that they are guilty and they do not show any signs of remorse, they do not show any signs of repentance, there are no signs of them being sorry for what they have done, they just get up stoned face and walk out.
But then the worst form of sin is when a person openly flaunts before others his sin. They are not ashamed of it but begins to boast of it. He actually begins to parade his sin and they become so brazen that they stand on the sidewalks around the church in their weird garb. That is wantonness. And that is the final form. That is what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah. Remember they came and they began to bang on the door of Lot’s house and said, “Send out those two men who came to visit your house.” They were aggressive, wantonness. Now here God is saying, “Were they ashamed when they had committed these abominations?” No, they were not at all ashamed, neither would they blush. They were sinning without any shame or guilt at all.
Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all shamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cans down, saith the LORD. I will surely consume them, saith the LORD: there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them.
God had brought them into a land, a fruitful land that they might enjoy the blessings and the fruit of the land but God is going to take it away. No figs on the tree, no fruit on the vine, there will be no grain in the fields. This brings up the book of Habakkuk who was prophesying at this same time. Just slightly after this period but during the time of Jeremiah Habakkuk was also a prophet. Habakkuk was basically complaining about the same thing as Jeremiah. That is the deterioration of the nation, of the government, how things were just disintegrating because of sin and evil and God seemed to be doing nothing about it.
And Habakkuk said, “Lord, how long shall I cry unto You by reason of the horrible things that are happening and You are not doing a thing. Lord, I am praying and all but you are not doing anything, things are getting worse.” And in essence he said, “God, please do not show me anything else, I cannot take it. If you are not going to stop this evil, if you are not going to stem this type, I would not rather not even know, I would rather be ignorant of what is going on than to just be frustrated by these evils when You just don’t seem to be doing anything to respond to it.” God said, “Habakkuk, I am doing a work and if I told you what I was doing you would not believe it.” Habakkuk said, “So what are you doing.” He said, “I am preparing the Babylonians.” This is what Jeremiah is saying, “God is going to use the Babylonians as His instrument of judgment.” “I am preparing the Babylonians and they are going to come and they are going to destroy this people and this land.” Habakkuk said, “Wait a minute God, that is not fair. We are bad, true, but those Babylonians they are worse. Why would You use a nation that is even worse than we are to punish us.”
So we remember how he went into the tower to wait to see what God was going to do and God came and said to him, “Habakkuk, things are going to get bad, they are going to go from bad to worse and the just shall live by faith. You are just going to have to trust Me that I am working. You will not understand what I am doing. You are just going to have to trust me.”
God often puts in that place of trust. I don’t understand what God is doing. I just have to trust Him. God, You are wise, You are on the throne and You love me so I just have to trust You that You are doing what is best. To me I just don’t understand the way that You are working, why You are allowing this and all but Lord,” And that is what he said, “Lord, I cried to You because I did not understand what was going on, You told You are working, I still don’t understand it but Lord keep doing it anyhow. You just keep working.” That is the position of faith. Lord, I don’t understand what you are doing but don’t stop doing it. I have often spoke of my wife’s cookie addiction. When she gets on a cookie binge, she will take a bag of cookies to bed. When I come up to the room she will say, “Honey, please take these out of here and if I scream and yell and holler don’t let me have another one. It does not matter if I get mad, don’t let me have another cookie, keep these things from me. I am eating too many and I just can’t eat another cookie.”
So I do her the favor and I take them on downstairs far out of reach. But with God so many times we are trying to demand that God do this or God do that and when God begins to work we do not understand it. But we have to say, “God, though I don’t understand, even if I scream or yell or holler or get mad at You, don’t stop doing what you are doing. Just keep doing Your work, keep alive Your work.
Then Habakkuk said, “Though there be no figs on the tree, no grapes on the vine, no herds in the stalls, no grain in the fields, yet I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.” That is the position of faith. I can’t see any possible means of survival but I am still going to rejoice in the God of my salvation because God has provisions and resources that I know nothing about. And God will take care of His own. You can trust God.
So here Jeremiah is predicting that very scenario that Habakkuk speaks of; no figs on the tree, no fruit in the vines.
Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God hath put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD.
Why do we just sit still, why don’t we do something about it? This is the cry of the prophet.
We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble! The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan: (these are the horses of the cavalry units of the Babylonian army and they had already began to invade the northern part of the country and they would be coming down from Dan and from the cities of Phoenicia) the whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city and those that dwell therein. For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the LORD.
God is going to smite them from every direction. The enemies from without and within, snakes, vipers and of course in India they still have those snake charmers but these snakes will refuse to be charmed.
When I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint in me.
This is the prophet speaking. He tried to comfort himself against this sorrow and yet his heart was just fainting, failing.
Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people because of them that dwell in a far country: Is not the LORD in Zion? is not her king in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities?
God is now crying against the people. Why have you provoked Me with your graven images, you worship of the pagan gods and with the strange vanities? And the sad cry.
The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
What a tragedy. They had gone over the line, they had gone too far. The harvest is passed the summer has ended and they are not saved.
For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead;
Gilead was the place where they grew an abundance the Taberinth tree. That is the tree from which they receive this ointment this balm that had purgative powers. It is one those herbal types of medicines.
Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?
Why do they go on? Is there no hope, is there no healing? And so the tragic story of the people of God who had turned their backs of God and were experiencing the impending judgment and doom that would come from God. The message there in the temple gate continues through there in chapters 9 and 10 and so as you read on picture him standing in the gate of the temple, people flooding in and yet their hearts are not really right before the Lord.
Father, help us to learn. You have said that these things were written as examples unto us that we would not fall into the same patterns of lust and perish. So help us, Lord, to give earnest heed to the things which we have heard lest we should drift from them and be destroyed. Lord, may we set aside every idol, every attraction of the things of the world that would take us away from You, that would diminish our love for You or our commitment to You and may our devotion and commitment to You be complete. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
May the Lord be with you, watch over and keep you in his love and may he cause you to renew your commitment, to live completely and totally for Jesus Christ. There is no other life that really counts. Surely there is no other life that is worth living than that life that is dedicated and devoted to him. May we each of us renew our commitment, to walk after the Spirit and to deny ourselves that we might take up our cross to follow him and thus live a life in fellowship pleasing to him in all things. God bless you and give you a beautiful week as you determine to serve the Lord with all of your heart and mind and soul and strength through the power of Jesus Christ.

Edited & Highlighted from “The Word For Today” Transcription, Pastor Chuck Smith, Tape #7281
PAGE 8

EMBED MS_ClipArt_Gallery.2