Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and buy a linen belt and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water.” So I bought a belt, as the Lord directed, and put it around my waist.
Then the word of the Lord came to me a second time: “Take the belt you bought and are wearing around your waist, and go now to Perath and hide it there in a crevice in the rocks.” So I went and hid it at Perath, as the Lord told me.
Many days later the Lord said to me, “Go now to Perath and get the belt I told you to hide there.” So I went to Perath and dug up the belt and took it from the place where I had hidden it, but now it was ruined and completely useless.
Then the word of the Lord came to me: “This is what the Lord says: ‘In the same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. These wicked people, who refuse to listen to my words, who follow the stubbornness of their hearts and go after other gods to serve and worship them, will be like this belt—completely useless! For as a belt is bound around the waist, so I bound all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah to me,’ declares the Lord, ‘to be my people for my renown and praise and honor. But they have not listened.’

• Jeremiah 13:1-11

Early in the reign of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: This is what the Lord said to me: “Make a yoke out of straps and crossbars and put it on your neck. Then send word to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon through the envoys who have come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah. Give them a message for their masters and say, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Tell this to your masters: With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please. Now I will give all your countries into the hands of my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; I will make even the wild animals subject to him. All nations will serve him and his son and his grandson until the time for his land comes; then many nations and great kings will subjugate him.
“‘“If, however, any nation or kingdom will not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon or bow its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation with the sword, famine and plague, declares the Lord, until I destroy it by his hand. So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums or your sorcerers who tell you, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon.’ They prophesy lies to you that will only serve to remove you far from your lands; I will banish you and you will perish. But if any nation will bow its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will let that nation remain in its own land to till it and to live there, declares the Lord.”’”
I gave the same message to Zedekiah king of Judah. I said, “Bow your neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon; serve him and his people, and you will live. Why will you and your people die by the sword, famine and plague with which the Lord has threatened any nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? Do not listen to the words of the prophets who say to you, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon,’ for they are prophesying lies to you. ‘I have not sent them,’ declares the Lord. ‘They are prophesying lies in my name. Therefore, I will banish you and you will perish, both you and the prophets who prophesy to you.’”
Then I said to the priests and all these people, “This is what the Lord says: Do not listen to the prophets who say, ‘Very soon now the articles from the Lord’s house will be brought back from Babylon.’ They are prophesying lies to you. Do not listen to them. Serve the king of Babylon, and you will live. Why should this city become a ruin? If they are prophets and have the word of the Lord, let them plead with the Lord Almighty that the articles remaining in the house of the Lord and in the palace of the king of Judah and in Jerusalem not be taken to Babylon. For this is what the Lord Almighty says about the pillars, the bronze Sea, the movable stands and the other articles that are left in this city, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon did not take away when he carried Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, along with all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem—yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says about the things that are left in the house of the Lord and in the palace of the king of Judah and in Jerusalem: ‘They will be taken to Babylon and there they will remain until the day I come for them,’ declares the Lord. ‘Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place.’”

• Jeremiah 27:1-22

“Object Lessons
The Linen Sash (13:1-11)
The Vessel Marred and Remade (18:1-11)
The Vessel Dashed upon the Rocks (19:10-11)
Two Baskets of Figs (24:1-10)
The Wooden and Iron Yokes (chs. 27, 28)
The Purchase of Land (32:6-44)
The Stones in Egypt (43:8-10)”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

The second Scripture above was used this morning in the weekly Bible Study.  The first Scripture is part of what was discussed in the Bible Study on Jeremiah 12-15.  In The John MacArthur Commentary, one of the many tables was this one about object lessons.

I have seen pastors bring things into the sanctuary to illustrate something in a sermon, but it is something quite different to take a linen belt and bury it in a dry wadi, and then return after a prescribed time and find the linen belt, buried under rocks in a dry wadi, and find it ruined.  A miracle had happened.

When I first started writing for this blogsite, I wrote a series of posts on Jeremiah.  After all, I was taking a slow plodding journey through the Bible, and I got to Jeremiah. While some of the things that happened to Jeremiah or Jeremiah was required by God to tell the people struck me as noteworthy, the object lessons that illustrated what God was trying to tell the people hit home with me.  I can see a linen belt stored in a dry, safe place would rot, a miracle, but I could see it.  I have seen potters get frustrated with something and smash it back into a ball of clay and start over.  And smashing a vessel outside the Potsherd Gate?!  Priceless.

In this morning’s Bible Study, it struck me that I needed to follow up on this.  Jeremiah 24 is all about two baskets of figs.  One is filled with good figs representing those who went into exile, but hold God close to their hearts.  The other is filled with bad figs, not fit for anything, and that represents the king and the rulers in Jerusalem that do not have a heart for God, and they ignore the Word of God, both in the Law and in what Jeremiah is telling them.  But then in Jeremiah 27, we have a yoke that Jeremiah makes.  He wears it to illustrate that those who readily bow down to Nebuchadnezzar will remain in their kingdoms and live, but those who challenge him will die or be sent into exile where they will die.

The false prophets kept saying that there was nothing to fear.  God would show Mercy as He had in the past, but in Jeremiah 27, God calls those false prophets liars.

While Jeremiah has several object lessons, Ezekiel has a few also.

These are like the parables of Jesus.  It still requires us to spiritually understand what is going on, but an intellectual picture through an object lesson jumpstarts the process.  We have an image in our minds and then the application of that image to the spiritual lesson is easier to accomplish.

But as Jesus said at the end of many of those parables, “Those who have ears, let them hear.”

If there was not a deeper meaning in that, those words make no sense.  If we heard Jesus say that, we had ears to hear.  But Jesus was talking about the deeper, spiritual meaning.  Most people got the illustration in the parable, or the object lessons of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, but did they get the point God was trying to make, the spiritual lesson to be learned?

Not having to grapple with an obscure intellectual topic makes it easier to get started.

God thinks of everything.  He wants us to know Him.  But do we have the heart within us to seek Him?

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.