Jeremiah 36, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: ARE YOU READY TO MARCH?

Think about the Christian you want to be. What qualities do you want to have? More compassion? More conviction? More courage? What attitudes do you want to discontinue? Greed? Guilt? Endless negativity? You see, with God’s help you can. You can close the gap between the person you are and the person you want to be. Indeed, the person God made you to be. You can live “from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

To inherit your inheritance is God’s vision for your life. Imagine the thought: you as you were intended. It’s a life that is yours for the taking. Now, expect to be challenged. The enemy will not go down without a fight. But God’s promises outweigh personal problems. Victory becomes—dare we imagine—a way of life. Isn’t it time for you to change your mailing address from the wilderness to the Promised Land? Are you ready to march?

Jeremiah 36

Reading God’s Message

In the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, Jeremiah received this Message from God:

2 “Get a scroll and write down everything I’ve told you regarding Israel and Judah and all the other nations from the time I first started speaking to you in Josiah’s reign right up to the present day.

3 “Maybe the community of Judah will finally get it, finally understand the catastrophe that I’m planning for them, turn back from their bad lives, and let me forgive their perversity and sin.”

4 So Jeremiah called in Baruch son of Neriah. Jeremiah dictated and Baruch wrote down on a scroll everything that God had said to him.

5-6 Then Jeremiah told Baruch, “I’m blacklisted. I can’t go into God’s Temple, so you’ll have to go in my place. Go into the Temple and read everything you’ve written at my dictation. Wait for a day of fasting when everyone is there to hear you. And make sure that all the people who come from the Judean villages hear you.

7 “Maybe, just maybe, they’ll start praying and God will hear their prayers. Maybe they’ll turn back from their bad lives. This is no light matter. God has certainly let them know how angry he is!”

8 Baruch son of Neriah did everything Jeremiah the prophet told him to do. In the Temple of God he read the Message of God from the scroll.

9 It came about in December of the fifth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah that all the people of Jerusalem, along with all the people from the Judean villages, were there in Jerusalem to observe a fast to God.

10 Baruch took the scroll to the Temple and read out publicly the words of Jeremiah. He read from the meeting room of Gemariah son of Shaphan the secretary of state, which was in the upper court right next to the New Gate of God’s Temple. Everyone could hear him.

11-12 The moment Micaiah the son of Gemariah heard what was being read from the scroll—God’s Message!—he went straight to the palace and to the chambers of the secretary of state where all the government officials were holding a meeting: Elishama the secretary, Delaiah son of Shemaiah, Elnathan son of Achbor, Gemariah son of Shaphan, Zedekiah son of Hananiah, and all the other government officials.

13 Micaiah reported everything he had heard Baruch read from the scroll as the officials listened.

14 Immediately they dispatched Jehudi son of Nethaniah, son of Semaiah, son of Cushi, to Baruch, ordering him, “Take the scroll that you have read to the people and bring it here.” So Baruch went and retrieved the scroll.

15 The officials told him, “Sit down. Read it to us, please.” Baruch read it.

16 When they had heard it all, they were upset. They talked it over. “We’ve got to tell the king all this.”

17 They asked Baruch, “Tell us, how did you come to write all this? Was it at Jeremiah’s dictation?”

18 Baruch said, “That’s right. Every word right from his own mouth. And I wrote it down, word for word, with pen and ink.”

19 The government officials told Baruch, “You need to get out of here. Go into hiding, you and Jeremiah. Don’t let anyone know where you are!”

20-21 The officials went to the court of the palace to report to the king, having put the scroll for safekeeping in the office of Elishama the secretary of state. The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. He brought it from the office of Elishama the secretary. Jehudi then read it to the king and the officials who were in the king’s service.

22-23 It was December. The king was sitting in his winter quarters in front of a charcoal fire. After Jehudi would read three or four columns, the king would cut them off the scroll with his pocketknife and throw them in the fire. He continued in this way until the entire scroll had been burned up in the fire.

24-26 Neither the king nor any of his officials showed the slightest twinge of conscience as they listened to the messages read. Elnathan, Delaiah, and Gemariah tried to convince the king not to burn the scroll, but he brushed them off. He just plowed ahead and ordered Prince Jerahameel, Seraiah son of Azriel, and Shelemiah son of Abdeel to arrest Jeremiah the prophet and his secretary Baruch. But God had hidden them away.

27-28 After the king had burned the scroll that Baruch had written at Jeremiah’s dictation, Jeremiah received this Message from God: “Get another blank scroll and do it all over again. Write out everything that was in that first scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah burned up.

29 “And send this personal message to Jehoiakim king of Judah: ‘God says, You had the gall to burn this scroll and then the nerve to say, “What kind of nonsense is this written here—that the king of Babylon will come and destroy this land and kill everything in it?”

30-31 “‘Well, do you want to know what God says about Jehoiakim king of Judah? This: No descendant of his will ever rule from David’s throne. His corpse will be thrown in the street and left unburied, exposed to the hot sun and the freezing night. I will punish him and his children and the officials in his government for their blatant sin. I’ll let loose on them and everyone in Jerusalem the doomsday disaster of which I warned them but they spit at.’”

32 So Jeremiah went and got another scroll and gave it to Baruch son of Neriah, his secretary. At Jeremiah’s dictation he again wrote down everything that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. There were also generous additions, but of the same kind of thing.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Wednesday, September 02, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:

Psalm 18:1–6, 16–19

For the director of music. Of David the servant of the Lord. He sang to the Lord the words of this song when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul. He said:
1 I love you, Lord, my strength.

2 The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
    my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield[b] and the horn[c] of my salvation, my stronghold.

3 I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise,
    and I have been saved from my enemies.
4 The cords of death entangled me;
    the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
5 The cords of the grave coiled around me;
    the snares of death confronted me.

6 In my distress I called to the Lord;
    I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice;
    my cry came before him, into his ears.

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
    he drew me out of deep waters.
17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
    from my foes, who were too strong for me.
18 They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
    but the Lord was my support.
19 He brought me out into a spacious place;
    he rescued me because he delighted in me.

Insight
The introduction to Psalm 18 tells us David wrote it “when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.” At fifty verses, it’s the first lengthy psalm in the Bible. Interestingly, it also occurs (with variations) in 2 Samuel 22. Here David expresses his overwhelming gratitude for God’s hand in defeating his many enemies. Yet a reading of the entire psalm reveals it to be messianic; that is, the song points to Christ. In Romans 15:9 the apostle Paul quotes Psalm 18:49 as referring to Jesus: “I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing the praises of your name.” We might dismiss this statement as being solely about David, but Psalm 18:50 says, “[God] shows unfailing love to his anointed, to David and to his descendants forever.” Such a promise can be literally fulfilled only by Jesus Himself.

The Whispering Gallery
In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. Psalm 18:6

In the towering dome of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, visitors can climb 259 steps to access The Whispering Gallery. There you can whisper and be heard by another person anywhere along the circular walkway, even across the enormous abyss nearly one hundred feet away. Engineers explain this anomaly as a result of the spherical shape of the dome and the low intensity sound waves of a whisper.

How we long to be confident that God hears our agonized whispers! The Psalms are filled with testimonies that He hears us—our cries, prayers, and whispers. David writes, “In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help” (Psalm 18:6). Over and over again, he and other psalmists plead, “Hear my prayer” (4:1), my voice (5:3), my groans (102:20). Sometimes the expression is more of a whispered, “Hear me” (77:1), where the “heart meditated and [the] spirit asked” (77:6).

In answer to these pleas, the psalmists—like David in Psalm 18:6—reveal that God is listening: “From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.” Since the actual temple wasn’t yet built, might David have been referring to God listening in His heavenly dwelling?

From His very own “whispering gallery” in the dome of the heavens above the earth, God bends to our deepest murmurs, even our whispers . . . and listens. By:  Elisa Morgan

Reflect & Pray
What do you long to whisper to God today? How can you know that He hears?

Dear God, give me courage to whisper to You today, trusting You to hear and respond.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, September 02, 2020
A Life of Pure and Holy Sacrifice

He who believes in Me…out of his heart will flow… —John 7:38

Jesus did not say, “He who believes in Me will realize all the blessings of the fullness of God,” but, in essence, “He who believes in Me will have everything he receives escape out of him.” Our Lord’s teaching was always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a person— His purpose is to make a person exactly like Himself, and the Son of God is characterized by self-expenditure. If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain but what He pours through us that really counts. God’s purpose is not simply to make us beautiful, plump grapes, but to make us grapes so that He may squeeze the sweetness out of us. Our spiritual life cannot be measured by success as the world measures it, but only by what God pours through us— and we cannot measure that at all.

When Mary of Bethany “broke the flask…of very costly oil…and poured it on [Jesus’] head,” it was an act for which no one else saw any special occasion; in fact, “…there were some who…said, ‘Why was this fragrant oil wasted?’ ” (Mark 14:3-4). But Jesus commended Mary for her extravagant act of devotion, and said, “…wherever this gospel is preached…what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her” (Mark 14:9). Our Lord is filled with overflowing joy whenever He sees any of us doing what Mary did— not being bound by a particular set of rules, but being totally surrendered to Him. God poured out the life of His Son “that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17). Are we prepared to pour out our lives for Him?

“He who believes in Me…out of his heart will flow rivers of living water”— and hundreds of other lives will be continually refreshed. Now is the time for us to break “the flask” of our lives, to stop seeking our own satisfaction, and to pour out our lives before Him. Our Lord is asking who of us will do it for Him?

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

If there is only one strand of faith amongst all the corruption within us, God will take hold of that one strand.  Not Knowing Whither, 888 L

Bible in a Year: Psalms 137-139; 1 Corinthians 13

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, September 02, 2020
Heroes On the Beach - #8778

My children always braced themselves when we were on a vacation and I'd say, "Hey, it's time for one of Dad's adventures!" See, my adventures don't have a great history. I remember one morning I promised them a great adventure. We were going up to Cadillac Mountain in Maine to see the first place, supposedly, where you can see the sun rise on the East Coast. So, I woke them in our campground about 3:00 a.m. We drove up to the top of Cadillac Mountain to watch the clouds rise. Yeah...no sun!

Then there was the time we were climbing the sand dunes at Cape Cod, and I said, "You know, we're gonna go up this sand dune and then we'll be able to see the ocean." So we climbed to the top of the sand dune, and there it was - another sand dune. And we went on through the afternoon to another sand dune, etc.

Well, there's one adventure we did have together that we all enjoyed! It was a demonstration of the United States Life-Saving Service. That's what it was actually called before it became the United States Coast Guard, and what they used to do was rescue people from ships that were in trouble. We were actually on the outer banks of North Carolina; that little barrier reef where the shoals stick out eight miles into the ocean, and where the ships used to hug the shoreline to stay close to the lighthouses, and where it is called "the graveyard of the Atlantic." Ten thousand ships have gone down off the outer banks.

That's where the Life-Saving Service operated, and that's where we saw a demonstration in full uniform of how they used to work. Here was a life-saving station set well back so it wouldn't be hurt by the storm. But, when there was a ship that had gone aground and was breaking up, the life-saving unit of eight men would run out to the beach, fire a line from a cannon to the sinking ship. Then they built a pulley system on the beach, they'd anchor it in the sand, and bring people from the ship. Sometimes that wouldn't work, so they had to run right into the surf. One of those heroes brought back ten people, one at a time, out of a pounding storm, carrying them on his back. The United States Life-Saving Service was a spawning ground for heroes. And as I watched them, I knew we still need heroes like that.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Heroes On the Beach."

Our word for today from the Word of God, Philippians 2:5, beginning there. "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross!"

If I may put together that scripture with my experience with the U.S. Life-Saving Service, Jesus left the safety of the station in heaven and ran into the surf to rescue us. Now, He says, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Him."

Today we have some pretty impressive Life-Saving Stations, churches that are full of programs, good teaching, inspiring music, and they're really caring for the needs of the life-saving crew. And that's you and me. But you have to leave the station to save lives. They don't come to the door of a Life-Saving Station, knock on the door and say, "Hello! I'm drowning. Can you help me?" You have to go where they are and take the risks to do it. The Life-Saving Station is a great place to get rescuers ready. It's a great place to bring them after they've been rescued. But you've got to save them in the middle of the storm. Too many of our churches have forgotten that they're not just there for the rescuers; they're there to go out after the dying.

Maybe all your friends are Christian friends. Maybe all your free time is spent in Christian places, and yet you're surrounded by people whose lives are breaking apart like those ships did long ago, and who will die without Christ; who will spend eternity without Christ unless there is a Rescuer. And they won't come to the Life-Saving Station probably. You have to go where they are and bring them back like Jesus did.

God needs heroes on the beach today, running into the storm, taking risks like He did to rescue the perishing. My brother, my sister, It's time to get out of the station and run into the surf for the rescue.