harvestoc.net blog, Monday, November 9, 2009
Audio, Jer 24 'Fig-ure Out God Only by His Word' (8-Nov-09 Evening Reading)
[click here for audio]
Elder Matt Van Essendelft teaches us:
What is so bad about the figs in the vision? What Yahweh plans to do to them. For the majority of humanity, the message of Jeremiah is, “For I know the plans I have for you, says Yahweh: plans to make you a horror, a reproach, a byword, a taunt, and a curse.” We ALL are rotten to the core and fully deserve this, but our rottenness is not the ‘badness’ of the figs here. What’s amazing, then, is that there are good figs at all—and how good they are. Again, the ‘goodness’ is a reference to how well God plans to treat them, not their character. In fact, we know they start out wicked, because part of the “good fig” treatment from God is that He will transform the heart. So, how does a person turn out “character-wise” to be a good fig? Because although he was rotten, God gave him the good-fig treatment anyway, by giving him Jesus and then conforming him to Jesus.
Elder Matt Van Essendelft teaches us:
What is so bad about the figs in the vision? What Yahweh plans to do to them. For the majority of humanity, the message of Jeremiah is, “For I know the plans I have for you, says Yahweh: plans to make you a horror, a reproach, a byword, a taunt, and a curse.” We ALL are rotten to the core and fully deserve this, but our rottenness is not the ‘badness’ of the figs here. What’s amazing, then, is that there are good figs at all—and how good they are. Again, the ‘goodness’ is a reference to how well God plans to treat them, not their character. In fact, we know they start out wicked, because part of the “good fig” treatment from God is that He will transform the heart. So, how does a person turn out “character-wise” to be a good fig? Because although he was rotten, God gave him the good-fig treatment anyway, by giving him Jesus and then conforming him to Jesus.
Main ideas:
1) We all deserve to be treated very badly.
2) God can treat amazingly well whomever He wishes.
3) You can’t tell which of these two categories someone is in by the events that are happening to them.
4) One of God’s amazing blessings to those whom He saves is giving them a heart to know Him and wholeheartedly return to Him.
Labels: Serial Readings
¶ 7:54 AM
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