Daily Bible Reading, Week 24

Hello,and welcome to the Westside churches special Monday Morning Coffee podcast on this podcast,our preacher Mark Roberts will help you get your week started right.With look back at yesterday's sermon so that we can think through it further and better work the applications into our daily lives.Mark will then look forward into this week's Bible reading so that we can know what to expect and watch for.And,he may have some extra bonus thoughts from time to time.So grab a cup of coffee as we start the week together on Monday Morning Coffee with Mark.

Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Monday Morning Coffee podcast for Monday, June the 12th. I'm Mark and I'm holding a great cup of coffee and I'm holding a bunch of notes about the book of Jeremiah, but I'm not holding any sermon notes from yesterday because as you know, I wasn't at West Side yesterday. Dina and I are in Israel. We are touring with a group there. And yesterday I did get to preach we are at the Dead Sea, and I did get to preach for the group there at the Dead Sea. We saw Masada and Kuron . Kuron is where the EENs wrote The Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the most significant archeological and biblical fines of the last, I don't know, 500 years. It's a really, really big deal. Very cool thing to visit. And then we moved from the Dead Sea to Jerusalem where we will spend the rest of the tour. So while you're listening to this, Dean and I are stomping around Jerusalem, which is just, yeah, just kind of cool. But of course all of this is pre-recorded because I'm stomping around Jerusalem, not talking to you about Jeremiah. Well, not exactly sure how much I want to go on and on about all of that. Mostly I know what you want is for me to talk to you about daily Bible reading, especially since I can't talk to you about the sermon yesterday at Westside since I wasn't there. Let's get our Bibles over to Jeremiah the sixth chapter and let's get started For a Monday's reading, we're reading Jeremiah chapter six, verses one to 11. The reading today is Jeremiah six, one to 11. You'll like reading in Jeremiah the sixth chapter, and it will be a place where as you're coming along you'll see verses that you have heard many times from the pulpit or in other circumstances. Famous passages like Jeremiah six 14. They say peace. Peace when there is no peace. Or verse 16, stand by the roads and look and ask for the ancient paths. This is very much in concert with what we have been reading in Jeremiah. And I think the more I read this, the more I see this as being before Josiah gets his full reformations rolling, really going, the people are still very steeped in sin, lots of idolatry going on and there is the threat of judgment because they are not doing what's right. Manassa and Amon and all that goes with that is still really working. So let's start in Jeremiah the sixth chapter and get some notes here. Notice how we begin in the first eight verses with a warning and there is discussion there like there is an invasion right now happening, but if you notice verse eight, that's probably the key verse for our reading today. The invasion isn't coming yet. It's not actually ongoing at that moment, but judgment is being threatened here. This is what it will sound like. This is what it will look like and there's going to be a great judgment on the people of God. That takes us then into verses nine to 15 where Jeremiah in God talk about what's happening and about how Jeremiah feels about it. There's a lot of this in the book of Jeremiah, lots and lots of this where Jeremiah dialogues with the Lord. It kind of reminds me of the book of Psalms. Psalms is the only book of the Bible where instead of God talking to us, we are talking to God and there's lots of psalms, we call them lament psalms, where the psalmist says, God, I need some help. And in some of those lament psalms, the psalmist will say, God, I'm pretty disappointed you haven't helped me yet. Or I feel like you're not helping me enough, or I kind of feel like you're asleep and not paying attention to me. Those psalms are a little hard for us to read sometimes, but they help us understand the authenticity of a real relationship with God. God knows how we feel. And then with reverence, of course we can express how we feel when we are disappointed with God. And that is in the Psalms and that's gonna be in the book of Jeremiah as well. Jeremiah complains a lot. He doesn't like his job, he's not a very happy preacher. And we get some of that today. A lot of these conversations between Jeremiah and God follow a similar pattern where the Lord will speak and then Jeremiah will respond with a question or a comment, and then the Lord speaks again. And so in verse nine, the Lord talks there about judgment. Maybe Jeremiah then is the owner of the field and he is looking to see, has it been judged, has it been harvested, has God passed his hand against it? And then Jeremiah says in verse 10, I want to warn somebody about what's going to come, what's going to happen, but nobody is going to listen. One scholar noted this is the first of more than three dozen times in Jeremiah where the people did not listen to God's word. And please make sure you notice not listening to God's word in the book of Jeremiah means not obeying God's word. It's not just that everybody has put earplugs in and that they're not listening to his preaching. Jeremiah, you monologue too much. You're boring in your style. You don't have good sermon illustrations, you don't use PowerPoint. We don't want to hear your sermon, but oh , we're all doing what God says. We're just so obedient. Of course not. Of course not. Of course not. When they don't listen, it's because they don't want to listen because they aren't doing what God tells them to do. And God's response to that verse 11 is keep telling them these people aren't listening, but Jeremiah is to keep preaching, keep warning them of the impending judgment to come because they are disobedient to the Lord. More on this tomorrow as we resume Jeremiah chapter six on Tuesday. See you tomorrow. It is Tuesday and Tuesday's reading is Jeremiah chapter six, verses 12 to 21. This is a powerful section of Jeremiah's preaching here and he talks a lot about leadership. Notice verse 13, prophet and priest deal falsely. Jeremiah is very concerned about the leadership of these , of these people who are teaching them error and who are leading them astray. They tell the people, oh, it's all good, it's all good. Verse 14, peace . Peace . No judgment's coming. Everything is gonna be fine. Don't worry. No concerns. No, there's huge concerns. Look at verse 15. They don't even know how to blush. They don't even know how to blush, hard not to read Verse 15 and look at much that goes on in our society today where people are just reveling in their wickedness. People are proud of their wickedness where in the middle of a month dedicated to that. No , they don't know how to blush. They're not at all ashamed. So Jeremiah verse 16 is told to stand at the crossroads and look there and see if he can find somebody who's interested in the ancient way, somebody who's interested in going back and doing what's right, but they say no, we will not walk in it. What a bitterly disappointing response that is. So what? What can be done when people refuse to do what's right and revel in doing what's wrong? Judgment has to come, but they won't even pay attention to the warnings. Verse 17, the warning, the sound of the trumpet. No, we are not gonna listen to that. So disaster is coming verse 19, because they have not paid attention to my words. Now here's the big key in our Bible reading today. Look at verse 20. Notice they're still worshiping God. In fact, Franken sense that comes from Sheba would be expensive, imported frankincense, and so they're carrying on the worship of Jehovah God and even pouring money into that. But that is nullified your burnt offerings. Verse 20 are not acceptable because they're disobedient. You can't live any way you want in rebellion to God. Monday to Saturday, show up on ch to church on Sunday, hit the offering plate or the zeal at with a big offering and say, I'm all good with God. Jeremiah says, that won't work. Of course here for Jeremiah it would be Sunday to Friday and then show up for church on Saturday. But you understand the point these people are stumbling around, they're morally blind. Verse 21, and Jeremiah is desperately trying to get their attention. We'll read the conclusion of this sermon on Wednesday. See you tomorrow. Welcome to Wednesday, and we are in Jeremiah six . But of course Wednesday means Westside Summer series is going on. And tonight Danny Simmons will be preaching for us.

Hello everyone, I am Danny Simmons and I'll be with you tonight preaching on the evil of evolution. If you've been a member of the Lord's Church for any time at all, you know about the damage that the theory of evolution has done to society and even to the church. You've probably heard many arguments, discussions, and even lessons on the theory of evolution and why it's wrong. I would like to take a different approach to this important topic tonight. I will present the facts of evolution that are not often discussed. We'll look at the premise behind evolution and its demonic origins what Charles Darwin really thought about race and racism and the obvious evil that flows out of the godless claims of evolution. It is my sincere hope and prayer that you'll be encouraged and informed during the time that we have together as Paul told the saints in Rome. I hope to see you on my journey that I may enjoy your company for a while if the Lord wills, I will see you all very soon.

This summer series is proving to be so helpful. I know you're looking forward to hearing Danny's sermon tonight, but before we get to church this evening, we will be reading in our Bible. So we'll be looking at Jeremiah the sixth chapter verses 22 to 30. And this really is kind of the conclusion to this section. There's been a long declaration really beginning in about chapter four verse five of judgment that's going to come. And now Jeremiah summarizes some of that with these closing words that starts in verse 22 where the theme of the enemy from the north has been used several times already. Chapter four verses five to 18 for example, or in chapter six verses one to eight that we read on Monday. And that report is so terrifying in verse 24, 25 and 26 that they just feel helpless and paralyzed with fear. They simply prepare to mourn and to die. And then God speaks, verse 27, good place to write that in the margin. God's talking here to Jeremiah. Jeremiah, I have made you a tester of metals among my people. So Jeremiah, you will be an assayer. That's a metal gist. The person at the jewelry store who can test and tell you whether that ring is really gold or whether it's fake. And so then Jeremiah gives his report in verse 28, and Jeremiah's report is not good, stubbornly rebellious, they're not gold, they're bronze and iron. And so what do you need? You need to dump them into the vat and blow the bellows fiercely. Verse 29 so that you can separate the draws from the pure metal here. Verse 30 would be silver, I guess not gold. You heat all that up and burn off the draws , burn off the base metals and you recover the silver that's going to be the precious metal is recovered. Then that will be a theme for Jeremiah. And one of the unexpected things in the book of Jeremiah is exactly how that will work. God's going to say some things about the people going into captivity. We might think they're the bad metal that's gonna be burned off and the people who remain in Jerusalem are the most faithful, the people that God will continue to work with. Well stay tuned in the book of Jeremiah. It won't work exactly like that. Hope you're ready for this evening and then tomorrow we'll shift gears a little bit because Jeremiah is not in chronological order and we'll be over in the 19th chapter of Jeremiah. I'll see you there tomorrow on Thursday. Welcome to Thursday, and we make a little jump in Jeremiah today to Jeremiah the 19th chapter. We're going to read this famous sermon. Boy, this is an intense sermon from Jeremiah and it will get him in a lot of trouble. He ends up by the end of the chapter, beaten and in stocks . How about that? What Jeremiah does here is he buys a piece of pottery and the intent here is to break the pottery to show there's no going back. It's like Humpty Dumpty , all the kings horses and all the kings men can't put him back together again. They are past the point of repentance. And I've positioned this here because of what Jeremiah talks about is going on in the temple. And that certainly seems to be before Josiah's great reforms. But maybe this is important here because it helps us see that while Josiah made some great reforms, not sure the people made great reforms. Josiah turned to the Lord, but the people they did not want to do what was right. And that's important for us to remember because after Josiah dies, they go right back into idolatry and a lot of folks are gonna be scratching their heads and saying, what? Wait , wait, wait, wait, wait. But everybody was doing right. Were they doing right? Josiah was doing right and he was making the people do what was right. But passages like Jeremiah 19 help us. See, people didn't want to do what was right. They were past the point of repentance. They wouldn't listen to God. And so Jeremiah, who is enormously creative in his preaching, Jeremiah 13 has the parable of the dirty underwear. No, I'm not making that up. No, we don't get to read that as part of this reading plan this year, but go look at it. It is. It's the parable of the dirty underwear. And Jeremiah 18, Jeremiah goes to a potter and watches him make pots. Sometimes people will be critical of preaching. That's a little out of the box. It's not three points. And we close and with a , as we stand in sing, if anything's different people are all , oh , what just happened there? We can't have that kind of preaching. Go read the book of Jeremiah. Go read the book of Ezekiel. There's lots of creativity by God's messengers in their preaching. And this is a good example of that. Go verse one, buy an earth and wear fla . Take some of the elders and what are we gonna do? We're gonna smash this verse 11 as one breaks a potter's vessel so that it can never be mended. And there's just a long list of terrible things that are going to happen because look at verses four in five. There's a progression there. They've destroyed the temple, they've misused it, filled it with all kinds of blood. That reminds us of Manassa in two king chapter 21. And they are offering the idols right there in God's house. Verse five, there is perversion of justice and there's the persecution of anybody who would do what is right. And so there's just every kind of apostacy going on because their ungodliness is just a horror and is just absolutely shocking. There'll be cannibalism. We'll think about that during the siege, when the Babylonians appear, there's gonna be having to bury even Jews are very concerned about taking care of corpses and that dead bodies are buried properly. And verse seven says that there's going to be people who don't even get buried and then there'll be people who are unclean in chapter in verse 11. Uh , the unclean will have to be used for burial so that things aren't, the funerals aren't gonna be conducted appropriately. Why verse 15? Because they don't listen to God. They refuse to hear his word. They refuse to obey the Lord. Now what's the result of this? Well, that's tomorrow. Do people say way to go? Jeremiah, we appreciate you preaching the truth. No, that is not what's going to happen. We'll see tomorrow. Jeremiah is attacked for preaching God's word. See you on Friday. It is Friday. It is Friday. Get your Bible open to Jeremiah the 20th chapter. Gonna read Jeremiah chapter 20 today. And if you've been envious of me and Dina being in Israel all this week, you should know this is our last day in Israel. We are headed today to do a little more sightseeing in Jerusalem and then we will go to Tel Aviv where the airport is. And at midnight we will catch an airplane for a long flight. It's 12 13, 14 hour flight to New York City, be into New York City very early in the morning, New York City time, catch another airplane to fly to Dallas and should be home tomorrow, Saturday about noon. And that means Sunday I will be with you at Westside. I'll be there and I'll be preaching maybe severely jet lagged and there'll probably be coffee in that cup that I use in the pulpit. Not just water, but I'll be home and I'm anxious to be home and to be with you. But let's finish up from Jeremiah 19 yesterday. How do people receive this sermon? The answer is Jeremiah chapter 20 is attacked by the guy who's in charge of temple security, this guy named Pacher . He seems to have heard the whole sermon, not just that 14 , uh, verse 1415 stuff and chapter 19. So here in chapter 20 in verse two, he beats him and puts Jeremiah in stocks . What a long night for Jeremiah. Humiliation, embarrassment, pain. This is very difficult. And Jeremiah comes roaring out of that the next day and says, listen, your name is not pasture , which in Aramaic seems to mean fruitful all around. And he changes his name to terror all around. Lots of word play . We've talked a lot about that recently. So kind of making a pun there, and maybe what Jeremiah means is there's gonna be terror all around in the upcoming destruction of the city, but it may just be that people like you cause terror all around. You're not in charge so much anymore. Mr. Pacher . Verse four says, you think you're the big man, but God is coming to bring judgment. And this is the first time that Babylon is mentioned as the place of exile in the book. And please make note in verse six, to be buried outside of your own land for a Jew is a terrible fate because gentile lands are considered unclean. Now, that then gives us Jeremiah's bitter complaint verses seven to 18. Jeremiah just laments his terrible situation, and I don't really like the translation. Verse seven, oh Lord, you've deceived me. God never deceives anybody. Of course, God is not capable of doing that. That's a term that can be translated, persuaded, or it may just be strong language that Jeremiah is using because you told me that there would be protection. I don't feel so protected. Well, Jeremiah, you weren't killed. So there is protected here, but God never deceived Jeremiah. Remember when we read chapter one, God told Jeremiah, you are going to preach. Nobody's going to listen. And so Jeremiah says, I quit. I don't wanna do this anymore. But then in verse nine he says, I can't quit. I can't hold this in. It's a fire burning within me. I can't not preach God's word. Verse nine is so encouraging. That's what we're looking for. We're looking for preachers and teachers who can't keep the word of God inside, who can't turn it off. It's a fire burning in their bones. This is the verse that we need to remember about Jeremiah. I'm afraid sometimes people remember Jeremiah being down, being depressed, complaining, yes, I get it. There's plenty of that. But within Jeremiah, there was a fire burning and he could not stop preaching God's word, even though verse 10, he knows that people hate him. And of course, faith has to be realistic. Faith doesn't ignore problems. Faith brings problems to God. And Jeremiah says, they're gonna get me. They're after me. These people hate me because of what I preach and teach. But he remembers in verse 11, the promises of God and that God, I think verse 11, there's a movement towards confession and trust. God is stronger than those who persecute him. And so I'm trusting in you, maybe then between verse 13 and 14, verse 13 really kind of rises in confidence and has an A , a good end there. But then verse 14, plunging back into despair. Maybe there's some time between verse 13 and verse 14 where Jeremiah renews his complaint once again and he says, instead of celebrating my birthday, oh, that's a red letter day. Everybody's gonna get on my Facebook page and wish me happy birthday. People gonna give me gifts. There's gonna be cake. No, he says, I cursed the day I was born. Wish I had never been born. Why did I come out of the womb, verse 18, to spend my days in shame? Of course, the answer is, Jeremiah, you were born because God had a purpose for your life. Remember Jeremiah chapter one, verse four in five, God has a purpose for you, Jeremiah. It's a hard work, but God wants you to do this great work of preaching his word even to people who don't want to listen. But I'll tell you this, Jeremiah chapter 20, there is some serious despair going on there, some serious downness happening right there in Jeremiah 20. Maybe we're encouraged to realize that God's servants can be discouraged, but they can carry on. Anyway , next week, we'll read one of Jeremiah's most famous sermons will be in Jeremiah seven on Monday. And then good news, if you're getting a little weary of Jeremiah being weary. We'll resume at the end of next week. Josiah's Reformations. I like Josiah and I like the things that he does. It'll be good to get back to the historical account in kings of the good work that Josiah is doing. But until then, I just want to thank you for listening to the podcast. Appreciate you listening to something that was pre-recorded. And if you like the podcast, I hope that you'll subscribe and rate and give a review on iTunes, whatever app that you're listening on, tell people about the show that encourages them. So like I said, until next week, may your Friday be wonderful and may the Lord be with you today all day. I'll be home and I'm excited about that and I'll see you on Monday with a cup of coffee.

Thanks for listening to the Westside church of Christ podcast.Monday morning coffee with mark.For more information about west side,you can connect with us through our website,just christians.com and our Facebook page.Our music is from upbeat.is that's upbeat with two P'S UPP,B E A T,where creators can get free music.Please share our podcast with others.And we look forward to seeing you again with a company coffee,of course,on next Monday,