‘Thus saith the LORD,
If you return, then will I bring you again, and you shall stand before me: and
if you take forth the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth; let
them return unto you; but you return not unto them.’ Jeremiah 15:19
The language is majestic, though perhaps not very palatable
to this modern age. However, we really do need some, ‘Thus saith the LORD’
moments in the midst of this careless and undignified age of compromised
Christianity.
When I was a young believer, in a real praying and righteous church, when a man got up and said, ‘Thus saith the LORD’, we listened carefully and had great reverence and respect to what was being spoken. Nowadays there is a lot of ‘God told me this’, and ‘God told me that’; but when did God ever tell them anything?
It is a
dangerous thing to say that God said something when you have no proof, neither
evidence, that God is even with you, let alone having a ‘chat’ with you.
They dare to say all sorts of stuff in the name of God
because there is no fear of God before their eyes. (Romans 3:18)
Jeremiah the prophet could rightly say, ‘Thus saith the LORD’,
or, ‘This is what the LORD is saying to you’, for he did indeed stand before God.
So, the first part of the message: ‘If you return’.
‘If you return, then will I bring you again, and you will
stand in my presence. If you pick up and remove the precious things from those
which are worthless, then you will speak as my mouth to this current age.’
Let us not presume, as some think, that it might mean ‘when’ you return, in the belief that we can come to God at a later date or when we feel it more convenient.
The ‘if’ is
the pivot upon which all the good promises of God depend. ‘If my people will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and
turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear their prayers, forgive their sin,
and heal their land’. (2Chronicles 7:14)
‘If you can
believe, all things are possible.’ The ‘if’ is for now. Faith comes by hearing,
and the hearing comes by the word of God. If you hear what God is saying in
this message and act accordingly, then something great will happen.
So the ‘if’ at the top of the page needs our response. If we
return to God and his ways, he will bring us again to where we ought to be in
his plan and purpose. If we return to him with all our hearts and minds, we
will have the honour and amazing privilege to stand before him in his glorious presence
to hear his words and bask in his glory.
Then there is a further ‘if’.
If we will bring out the precious from that which is vile, then we shall speak as the mouth of God, and the words that we speak shall be with authority and power, as coming from the throne room of the Almighty.
Pick up the real treasure that got left behind and trodden on; that got buried under the noise of an unclean world that steals all of our attention.
Most of the time, we attempt to deal with and try to
overcome our habitual sins and failings. If you have a good heart that really
does want to go God’s way, then you will understand what I am saying here. Many
of us struggle with indwelling sin, and try to beat it down and live according
to what we believe to be right.
It might be our temper, our lust, our lack of truth, or a hundred and one other things.
However, here the word of God comes and shows us a better way. Instead of concentrating on the things that defeat us or attract us toward sin, we simply need to turn our back to them. We then need to pick up and lift up the good things, the righteous things, the holy things, and all that brings praise to God in our lives and actions.
Of course, for some of us, we have been absorbed into all
the rubbish and worthless things of this world (that which is ‘vile’ – ‘worthless
and without any godly or eternal value’). We drifted off from living for God
alone and allowed all the junk and nonsense of a rebellious and utterly godless
age to take away our time, our thinking, our amusement, and our fellowship with
Jesus. As the Bible says, ‘The thief comes only to steal, and to kill, and to
destroy’.
He comes to steal the precious things in our lives that we
once were thrilled with and delighted in. Remember when you were first saved,
the joy in reading the Scriptures, in writing a song to God, in singing the
praises of Jesus, in sharing the great things God had done for you. Even your
house was filled with texts and Bibles and gospel tracts. You could not wait
for the next opportunity to meet with other believers and talk together of
things pertaining to God’s kingdom.
Now you spend more time on TikTok, Facebook, the sports channels, and other
life-stealing, time-wasting indulgencies that add nothing whatsoever to you. They only steal your spiritual breath away hour by hour. Perhaps business and
money has taken first place and leaves you with no time to sit in God’s
boardroom to hear what he has to say.
You house is filled with the trinkets and the must-have gadgets
of this devilish age. The largest television screen money can buy has taken
away God’s altar of worship, and replaced it with an altar of what is mostly rebellion
and damnation.
The music blaring from your music system in your home, in
your headphones or iPods, is filled with the sounds of demons and depravity,
all sensually seeking to draw souls away to hell. What happened to the praises
and the music of heaven?
In the early days of your walk with Jesus, you just loved his songs more than anything else. The rest was just an ungodly commotion that will never, ever, be heard again once we get to be with God forever.
You received
new ears when you were born-again, tuned to the worship of the
Creator more than the worship of the flesh. You suddenly despised the
wickedness of the lyrics of those worldly songs that defy God and are filled
with shame, depravity, and contempt.
Somewhere, in the room of your heart, that dusty and neglected sanctuary of God, are the precious things that God gave to you. They are the gems and priceless riches of eternal glory; they are the manuscripts of ancient and future powerful prophecies; they are memories of what God has done for you, and in you, and through you.
These are precious treasures that are worth more than anything
the world can offer. They are living and life-giving; they are eternal and are
filled with the breath of God himself. They are the joy of the whole earth and
the river that can never run dry. They are the springs of water that will once
again burst up and wash the debris of Satan’s lies and influences away.
Instead of trying to make yourself better or trying to deal with the bad stuff, just go and take back what the enemy stole from you.
Pick it up, collect it all together, and see
what treasure you have in the weak and frail clay jar that we call this human body
in which we dwell. Search out every good thing that God has done for you; find
again all the benefits that he showered upon you, especially in the early days
when you soared like an eagle.
It is time to walk away from all that draws your soul to
this world. No need to fight. Just collect everything that is pure and noble,
righteous and good, and come back to God. Get those nuggets back where they belong.
Better to have nothing in this world but have Jesus in the
house, than to own all the riches money can buy, and end up lost from God, and
leave this world to face God’s judgment.
Better to walk away from the gang, the friends and acquaintances,
the feasting and banqueting, the dancing and jiving, the silver and the gold,
the momentary and carnal pleasures of this world, than to lose your soul to all that is worthless.
Pick up the precious things that you forgot about or
discarded, and return to God;
and he will return to you.
Pilgrim Warrior 2022
