302 - "What Has Straw in Common With Wheat?" Jeremiah 23-24; Hebrews 4

The priests and the prophets sway their hearers that their sin is really not that bad.  Don't worry about that.  What a travesty that it's the ministers leading the people away from God.

"Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the Lord.  The prophet promises peace but it's a straw-and-wheat comparison to what God would promise.  Do we promise peace without a price tag?  Do we offer peace without any struggle?  Do we covet peace without surrender?

Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?" Jeremiah 23:28-29.  If the fire doesn't melt the story, the hammer will shred it into bits.  Lay bare our stories before the God with an all-seeing eye.

Do I distance people from me?  Jeremiah 23:1 - 4 "Doom to the shepherd-leaders who butcher and scatter my sheep!" God's Decree. "So here is what I say to the shepherd-leaders who misled my people: 'You've scattered my sheep. You've driven them off. You haven't kept your eye on them. Well, let me tell you, I'm keeping my eye on you, keeping track of your criminal behavior.  I'll set shepherd-leaders over them who will take good care of them. They won't live in fear or panic anymore. All the lost sheep rounded up by The God-Who-Puts-Everything-Right.' 

Do I take in what God has to say?  Listen, then live it.  Priests preach their 'Everything Will Turn Out Fine' sermon to congregations with no taste for God, Their 'Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen to You' sermon to people who are set in their own ways.  "Have any of these prophets bothered to meet with me, the true God? bothered to take in what I have to say? Have they listened to and then lived out my Word? Look out!

We have received the same promises as those people in the wilderness, but the promises didn't do them a bit of good because they didn't receive the promises with faith. If we believe, though, we'll experience that state of resting.   Hebrews 4:2.  God keeps setting the date back to "Today" ...  And so this is still a live promise. It wasn't canceled at the time of Joshua; otherwise, God wouldn't keep renewing the appointment for "today." The promise of "arrival" and "rest" is still there for God's people.  Hebrews 4:7-10.

God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey. Nothing and no one is impervious to God's Word...We have a high priest with ready access to God.  Hebrews 4:12 -15

PHOTO:  It's a rock that sits alone in the Pacific Ocean.  A heavy hammer could gnaw away, chip by chip, to break this rock to pieces one day.  So with the stories of our lives.