The Simple Life

They bend their tongue like a bow; falsehood and not truth has grown strong in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, declares the Lord. Let everyone beware of his neighbor, and put no trust in any brother, for every brother is a deceiver, and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer. Everyone deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves committing iniquity. Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit, they refuse to know me, declares the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: "Behold, I will refine them and test them, for what else can I do, because of my people?" Jeremiah 9:3-7 (ESV)   There is great danger in a society built on lies. Lying is the native language of Satan, and those who become accustomed to deceit have no hope. One day, everybody will stand before God and give an account for their lives. For some, this will be the first time they d...

"How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us'? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.” Jeremiah 8:8 (ESV)   "The tendency to the lukewarmness of spiritual life is in us all. Take a bar of iron out of the furnace on a winter day, and lay it down in the air, and there is nothing more wanted. Leave it there, and very soon the white heat will change into livid dullness, and then there will come a scale over it, and in a short time it will be as cold as the frosty atmosphere around it. And so there is always a refrigerating process acting upon us which needs to be counteracted by continual contact with the fiery furnace of spiritual warmth, or else we are cooled down to the degree of cold around us." (Biblical Illustrator)   Twisting the Word of God to say what we want it to say destroys people. Those who listen to self-centered, self-proclaiming teachers https://www.podbean.com/relate365

"You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord: When men fall, do they not rise again? If one turns away, does he not return? Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return. I have paid attention and listened, but they have not spoken rightly; no man relents of his evil, saying, 'What have I done?' Everyone turns to his own course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle. Even the stork in the heavens knows her times, and the turtledove, swallow, and crane keep the time of their coming, but my people know not the rules of the Lord.’” Jeremiah 8:4-7 (ESV)   These people did not turn from God because they were under pressure to reject Him. They were not turning from God because God was withdrawing from them. They were rejecting God due to neglect, due to their own choices.   In our sinful world, tragedy will always abound, but woe to the one whose tragedy is self-inflicted, for they have no one to blame and no on...

"You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord: When men fall, do they not rise again? If one turns away, does he not return? Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return. I have paid attention and listened, but they have not spoken rightly; no man relents of his evil, saying, 'What have I done?' Everyone turns to his own course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle. Even the stork in the heavens knows her times, and the turtledove, swallow, and crane keep the time of their coming, but my people know not the rules of the Lord.'" Jeremiah 8:4-7 (ESV)   Backsliding affects us as it arrests the progress of the soul, darkens its prospects, curtails its liberty, and destroys its usefulness. Backsliding affects others: it encourages the religious sceptic, staggers the anxious inquirer, and embarrasses the friends of truth. There is no counsel for the weary where there is no truth.   When each person doe...

"Jeremiah, say to the people, 'This is what the LORD says: "When people fall down, don't they get up again? When they discover they're on the wrong road, don't they turn back?"'" Jeremiah 8:4 (NLT)   This is what the Lord says.   "The tendency to the lukewarmness of spiritual life is in us all. Take a bar of iron out of the furnace on a winter day, and lay it down in the air, and there is nothing more wanted. Leave it there, and very soon the white heat will change into livid dullness, and then there will come a scale over it, and in a short time it will be as cold as the frosty atmosphere around it. And so there is always a refrigerating process acting upon us which needs to be counteracted by continual contact with the fiery furnace of spiritual warmth, or else we are cooled down to the degree of cold around us." ( A. Maclare ) https://www.podbean.com/relate365

"At that time, declares the Lord, the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be brought out of their tombs. And they shall be spread before the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven, which they have loved and served, which they have gone after, and which they have sought and worshiped. And they shall not be gathered or buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. Death shall be preferred to life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family in all the places where I have driven them, declares the Lord of hosts." Jeremiah 8:1-3 (ESV)   When death is preferred to life, there is a problem. Those who wish to end their lives have missed the very point of life. When you understand God's plan, you struggle with the desire to be with God and the desire to live out the intended purposes of this life, but preferring one over the other...