Quick Note – Jeremiah 2:22 – The Ultimate Cleanser

Jeremiah 2:22 – “Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, declares the Lord GOD.”

Whenever I do the laundry, there are two solutions that I pour into the washer with the pile of dirty clothes I throw in.  The first is laundry detergent to make sure that the clothes are soaped up and smell good when they come out, and the second is bleach to remove all the “hard-to-remove” stains.  Whenever I use bleach, I need to make sure that the bleach I use is the color protecting one, instead of ordinary bleach, because ordinary bleach strips away the color dye on the clothes, leaving the colors on the clothes faded.  It can do this because bleach is such a strong cleansing agent.  I also use bleach in the lab, because just a 10% concentrated solution of it is enough to kill bacteria and other harmful organisms to the environment.  If I grew a bacterial culture, all I would need to do is disinfect it for 10 min with a 10% bleach solution, and then I can pour the liquid down the drain.  I need not worry about causing any negative ramifications to anyone or anything, because the bleach would kill everything.  Bleach is the ultimate cleanser.

In our passage from Jeremiah 2 today, the lye that the people of Israel were trying to wash their sin away with is the same thing as bleach.  The sin of Israel and Judah had gotten so bad that God told them that even if they tried to wash the guilt of their sin away with soap and bleach (the ultimate cleanser) they would not be able to remove it.  It would just sit there revealing God’s righteousness in punishing them for their sin.  They could offer as many sin offerings at His temple as many times as they wanted, but they would never be able to take away their sin.  Nothing they could do could cleanse them.  What they needed to do was to come to the Lord with a simple heart of repentance turning to Him for undeserved forgiveness.  Sadly, they would continually refuse His offer for forgiveness and restoration.

Likewise, we as human beings have a sin stain over our hearts that cannot be cleansed by bleach or by anything we say or do.  No amount of good works could cover that blemish in our lives, for even our righteousness is but filthy rags in the sight of God.  Because of that irremovable sin stain, we can never be seen as perfect in the sight of God and are rightly condemned to judgment.  Fortunately for us, God sent us His Son who is much stronger at cleansing than bleach.  When Jesus Christ gave His life on that cross for our sins, He provided us a way to cover that sin stain in our lives.  By receiving His offer of salvation by accepting Him into our hearts as Lord and Savior, we allow His blood to cover our sin.  No longer does God see a stain, but Christ’s shed blood for us.  If you have not accepted His offer of salvation, then do so today, for He alone can cleanse each heart.  But if you have done so already, than thank Him today for the miraculous cleansing of that stain.

Quick Note – Hosea 2:16 – Our Ishi

Hosea 2:16 – “And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’”

In a marriage, one spouse is not superior to the other; each one plays a unique role that complements the other.  Although the Bible teaches that the husband should lead and the wife should submit, the husband is not treated as a master and lord over his household, but a loving caretaker of his family.  He is not told to rule with an iron fist, putting his legs up and watching TV, waiting to be served.  No!  He is asked to love his wife as Christ loved the church, giving himself up for her, serving her, and making sure her every need is cared for.  He is not a slave master, but a servant leader to his wife.  What is very interesting though is that Christ, who has every right to be Lord and Master over our lives, has instead chosen to take the position of Husband instead.  He would rather have a personal, intimate relationship with us rather than one built on Master and slave.

Our passage today emphasizes this truth.  The book of Hosea highlights the relationship between God and His people of Israel.  Although Israel had made a covenant with the Lord – to serve Him and Him only, they had gone astray to serve other gods like Baal, Asherah, and Molech.  They even worshipped gods that they created themselves like the Bronze Serpent that Moses had made in the wilderness in Numbers 21.  Israel was like an adulteress who betrayed the covenant of marriage by being unfaithful to the Lord with other gods.  They even had the nerve to take the blessings that God had given them like the food, the silver, and the gold and use it to serve these other gods, who they thought provided them with these blessings.  They had lost sight of the Person who loved them with an unconditional love.  Interestingly though after allowing them to suffer the judgment they deserved, God called them back to Him tenderly.  He did not demand them back.  He did not invoke His right as Master.  He did not even treat her as an outcast.  Instead, He called her back with love and affection, restoring His people Israel.

This declaration in verse 16 is so important, because culturally, when Jewish people introduce their spouses, it is by using the terms described above.  The husband will introduce his wife by saying, “This is my wife……” but the wife will introduce herself by saying, “I belong to ……..”  The wife will refer to her husband as her “baali” which means “my master,” instead of calling him, “ishi,” which means “my husband.”  Nowadays, we don’t deal with that terminology, but at the time, it was the norm.  The beauty of this passage is because God said that His people would no longer call Him “My Baal” but “My Husband.”  It was a switch from “Baali” to “Ishi,” from a term that sounds like captivity and obligation to a term that indicates love and partnership.  God loved them so much that He wanted to change their relationship to one that was filled with personal love, even though they had sinned and “committed adultery” with other gods.  Verse 16 powerfully depicts God’s unconditional and amazing love.

What is even more wonderful is that that same love extends to us!  While we were still sinners, God sent His Son to die for us (Romans 5:8).  We were His enemies; we were people who had run to other gods and attributed all His blessings to other things; we were people who outright rejected Him.  Yet, He willingly died for us and wanted to restore that relationship.  He didn’t just want slaves to His will, but disciples and partners in His work.  He wanted to be our Ishi not our Baal, though He had every right to demand otherwise.  He didn’t make us robots but lovers.  As Christians, let us be thankful for this beautiful relationship we can have with our God.  He is not distant or demanding but personal and faithful.  He provides for us, cares for us, restores us, and even gives us a chance to know Him deeply.  What a loving Ishi, we have.

Quick Note – Isaiah 8:19-20 – Where to Seek Advice

Isaiah 8:19-20 – “19 And when they say to you, ‘Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,’ should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? 20 To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.”

Since I am not a parent, I have no clue what it feels like to watch my child seek advice from someone else other than me.  Certainly, it would hurt if they chose to forgo my words of experience to listen to the advice of their less experienced friends or peers.  I would hate to see them make avoidable mistakes, because they listened to the wrong counsel.  In the Bible, Solomon’s son Rehoboam was a prime example of a person who sought the wrong advice and suffered for it.  1 Kings 12 records the story.  When Rehoboam succeed Solomon on the throne of Israel, the people of Israel asked him to lighten the load of service that had previously been placed on them by Solomon.  Faced with this challenge, Rehoboam sought advice from two groups of people – 1) the elders who had sat under Solomon’s wisdom and reign and 2) his peers.  Instead of listening to the advice of the elders, Rehoboam took heed to his peers and lost most of the kingdom to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.  From that point forward, Israel was divided into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.

In our passage today, God rebuked His people for seeking advice from mediums, necromancers, and those who speak on behalf of the dead.  Instead of seeking God and His Word, they sought counsel from forces of darkness that would surely lead them astray.  They followed what all the other nations would do in their situation – they sought counsel from the spiritual forces of darkness that they could not understand or know.  What they should have done was look to His Word, for in it is wisdom and guidance.  But instead they acted like King Saul in 1 Samuel 28, who sought a medium to get advice from the prophet Samuel (who had already died).  Saul was rebuked by Samuel’s ghost for doing so, and God did so to His people here.

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we know better than to consult fortune tellers, witches, and other members of the occult.  We know that playing with these things is like playing with fire, so we stay away as far as we can, which is wise.  Sadly though, we continue to make the same mistake the people of Israel made here – we seek advice from people other than God.  Our God is the Lord of all, the Creator of the universe, and the Sustainer of everything.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.  He is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent.  He knows the past, present, and the future, and He knows the plans that He had planned for us even before we were formed in our mother’s wombs.  He knows all these things yet still loves us and wants us to come to Him for advice; yet when we are lost, He is the last Person we turn to.  We would rather try to solve the problem ourselves, to look to a self-help book, or to consult the world.  God has given us the manual for our lives in the Bible yet we hardly ever open it.  God didn’t give us the Bible to put up as a beautiful ornament on our coffee table; He gave it to us, so that we could delve into and learn more about Him, His commands, and His direction for our lives.  Instead of seeking worldly advice, we should be searching His Word, for it is filled with just the right words for any occasion.  For wisdom, read Proverbs.  For practical advice on church issues, read Corinthians.  For comfort, read the Psalms.  Each and every book can speak to our lives.  Stop inquiring about life and advice elsewhere; turn “to the teaching and to the testimony!”  God wants to speak to you in His Word today.