Way of a Fool

Proverbs 17:22 Though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain,
Yet his foolishness will not depart from him.

This verse became alive to me when I read it yesterday, because that is what i have been doing - not grinding the fool - but crushing grain in the mortar and pestle to make bread. It is real tedious and painstaking work. No matter how much I pound and pound and pound, yet the foolishness will still not depart from the full. No work of man's hands can make wise the foolish. Yet all of us are foolish because we are born human, born in sin. Our whole mindset and thoughts are foolishness with God.

O how wonderful are the promises of God - James 1:⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. ⁶ But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. ⁷ For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.


I have been meditating on the foolishness of this world and of man... my post on that is long-overdue... so should be up soon.

Go over to my baker blog to see what happened to the handful of crushed grain.

Indeed the saints have no excellency, as they are in and of themselves. In them, that is, in their flesh, dwells no good thing. They are in themselves poor, guilty, vile creatures, and see themselves to be so. But they have an excellency and glory in them, because they have Christ dwelling in them. The excellency that is in them, though it be but as a spark, yet it is something ten thousand times more excellent than any ruby, or the most precious pearl that ever was found on the earth; and that because it is something divine, something of God.

-from "The Portion of the Righteous" by Jonathan Edwards

I just came across this in my homework. Such a statement! How true it is that we are really nothing in ourselves.

Why Memorize Scripture By John Piper

What God has to say about False Prophets

  Jeremiah 23
 ⁹ My heart within me is broken
      Because of the prophets;
      All my bones shake.
      I am like a drunken man,
      And like a man whom wine has overcome,
      Because of the LORD,
      And because of His holy words.
       ¹⁰ For the land is full of adulterers;
      For because of a cuarse the land mourns.
      The pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up.
      Their course of life is evil,
      And their might is not right.
       ¹¹ “ For both prophet and priest are profane;
      Yes, in My house I have found their wickedness,” says the LORD.
       ¹² “ Therefore their way shall be to them
      Like slippery ways;
      In the darkness they shall be driven on
      And fall in them;
      For I will bring disaster on them,
      The year of their punishment,” says the LORD.
       ¹³ “ And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria:
      They prophesied by Baal
      And caused My people Israel to err.
       ¹⁴ Also I have seen a horrible thing in the prophets of Jerusalem:
      They commit adultery and walk in lies;
      They also strengthen the hands of evildoers,
      So that no one turns back from his wickedness.
      All of them are like Sodom to Me,
      And her inhabitants like Gomorrah.
¹⁵ “Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets:


      ‘ Behold, I will feed them with wormwood,
      And make them drink the water of gall;
      For from the prophets of Jerusalem
      Profaneness has gone out into all the land.’”
¹⁶ Thus says the LORD of hosts:


      “ Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you.
      They make you worthless;
      They speak a vision of their own heart,
      Not from the mouth of the LORD.
       ¹⁷ They continually say to those who despise Me,
       ‘ The LORD has said, “You shall have peace”’;
      And to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say,

      ‘ No evil shall come upon you.’”
       ¹⁸ For who has stood in the counsel of the LORD,
      And has perceived and heard His word?
      Who has marked His word and heard it?
       ¹⁹ Behold, a whirlwind of the LORD has gone forth in fury—
      A violent whirlwind!
      It will fall violently on the head of the wicked.
       ²⁰ The anger of the LORD will not turn back
      Until He has executed and performed the thoughts of His heart.
      In the latter days you will understand it perfectly.
       ²¹ “ I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran.
      I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
       ²² But if they had stood in My counsel,
      And had caused My people to hear My words,
      Then they would have turned them from their evil way
      And from the evil of their doings.
       ²³ “ Am I a God near at hand,” says the LORD,

      “ And not a God afar off?
       ²⁴ Can anyone hide himself in secret places,
      So I shall not see him?” says the LORD;

      “ Do I not fill heaven and earth?” says the LORD.
²⁵ “I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in My name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’ ²⁶ How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies? Indeed they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, ²⁷ who try to make My people forget My name by their dreams which everyone tells his neighbor, as their fathers forgot My name for Baal.
       ²⁸ “ The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream;
      And he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully.
      What is the chaff to the wheat?” says the LORD.
       ²⁹ “ Is not My word like a fire?” says the LORD,

      “ And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
³⁰ “Therefore behold, I am against the prophets,” says the LORD, “who steal My words every one from his neighbor. ³¹ Behold, I am against the prophets,” says the LORD, “who use their tongues and say, ‘He says.’ ³² Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,” says the LORD, “and tell them, and cause My people to err by their lies and by their recklessness. Yet I did not send them or command them; therefore they shall not profit this people at all,” says the LORD. ³³ “So when these people or the prophet or the priest ask you, saying, ‘What is the oracle of the LORD?’ you shall then say to them, ‘What oracle?’^[b] I will even forsake you,” says the LORD. ³⁴ “And as for the prophet and the priest and the people who say, ‘The oracle of the LORD!’ I will even punish that man and his house. ³⁵ Thus every one of you shall say to his neighbor, and every one to his brother, ‘What has the LORD answered?’ and, ‘What has the LORD spoken?’ ³⁶ And the oracle of the LORD you shall mention no more. For every man’s word will be his oracle, for you have perverted the words of the living God, the LORD of hosts, our God. ³⁷ Thus you shall say to the prophet, ‘What has the LORD answered you?’ and, ‘What has the LORD spoken?’ ³⁸ But since you say, ‘The oracle of the LORD!’ therefore thus says the LORD: ‘Because you say this word, “The oracle of the LORD!” and I have sent to you, saying, “Do not say, ‘The oracle of the LORD!’” ³⁹ therefore behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you and forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and will cast you out of My presence. ⁴⁰ And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.’”

Passages from Jeremiah

This past week or more I have been reading the book of Jeremiah. As the major prophets always seemed to me like big books full of fantastic visions and wild prophecies I couldn't understand, yet this time when I returned to Jeremiah it was so full of God's Word to me, to the church, and to Israel too, that I am so blessed by reading it.

Though it seems a dreary book full of the repenting and judgement of backslided Israel and Judah, yet there is SO MUCH to learn for me, and I intend to study the book further after I have finished going through it.


^{Jeremiah 3:14} “Return, O backsliding children,” says the LORD; “for I am married to you. I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. ¹⁵ And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. ¹⁶ “Then it shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land in those days,” says the LORD, “that they will say no more, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD.’ It shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they visit it, nor shall it be made anymore. ¹⁷ “At that time Jerusalem shall be called The Throne of the LORD, and all the nations shall be gathered to it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem. No more shall they follow the dictates of their evil hearts. ¹⁸ “In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given as an inheritance to your fathers. 


How BEAUTIFUL! What a hope! What a promise! What a future God has in store for us in the millineum! OUght this passage not strike something in our hearts for our future is in Christ. I pray ⁷That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
 ¹⁸The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, (Eph 1)


 Titus 2:¹¹For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
 ¹²Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;
 ¹³Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
 ¹⁴Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.


 
^{Rev 22:20} He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.”
Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
²¹ The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.^[m] Amen. 

Spiral Chart

This chart I just drew up is pretty self-explanatory. I don’t  think it is a very complete view of salvation as a whole nor is it  a very proportionate chart of history but it gives me a sort of better understanding of a few aspects of the Bible as a whole.

1)      Spiral of history – The British preacher Pawson once quoted someone, “History repeats itself . It has too – no one listens.” We all  know Judges is an awful cycle, but reading the Old Testament and New, I see that the History of our world is also a spiral downwards.

2)      The view of Salvation under this light brings out two points

a.   Galatians 4: ¹ Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, ² but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. ³Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. ⁴ But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born^[a] of a woman, born under the law, ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. ⁶ And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” ⁷ Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of^[b] God through Christ.

b.      Israel and the Church Romans 9-11

Do tell  me what you think about this chart – do you agree or disagree, can you point out anything that I can learn and add to it??