2007 picture of Ray Sparre

Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67


August 31, 2013

Hello, dear ones…

…on a beautiful Saturday morning. We already did our WOG. I picked a few berries before returning home. Now we need to get all lined out for a lot of stuff on our agenda for the day. After I shower and change, I think the first target of our attack will be processing a bunch of pears. Then is will be grass cutting, cleaning, straightening, and some food preparation before guests come around 3pm.

Blessings on your day.

Love, Dad/Ray.

31 August
Passage: Jeremiah 7-9
Focus: "This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ‘Stand at the gate of the LORD’S house and there proclaim this message: Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD.’” Jeremiah 7:1-2.

Try to visualize this setting—Jeremiah is instructed to post himself near the entrance of the Temple at Jerusalem, maybe stand on an apple crate, and beller this message to all those passing in and out. It’s a scortching lengthy message—more warning of more doom and gloom—but also reiterating the heart of the matter—reviewing the simple easy-to-understand command of the LORD that makes everything fit together and work right. “For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you” (7:22-23). For lack of a more concise way to describe that command, it’s a call to a HEART AFTER GOD.

Notice this is not a call to the unbelieving or heathen world—it’s a call to those claiming to worship the God of the Bible—to those who are settling for a traditional treadmill approach to faith without really LOVING GOD. The warning is for us too. It’s possible to be engaged in church and “religious” activity up to our eyeballs and still be void of a HEART AFTER GOD—that turns it all into an empty sham.

Then the LORD drops on Jeremiah this encouraging word: “When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you; when you call to them, they will not answer” (7:27). Yippee! Isn’t that great! Jeremiah could have exclaimed to the LORD, “So why are we doing this? What’s the use?” I don’t want to be putting words in the LORD’S mouth, but He could have responded, “Truth is truth—and I want My Truth documented and demonstrated so that succeeding generations would have a resource for instruction in righteousness that is consistent and compelling.” (Consider 1 Corinthians 10:6-12.)

It’s clear that God’s intention behind circumcision was the institution of a rite representing exclusivity and faithfulness to the “Sovereign LORD” in the same way that a wedding is a ceremony representing exclusivity between a husband and a wife. And just as a wife, for example, may engage in that ceremony without a true heart of devotion and exclusivity, so can a circumcised person participate in “a form of godliness” (2 Timothy 3:5) without a HEART AFTER GOD. The ceremony cannot give life to the heart, but the heart can give life to the ceremony. That is the theme of the last two verses of this reading—9:25-26.


“Adam and Eve had an ideal marriage. He didn’t have to hear about all the men she could have married, and she didn’t have to hear about how well his mother cooked.”