The past few weeks have been a bit trying; we found out that my Son-in-Law’s transplant did not take. There was only a 17% match, and there needed to be a 90% match or better to really help him. We were all disappointed, and now the next step is to keep him from getting too, too sick and helping him hold on for another year before they can try a more invasive transplant.

On top of that, my dad passed away and went home to the Lord. It was an unexpected passing; he was in decent health and spirits, but the Lord took him home. I have not been writing a lot, as these things were front and center in our lives for a bit. We will celebrate my dad this coming week, and then maybe things can get back to a bit of normalcy. I hate missing these writings, as they help me to learn the scriptures better.

Psalm 34 was written after the events of 1 Samuel 21. To understand this, we will see that in 1 Samuel 17, we see the account of David and Goliath; at first there is a lot of joy over the victory, but soon, Saul becomes very jealous of David and tries to kill him. David ends up running for his life and, as such, ends up in the city of Nob. There he is helped by one of the priests who thinks he, David, is on an errand for Saul. Saul ends up having all the priests and their families killed, and David runs to Gath in 1 Samuel 21: 1-15, and there he fakes being insane and finds peace there in Gath. David writes this Psalm in reference to what is happening in his life:

Verses 1-3: I will bless the Lord at all times. What a lesson for us! No matter the circumstances, whether good, bad, or ugly, I will bless the Lord at all times.

Can you and I honestly say that this is how we approach life? Sadly, a lot of us only bless the Lord when things are good, money is in the bank, the family is healthy, and things are going our way. But what happens when your son-in-law is sick and nothing helps, or when your dad suddenly dies and there was no way to say goodbye? What happens when work is hard, every sale takes every ounce of strength you have, while others seem to have it so easy? What happens when you pastor a church that never seems to grow; week to week, the numbers don’t seem to get bigger, but you see other churches baptizing 2, 3, 10, 30 all in one Sunday. Can you bless the Lord when everybody else’s Goliaths get killed, but yours is alive and well?

Verses 4-7: God always hears our cries. No matter how much you may think your cries hit the ceiling, God hears. He hears the humble and the broken, those who come to the end of themselves and seek Him in faith. David says, I sought the Lord, and He heard me.

Verses 8-9: The Lord is good. When we take the time to check, the time to truly take account, we will see that the Lord is good. He provides, He is there, He is near, He has all under control, and the chaos is His way of fixing things. There is no want Psalm 23:1); there are no needs for those whose Shepherd is the Lord.

Verses 11-14: We are to teach others to fear and respect the Lord. Don’t shy away from letting your kids see some of the struggles, and rejoice with them when the Lord solves the problems and comes to the rescue. Let them see the Lord’s hand as well and grow confident from their youth that He is there, that He provides, and that He is a trusted friend.

Verses 15-18: God is watching over us. God is good, not because we are worthy, but simply because He is good. His eye, they say, is on the sparrow. We are told that God knows even the number of hairs on our heads and all about us. We have no secrets with Him, and still He loves us, is near to us, protects us, and is all we will ever need.

Verses 19-22: The Righteous will go through afflictions. This is one of the hardest things to understand. We have too many religious organizations – I will not call them churches – who have conned people in thinking that salvation is a ticket out of troubles. BUT the opposite is truer. God tells us we will be afflicted; Jesus warns us that in this life we will have troubles. But don’t finish there; not only will we have afflictions, BUT God, YHWH, will deliver us from it all. Hold on; help is coming. Like Job 42:16, there will be an “after this” in your life as well.

In verse 20, David prophesies about Jesus’ bones not being broken, 1000 years before the crucifixion. Evil will seem to win for a time; read the opening verses of Psalm 73, but look at Psalm 34:22: NONE who trust in Him shall be condemned. What a wonderful Psalm written by a man, a righteous man, who was on the run from his father-in-law; he was running for his life, and yet in the middle of that he wrote that God is good. God is good!!! Maybe you have been through some stuff; maybe you are going through some stuff. Can you cry out God is good? I hope you can and mean it.

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario

Over the past few weeks, we have looked at how a lot of the modern religious world has watered down and softened the word of God. God has been reduced to this kind of heavenly mystical lover that many Christian artists sing about. Now, there is a lot of good gospel music there, and some of the older stuff has its problems as well.

The Gospel is a love story that is framed in harsh violence. The Holy God allowed His Son to be beaten to the point of being disfigured, then hung on a tree, nailed with long iron spikes to it, and then having to suffer the pain of suffocation, the shame of nakedness, the rejection of His own people, and the slow, agonizing death that was so harsh it was illegal for Roman citizens to be crucified.

God poured out His wrath – that should have fallen on us – on His Perfect, Sinless Son so we could be saved.

In the passage we will explore today, God teaches us a lesson about obedience. The Bible is very cut and dry in many areas. God is gracious, and often His patience leads us and the world around us to think that He is letting things go; nothing could be further from the truth. As we explore Jeremiah 36, we will hopefully learn some blunt realities about God and His word.

Verses 1-5: Tell the truth no matter what. Jeremiah could not go in himself. But he made sure that the word of the Lord got to where it was supposed to be. So, he called Baruch to write and then to read the word from the Lord to the people. Baruch was responsible for making sure the people heard the Word. You and I are responsible for making sure that the people around us hear the unfiltered truth of salvation. Jesus is the only way. They need to know that Hell is real and eternal, and the simplicity and totality of salvation. Let us get away from any kind of pretense and performance; just tell them the truth as plainly as possible.

Verses 11-19: Some will hear; some will have the right response. Notice verse 16: they looked towards another in fear. They were hit by God’s word; they were convicted. There is an old-fashioned word: convicted. There are two kinds of fear: one of reverence and another of simply understanding that they deserved all that was coming their way because of how they behaved.

You will see in verses 18-19 that these men understood that the message being told was not a popular one and that the speakers had to be protected, hidden away until they could gauge the reaction of the leaders that needed to hear the message.

We live in a time when no one wants to hear of right and wrong, no one wants to hear of judgment, and no one wants to hear that there is a Holy Judge that will call us to give an account of our lives. Sadly, the world around us and many Christians have neither a reverential fear of God nor fear of God’s judgment. We have cheapened God’s grace to make it into a license to water down even the power of salvation and the broad need for all people to be saved. We hate those that point out right and wrong, good and bad, holy and evil, the godly and the ungodly.

We have molded God in our image and refuse to be changed to be more like Jesus. Thus doctrinally conservative preachers are hated, and the wishy-washy spiritual motivators are lauded. These men who heard the words of Jeremiah through Baruch hoped that the king would hear the warnings of God and repent. So they prepared for the worst and hoped for the best.

Verses 20-26: The Rebellion in Political Leaders. The king calls for the scroll to be read, and they read sections of it; he cuts it off and throws it into the fire. There are some that think if they ban the Bible, make it illegal to read like they did here in Canada, burn it, imprison the preachers, close the churches, and cancel social media accounts that they will shut up God, reshape the truth, and beat God. What fools!!

Over the past few years, Bible sales have soared in North America; the death of Charlie Kirk sparked a call to worship in young men, and somehow, against all odds, the people elected a President that openly tells the nation and, indeed, the whole world that Jesus is Lord.

This king in Jeremiah has no reverence towards God, no regard for His Word; the men who brought word to him asked him not to burn the scroll (verse 25).

Well, we see in verses 29-31 that God pronounces a judgment on Jehoiakim, and eventually his bloodline dies out, and no one from his line is left to sit on the throne. There is another line that follows, and in that line, we have the person of Jesus. On top of that, there was a great disaster that came upon Jerusalem: thousands died, thousands more went into captivity, and the city was burned with fire and the temple torn to the ground.

Back in verse 3, we see that God graciously sent the word by His prophet to see if the people would hear and repent. He reached out His hand, extended grace one more time, offered life, but they rebelled and chose death.

Every day that we live here on Earth is one more day of grace  — grace extended to a godless generation that defies their creator and curses His very existence. Every day that they live is an offering of grace; just maybe the next sunrise will show them there is a God to be feared, and maybe they will repent. Maybe they too will hear someone read or speak the Word of God and be convicted; maybe they will repent and live.

Sadly, too many are like this king; they have cold hearts, hardened hearts, their ears no longer want to hear from God, and so they ban the Bible, shush preachers, and choose Hell. But that does not diminish our responsibilities; we have to make sure they hear the word of God; what they do with it is between them and God.

seangooding@yahoo.ca

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario