Bible Lesson 121

IF THE FOUNDATIONS ARE DESTROYED
JEREMIAH 15:6-7

“You have forsaken Me, says the Lord, Your have gone backward. Therefore I will stretch out My hand against you; I am weary of relenting! And I will winnow them with a winnowing fan in the gates of the land; I will bereave them of children; I will destroy My people, Since they do not return from their ways.”

“The solution to the problems with our foundations, and their being destroyed, is for us to take a stand and never allow the devil room to work. Get up everyday and look at yourself in the mirror and pray that God will keep you steadfast’.then put on the armor of God and go out to battle for the Lord.” Brobob

We continue today in our study concerning foundations; and we will look at the basis for most everything that we know about, as we look at our selves, our families, our homes, our churches, schools, and government. God who created all that we know, is so great and gracious, that whatever He has ordained to exist, will be able to exist and function; because God has given us good foundations on which to build.

Now, that does not necessarily mean that we as rational, thinking beings always maintain our God-given foundation. Often and probably more often than not, we leave what God has ordained and begin to destroy the very foundation that we were meant to build upon, which would give us the necessary stability to enjoy the life that we will spend here on the earth. We, just as Adam our forefather, were created and given a rule or rules to live by, and we are expected to live according to our God-given rules.

So many of us have strayed away from God’s ideals for us and have more often than not discovered that God always knows best. Adam was given only one rule or command, and that was that he was not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We know, from what God has revealed of Himself and our origins, that Adam failed to keep that one command and as a consequence, God drove him and Eve out of paradise (The garden of Eden).

Adam somehow forgot or chose to ignore the fact that God is Sovereign and whatever God has said is a command for us to obey, and if we disobey, and refuse to repent of that disobedience God will punish us for our failure. Mankind has exhibited a total disdain for what is right and proper and we have grown further and further from God. That is what we find in our scriptural text for this lesson (Jeremiah 15:6-7). The Prophet Jeremiah’s name means ‘Jehovah throws’ or Jehovah establishes, appoints, or sends, in the sense of laying down a foundation!

Jeremiah was warning Judah and its people about the destruction of their foundations. This was not the first time that they had received warnings and wooing from God; however, it would be the last time before God took measures to judge and punish them.

The two verses that we chose to guide this lesson study was verses 6 and 7 of Chapter 15 of the book of Jeremiah, and God tells these stiff-necked people, You have forsaken Me, You have gone backward (run away from God) so God says that He will Stretch out His hand against them and destroy them; because He was tired of relenting!
God uses a term in verse 7 that many of us today are not familiar with but we need to understand so that we don’t become as hardheaded as they were. God speaks of winnowing, and bereave the of children, and destroying them because they refuse to return to Him.

Winnowing speaks of the work of harvest where grain is separated from the hulls or chaff. This is done by tossing the grain into the air and shaking it and the chaff is blown away by the wind and fruit falls to the ground. God says that he will, in judgment, separate these people from their sin, and disobedience, as he sends someone or something to cause their very lives and land to be destroyed. We know from reading the Bible that it would be the Babylonians who would winnow them. God told them that they had crossed the line with Him and even if Moses and Samuel were to pray for them that He would not defer this judgment. We have to understand that as God always does, He will save the righteous remnant.

We know from the Bible that God has always saved a remnant or seed, to continue the righteous line, but not many can take much solace from that because we know that in the flood in Noah’s time, there were only eight people out of millions on the earth at that time who made up the remnant. There were Noah and his wife and his three sons and their wives. People in our day seem to think so lightly of God and of His way for men, that they cannot recognize that God will not tolerate our halfway measures in our relationship with Him. God has one kind of relationship with men and that is the relations as man and wife.

Think about this’.every Sunday some people walk an aisle, shake the preacher’s hand and profess to believe and they believe that they are saved; however, they go right back to the old ways and old sin that they followed the week before. Do you think that that person is saved” You may like to think that they are, but God does not, and we know that from the inerrant Word of God, the Bible (Acts 3:19; Romans 2:4-13; Psalms 62:12; Proverbs 24:12; Revelation 22:12; Revelation 20:12; Matthew 16:27; Matthew 16:24-26; Matthew 24:4-13; Matthew 24:45-51; John 15:14). We have forgotten or denied that we will only occupy this earth in human form, for a very short time and that while we are alive and aware, we are held responsible for how we live, who holds our ultimate allegiance, who we will love supremely, and who we will trust for eternity.

That is the most pressing question that man has to answer while he lives here’..what must I do to be saved” The important question is not what shall I eat or wear or where shall I live, or how will I feed my family or who will be elected in the next election, or even who shall I fear” Those are all important questions as we live here but the most critical, or crucial question remains ‘What must I do to be saved’. That was the question that men asked the Apostle Peter as he preached on the day of Pentecost, with the Holy Spirit moving to convict men of sin and righteousness and judgment’ they had been accused of the crucifixion, and they to Peter and the others ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do”‘ Then Peter said to them, ‘Repent and let every one of you is baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’

Now we must understand the words that Peter said in their context and we have to understand that repentance has never meant to just feel sorry that you find yourself in a certain position, or sorry you didn’t exercise better judgment, but it means you know how God feels about your sin and you feel the very same way and you give up all known sin in your life never to commit them again. That’s what God requires in repentance! It means a completely different road, a different path, a different way of life and different likes and dislikes, and perhaps even different friends. It is not something that people who have professed Christ because of some emotion that has been stirred in them by a sermon or a lesson that they have heard or read. It is not a desire that prompts a person to want to fit in better with church people. It is not wanting to be a better husband or wife or spouse. True repentance is a gift from God and it is only given to those who have thoughtfully heard and understood the truth about God and themselves. It is about a dying to self and a new life ‘In Christ’.

So that means that the true Christian is a new person, a new breed if you will and they are so because God made them so. In salvation, God is the force, the Sovereign, the Creator who takes a lost, blind, unheeding, and uncaring sinner and puts them to death, and then raises a New Creature, who has the power within them to live in such a way as to be obedient to God. The saved person is not the grizzled old creature with a new paint job or a medal pinned on his chest or even a cleaned-up old person. NO! The true Christian is a completely new creature, created by the Hand of God, in Christ, who comes into this world with a newness of life, not the old life with all its sinful encumbrances.

This New Creature ‘is’ new and different, they are not going to be someday, a new creature, they are new the instant they believe; because the old things are passed away and all things are now new, Praise God (Ephesians 2:10; 2nd Corinthians 5:17). This new creature is not at home in this world, they are pilgrims in this world and they are just passing through, or as one preacher has said, they are ‘en route’, which means that they are at a certain point on their way to their final destination, which for the Christian is heaven (First Peter 1:1-2; First Peter 2:9-12).

We, true Christians are not simply sinners with their brains kicked out, they are men and women who look, walk, speak and live like Jesus Christ Himself, by the power of Jesus Christ Himself in us. In true Salvation, in the New Birth, that Birth from Above, God takes the old sinner with all of Adam’s ways and with his foundation destroyed; and puts that old creature and his crumbling foundation to death, and raises a new creature with a solid foundation, which can stand the influences of this sinful world.

Men, daily, work to build houses and great skyscrapers and the first thing that they do is to first lay a foundation for that building, which will or should, hold the building in place. So we know that the foundation is one of the more important things that we have to consider when we build something. The Bible speaks to us about the foundation and We know the God who created all that we know, created the earth, He laid a foundation for it that will stand until God gets ready to destroy it (Psalms 102:25-26). Jesus Christ spoke to proper foundations when He preached the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus said that ‘Whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.’

Now I want you to pay particular attention to what those verses of scripture are saying to us today. Jesus spoke of a wise man who built his house on THE rock. Not on just any rock but THE rock and I put the in capital letters to draw your attention to it. If Jesus had said ‘a’ rock it could have to mean just a good hard undersurface, but Jesus said ‘the’ rock, which points us back to who is mentioned as the rock in scripture (Psalms 18:2,31,46; Psalms 28:1; Psalms 62:Psalms 62:2,6-7; Mathew 16:18 where Jesus said to Peter after Peter’s profession of faith in Jesus, ‘Upon this rock I will build my church.’ That refers to Peters’s faith in Christ, who is the rock; 1st Corinthians 10:4). Is your house built upon THE Rock” Do you have the assurance that your anchor is founded in Jesus Christ who is God in the flesh and who died to redeem us from sin”

For us to be on the rock, we have to know and understand about the rock; and having said that let me warn you that many have never believed in the Biblical Jesus, but rather in a Jesus that some preacher or church has lifted to get them to join their congregations. That is sad but it is true! We have made up many idols that we call Jesus and the uninformed or simple who do not read and study the Word of God the Bible for themselves have been fooled about their salvation. Listen to me now’.God will forgive you if you have somehow been confused and He will save you if you come to Him in the way that He has said that people had to come. So if you are not sure that He is yours and you are His, stop being fooled and read and understand the Bible for yourselves.

I know that many say that they cannot understand the Bible but that is because they have come to read it with a double mind. You need to give up everything, love Jesus above everyone and everything in the world, and cast yourself on Him and what He did on Calvary as sufficient for your salvation, trusting Him to do all the rest. You must come with nothing in your hand, with no preconditions, with nothing held back, which is the only way God receives anyone. You must come realizing that you are powerless to save yourself and willing to have self-put to death. Christianity is not something that you can wrest from God or trick God out of, it is something that our Sovereign Creator planned before the foundation of the world, and Jesus Christ came from heaven, at just the right time, to live among us, without sin, to call us to repentance, and finally to die on the cross where we should have been nailed, to be buried in a borrowed tomb (because He would not need it for but three days), then to be resurrected on the third day, to be seen by hundreds and recognized and then after forty days to ascend back into heaven from which He had come and be seated at the right hand of God the Father to be our Prophet, Priest, and King.

This is the Jesus Christ that was born of a virgin, lived without sin, and who preached, healed the sick, raised the dead, fed the hungry, and revealed more perfectly, the Father to us. Is that the Jesus you have exercised God-given faith in” It is my prayer and hope that it is and that you are every day praising Him and witnessing His love to those you come in contact with. Are you conscious of your duty to God to bring light into whatever corner God has placed you in, and are being that salt of truth that is so strong in Christ that it affects the community that you live in”

We have to ask those questions because all others are false Jesus’, false prophets, false preachers, and false witnesses. Do not be fooled because the true Christian is not simply a human like everyone else, they are as we said before a new breed, a new race and that means that we are a royal nation, a nation of priests (1st Peter 2:9-10). We no longer need any man to be our priest since we are priest ourselves, that is if we are under the blood of Christ, we can now go into the presence of God with our petitions.

Everything has to have a foundation, some more visible than others, but regardless, from our thoughts and actions every day to our very lives, our families, our school, our churches, and our nation. Understand now, there are foundations and there are foundations and all of them are crucial, and by that, I mean that when we speak about our lives, we consider proper health care, proper education, exercise and other things that make our lives worthwhile; however, that all goes toward our good in this short time that we spend here on the earth. Those who are prepared to spend eternity in heaven, there is another foundation and that foundation can be no other than Jesus Christ, and His life, death, resurrection, and ascension.

Those whose foundation is faith in Christ will inherit heaven for eternity. Our families also have temporary foundations and eternal foundations! For the temporary family, and we remember that that family is going to be together here on the earth for a relatively short time, must have a father (male) and mother (female) and children. The eternal foundation is supposed to be laid and strengthened as children grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Fathers serve as priests and mothers support his Christian leadings of their family. In the family as well as in the individual life, There can be no other foundation except Jesus Christ as King. All eternal foundations must be built on the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. What is truth” The Word of God is the truth and both Jesus Christ and the Bible are called the Word (John 17:17; Ephesians 1:1-5), so we know from the revelation of God that we must know the truth to be saved and if we are saved our salvation is rested on Christ.

We have now accounted for the individual’s foundation and the foundation of the family, and we found that there is only one indestructible foundation, that one consists of the truth as found in the Word of God the Bible and the Word of God, Jesus Christ. Now, let’s look at our schools, and if we look at the schools that I know anything about I can only speak to the school system in the United States. Our school originally began with the foundation of truth, and that meant that the core was formed around Christian principles.

Our dictionary early on used the Alphabet to reflect biblical precepts, for instance, A stood for Adam, B stood for the Bible and on and on, plus factual teaching on reading, writing and arithmetic; however, in our politically correct government-controlled school of today, we are more interested in appearing to teach, than we are to insist upon real education. Political activism has been allowed to displace the foundation of truth, which was at one point the basis for education. Then we look at the visible church of our age, and in liberal America, we have gone the same way in many of our churches as we have in our school system. We began to preach a cheap grace kind of religion, which tickled the ears of parishioners; and which attracted the world to come into the church. The church was born of Jesus Christ as He went to the cross and bled and died and was resurrected, and ascended back into heaven, where He sits at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for those who are born again and obedient to the will of God. I believe that much of what we see and call churches in our time is not part of the Church at all but rather simply cults that worship themselves and follow their ways. They have not the foundation, at least not any lasting foundation.

For your pastors in other countries as well as in America, I caution you to never depart from the truths of the Bible. Learn them, in context, and live them out in your lives as you teach them to others. It may seem strange to some of you that we would say that the visible church is losing its foundation, but it is true because they have begun to make, add to or take away from the strict truths of the Word of God, and that makes it all less than the truth which is what sets us free (John 8:32). There is only one source of truth and that is the Bible. So be careful how you interpret it and preach it to lost souls.

What we have said about foundations applies to not only our lives, our families, our schools, and our churches, it also applies to our communities our state, and our nation. We must stop attempting to be popular with everyone, loved by everyone, and pleasing to everyone because if you are preaching the truths of the Word of God, you will not succeed at any of that. ‘Preach the Word, be instant in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.'(2nd Timothy 4:2). Keep The Faith’.

Until next time,

may God bless and keep you

This is Bro. Bob