“If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the Lord, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’
“But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’
“Therefore thus says the Lord:
Ask among the nations,
Who has heard the like of this?
The virgin Israel
has done a very horrible thing.
Does the snow of Lebanon leave
the crags of Sirion?
Do the mountain waters run dry,
the cold flowing streams?
But my people have forgotten me;
they make offerings to false gods;
they made them stumble in their ways,
in the ancient roads,
and to walk into side roads,
not the highway,
making their land a horror,
a thing to be hissed at forever.
Everyone who passes by it is horrified
and shakes his head.
Like the east wind I will scatter them
before the enemy.
I will show them my back, not my face,
in the day of their calamity.” (Jeremiah 18:7-17 ESV)
Now, I am not going to go into the history of all of this, but I am going to share with you the message that I believe the Lord has for us today through this passage of Scripture. For when we believe in Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of our lives that is a marriage commitment to Jesus Christ. He is now our husband, and we are his bride, and he is now the authority over our heads. And now our commitment is to our relationship with him to be faithful, pure, honest, and to live to please him as our Lord and Savior.
But just like a marriage between a husband and a wife, it is a lifetime commitment, and it must be kept alive by the faithfulness of both – until death us do part. Only if we remain faithful to the Lord we will not depart from him, but we will live with him for eternity, so to the point of our death or to the point of his return when he takes his faithful bride home to be with him forever. But this requires that we remain faithful, and that our lives are committed to serving him and to doing whatever he says we are to do.
For we are not saved once and now all our sins are forgiven and now heaven is guaranteed us regardless of how we live. Like a “bank clearing,” our salvation from sin “denotes all activities from the time a commitment is made for a transaction until it is settled.” For we are saved (past), we are being saved (present active), and we will be saved (future) when Jesus Christ returns for his faithful bride and he takes us to be with him for eternity, which is when our salvation will be settled (completed).
[John 8:31-32; John 14:15,21,23-24; John 15:10; Romans 8:3-14,24; Romans 11:17-24; Romans 13:11; 1 Corinthians 1:18; 1 Corinthians 15:2; Galatians 5:16-21; Galatians 6:7-8; Ephesians 5:3-6; Colossians 1:21-23; 2 Timothy 2:10-13; 2 Peter 1:5-11; Hebrews 3:6,14-15; Hebrews 5:9; 1 Peter 1:5; 1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 2:15; 1 John 2:24-25; 1 John 3:4-10,24; 1 John 4:19-20; Titus 2:11-14; 1 John 2:24; John 10:27-30, etc.]
Therefore, we must be careful that we do not take God’s word lightly and that we think we know better and that we can chart our own course and go our own way while giving him a “passing hi.” But this is what many are doing these days, not listening to the Lord, not heeding his counsel and his warnings, but walking it alone without the Lord and without his guidance and protection. For they have convinced themselves that no harm will come to them because they made some profession of faith in Jesus Christ one time.
So they have this false sense of security that God will not judge them, and that nothing will come against them, and that they will be safe in the arms of Jesus regardless of how they treat him in return. But the New Testament Scriptures do not teach that. Please read the noted Scriptures above. If we walk according to the flesh, and not according to the Spirit, and if we walk in sin, and not in obedience to our Lord, we don’t even know God, we are not in fellowship with Christ, and heaven is not our eternal destiny. Hell is!
But so many people professing faith in Jesus Christ, at least here in America, are making their own path to follow, and they are not following the ways of the Lord as defined for us in the New Testament Scriptures. They ignore what they do not want to hear and they only listen to what makes them feel good, or what agrees with how they want to live their lives. And so they ignore all the warnings to us in the Scriptures because those make them uncomfortable. So they say, “Tell us pleasant things.”
But sadly, if any of us ignore the commands of the Lord, and we decide to go our own way, and not the way he has for us to go, then we are in serious danger of judgment, especially if we know the ways of the Lord but we decide to go our own way, instead. And I am well aware that this passage in Jeremiah is from the Old Testament, but the New Testament gives us similar warnings with similar or equal consequences. For we cannot ignore God and go our own way and still have eternal life with God (Matthew 7:21-23).
Have Thine Own Way, Lord
Words by Adelaide A. Pollard, 1907
Music by George C. Stebbins, 1907
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,
As in Thy presence humbly I bow.
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Wounded and weary, help me I pray!
Power, all power, surely is Thine!
Touch me and heal me, Savior divine!
Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Hold o'er my being absolute sway.
Fill with Thy Spirit till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me!
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