The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 232: Glory in Knowing God (2024)

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Fr. Mike reflects on Jeremiah’s sorrow for the people of Israel while reminding us that the one thing we ought to find glory in, is in understanding and knowing God. In our reading of Ezekiel, we hear about God's ongoing promise to restore Israel. Today’s readings are Jeremiah 9, Ezekiel 39, and Proverbs 15:1-4. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is day 232, I believe. It is. You know how I know that?

Because I checked out the Bible in a Year reading plan, and I know that today is day 232, I believe. It is. You know how I know that? Because I checked out the Bible in a Year reading plan, and I know that today is day 232. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year. Also, the Bible translation that I'm reading from is the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. And yes, you can subscribe to this podcast. Now, all of those things were out of order because I want to let you know, I redo this every single day. I don't just have some kind of copied thing. We just post every single day and I just say, day 232. No, it's every single day. So that's why I wanted to mix it up a little bit because it's day 232. We're reading only two

chapters today, Jeremiah 9 and Ezekiel 39. We're also reading a couple of verses from Proverbs 15, verses 1 through 4. And so, since I already said all the other stuff, we're going to dive right into it. Jeremiah 9, Ezekiel 39, Proverbs 15, 1 to 4. The book of the prophet Jeremiah, chapter 9. Oh, that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. Oh, that I had in the desert a wayfarer's lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them. For they are all adulterers, a company of treacherous men. They bend their tongue like a bow. Falsehood and not truth has

grown strong in the land, for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, says the Lord. Let everyone beware of his neighbor, and put no trust in any brother. For every brother is a supplanter, and every neighbor goes about as a slanderer. Everyone deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They commit iniquity and are too weary to repent. Heaping oppression upon oppression and deceit upon deceit, they refuse to know me, says the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, behold, I will refine them and test them for what else can I do because of my people?

Their tongue is a deadly arrow. It speaks deceitfully. With his mouth, each speaks peaceably to his neighbor, but in his heart, he plans an ambush for him. Shall I not punish them for these things, says the Lord? And shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this? Take up weeping and wailing for the mountains and a lamentation for the pastures of the wilderness because they are laid waste so that no one passes through and the lowing of cattle is not heard. Both the birds of

the air and the beasts have fled and are gone. I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of jackals, and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant. Who is the man so wise that he can understand this? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness so that no one passes through? And the Lord says, Because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals as their fathers taught them. Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I will feed this people with wormwood and give them poisonous water to drink. I will

scatter them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known. And I will send the sword after them until I have consumed them. Thus says the Lord of hosts, Consider and call for the mourning women to come. Send for the skillful women to come. Let them make haste and raise a wailing over us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush with water. For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion, how we are ruined. We are utterly shamed because we have left the land,

because they have cast down our dwellings. Hear, O women, the word of the Lord, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth. Teach to your daughters a lament, and each to her neighbor a dirge. For death has come up into our windows. It has entered our palaces, cutting off the children from the streets and the young men from the squares. Speak, thus says the Lord. The dead bodies of men shall fall like dung upon the open field, like sheaves after the reaper, and none shall gather them. Thus says the Lord. Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom.

Let not the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches. not the rich man glory in his riches but let him who glories glory in this that he understands and knows me that I am the Lord who practice steadfast love justice and righteousness in the earth for in these things I delight says the Lord behold the days are coming says the Lord when I will punish all those who are circumcised, but yet uncircumcised, Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert that cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart. is uncircumcised in heart.

The book of the prophet Ezekiel, chapter 39. The fall of Gog. And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog and say, Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshach and Tubal, and I will turn you about and drive you forward and bring you up from the uttermost parts of the north and lead you against the mountains of Israel. Then I will strike your bow from your left hand and will make your arrows drop out of your right hand.

You shall fall upon the mountains of Israel, you and all your hordes and the peoples that are with you. I will give you to birds of prey of every sort and to the wild beasts to be devoured. You shall fall in the open field, for I have spoken, says the Lord God. I will send fire on Magog and on those who dwell securely in the islands, and they shall know that I am the Lord. And my holy name I will make known in the midst of my people Israel, and I will not let my holy name be profaned anymore. And the nations shall know

that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel. Behold, it is coming, and it will be brought about, says the Lord God. That is the day of which I have spoken. Then those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go forth and make fires of the weapons and burn them, shields and bucklers, bows and arrows, handpikes and spears, and they will make fires of them for seven years, so that they will not need to take wood out of the field or cut down any out of the forests, for they will make their fires of the weapons. They will despoil those who despoiled them and plunder those who plundered them, says the Lord God. On that day, I will give to Gog a place for burial in Israel, the valley of the travelers

east of the sea. It will block the travelers, for there Gog and all his multitude will be buried. It will be called the valley of Haman-Gog. For seven months, the house of Israel will be burying them in order to cleanse the land. All the people of the land will bury them, and it will redound to their honor on the day that I show my glory, says the Lord God. They will set apart men to pass through the land continually and bury those remaining upon the face of the land so as to cleanse it. At the end of seven months they will make their search. And when these pass through the land and anyone sees a man's bone, then he shall set up a sign by it till the buriers have buried it in the valley

of Hamon-Gag. A city, Hamonah, is there also. Thus shall they cleanse the land. As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord God, speak to the birds of every sort and to all beasts of the field. Assemble and come, gather from all sides to the sacrificial feast which I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast upon the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. And you shall eat fat till you are filled and drink blood till you are drunk at the sacrificial feast which I am preparing for you. And you shall be filled at my table with horses and riders, with mighty men

and all kinds of warriors, says the Lord God. Israel to be restored. And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgment which I have executed and my hand which I have laid on them. The house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from that day forward. And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity because they dealt so treacherously with me that I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries and they all fell by the sword. I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions and hid my face from them. Therefore, thus says the Lord God,

Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel. And I will be jealous for my holy name. They shall forget their shame and all the treachery they have practiced against me when they dwell securely in their land with none to make them afraid, when I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies' lands, and through them have vindicated my holiness in the sight of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the Lord their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations and then gathered them into their own land.

I will leave none of them remaining among the nations anymore. And I will not hide my face anymore from them when I pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord God. The book of Proverbs chapter 15 verses one through 4. A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The tongue of the wise dispenses knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly. The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit. Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory. We ask you to please watch over our hearts and our minds.

Watch over what we say, the words we speak. Watch over the thoughts of our minds and the desires of our hearts, Lord God, because we know that we are good. We're made in your image and likeness, but we're also fallen. We're good but broken. We're good but fallen. And so we know that our minds are meant to know truth and our hearts are meant to love the truth, the good and the beautiful. Our hearts are meant to love you. And our mouths have been given to us to speak truth and to never deceive, to never blaspheme, but only to build up, never to tear down.

And so Lord God, we ask you to please touch our minds with your spirit so that we can be filled with your truth and understand truthfully, touch our hearts with your spirit that we can love as you love and touch our mouths. Lord God, that we don't pour out folly,

but that we only say the words that people really need to hear, words that will help them. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Maybe words that will help them, but also not only words to build up the people around us, but also words to glorify the Lord. That was another little part of the prayer today. Gosh, you guys, Jeremiah, remember him? Remember him? Remember him? We've been walking with him for the last 10 days or so. Jeremiah is who, he's the weeping prophet. And the very beginning of chapter nine, he says this, he says, oh, that my head were waters and

my eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. He goes on, he uses even some really kind of, I mean, very graphic imagery about tears. And it's really kind of beautiful where he talks about just his eyes being full of water and just pouring out. He says this, this is verse 18, let our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush with water. There's something about that that just reminds us that for Jeremiah, this is not just something that he knows is wrong. It's not just something that he says, you guys are doing the wrong thing. He doesn't just want to be right.

His heart is broken by this. I mean, I think it's easy sometimes to be angry, you know, when we see injustice and that's a proper response to it. But to allow evil, not just to stir us to anger where we get mad at people for the evil that they do, but that it breaks our hearts because we know that just like we are good but fallen, here are our brothers and sisters around us, around the world, around our communities, who are also good but fallen. And so sometimes we just don't let it break our hearts. Sometimes we just get mad. Of course, anger on its own is neither good nor bad. And even

sorrow on its own is neither good or bad. But oftentimes we recognize evil for what it is, and it breaks our heart, or we recognize evil for what it is, and it gets us angry. The next step, of course, is to act on this and not to act in anger, but to act to build up. And this is the thing that here's Jeremiah, who is calling the people, calling the people in the midst of his sorrow and also in the midst of his anger. I mean, he even says this in verse two. He says, oh, that I had in the desert a wayfarer's lodging place that I might leave my people and go away from them.

He's basically, he's like, yeah, also, I'm not really happy with them in the sense that, yes, I'm sorrow. I'm grieved by this evil I see. But also, I don't want to be with them. I want to be away from them because it's just, they're all adulterers, company of treacherous men. They've been there. This is great. Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch, they are just the great team. He says, they bend their tongue like a bow. Falsehood and truth has grown strong in the land. They proceed from evil to evil and they do not

know me. And just that that's very, what's the word? Poetic. I think is probably the best word. He goes on to tell us that let everyone beware of his neighbor, put no trust in any brother. And this is the reality, of course, is that when someone has revealed that they can't be trusted, when a neighbor has been revealed that their word or their promises are just as often false as they are true, then we have to be aware of that person. Even if they're a brother, even if they're someone close to us, even if they're family, if they have revealed that they can't be trusted, then here's Jeremiah who says,

yeah, the people around you, your family, your neighbors, as they turn away from the Lord and don't repent, keep that in mind. Note that and note, not in the sense of condemnation or judgment, but in the sense of if they're not going to be true to their promise to the Lord, they're not going to be true to the promise to the important people in their lives, then keep this in mind. They probably won't be true in their promises to you as well. But one of the things I want to really highlight, and not only is Jeremiah's call to repent and call to weep over the coming destruction of Jerusalem. But in the end of chapter 9, there are these two verses that just are really, really powerful.

In verse 23 and 24, Jeremiah says, Thus says the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches. So all these things we put our trust in, right? We put our trust in our own wisdom. We put our trust in our own might or in our riches, but let him who glories glory in this. This is the one thing to glory in, that he understands and knows me,

that I am the Lord who practice steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things, I delight, says the Lord. That's incredible. That the one who glories, glory in this, that you understand and know God. That just blows my mind and blows my heart out of my chest. Just what a gift. And what we've been doing for the last 232 days, we've been allowing God to speak to us

and to shape our hearts, to reveal who he is. And here's the result. We get to glory in the fact that no, Lord God, you've revealed yourself to us. And so we know you. That's part of this incredible, incredible community. Because I think that, I think a lot of us probably didn't know God as well as we do now because God's word proclaimed to us does this. It shapes our eyes. It shapes the way we see the world. It shapes the way we see other people. It shapes the way we see

ourselves and maybe above everything else. It shapes the way that we see God himself, that his word gives us what we call a biblical worldview and maybe a biblical God view, right? Where we get to see him as he is. And that, that changes our hearts, hopefully, you know, in, in Ezekiel, remember this is after the destruction of Jerusalem. We talked about that yesterday, how here's God's promise that the dead dry bones. And we talked about the two sticks in Ezekiel's hand that would say that God is saying, I'm going to, I'm going to bring them back. I'm going to bring them back. But here today, we also have once again, Israel to be restored. And there's some so powerful, he says, they shall free after they're restored,

they shall forget their shame and all the treachery they have practiced against me when they dwell securely in their land with none to make them afraid. Golly, jeepers creepers. That's just, I mean, there are so many around us, right? There's so many things about this world, so many enemies we might have inside us and outside of us, both maybe physical enemies or definitely spiritual enemies. But here is God saying, okay, listen, you're all in Babylon. Jerusalem is destroyed and the temple is destroyed and the kingdom is destroyed and I'm going to bring you back home. That's who's talking to that people.

That's the context, right? Obviously, we don't want to take that out of context. But also by extension, we can say this, that God is speaking to his people here. We're living in this exile as well. We're living in, we're far from our homeland because this is not our home. This is where we're called to live. But our homeland is the kingdom of God in heaven. And yet we're not there. So we listen to God's promise. They shall forget their shame and all

the treachery they have practiced against me when they dwell securely in their land with none to make them afraid. And what's the heart of that land? What's the heart of heaven? He says, then they shall know. This is verse 28 of chapter 39. Then they shall know that I am the Lord, their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations and then gathered them into their own land. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations anymore. And I will not hide my face anymore from them. When I pour my spirit upon the house of Israel says the Lord God, remember that all throughout Ezekiel, all of these things, everything that God allows the people to go through, that he puts them through, that whether it be destruction and

exile or being restored and gathered back, all of it is so that he says, then they will know that I am the Lord, their God, that then they will see my holiness. Then they will know who I am. And that's an incredible gift to be able to see the Lord, then they will know who I am. And that's an incredible gift to be able to see the Lord's holiness, to know who he is, and yeah, to be restored, even in the midst of exile,

because we find ourselves in exile in one way or another. Now, last little note, tomorrow, starting tomorrow, we're gonna have a number of chapters, maybe eight-ish, where we're to have a number of chapters, maybe eight-ish, where we're going to have a vision of the temple. And this is going to be a vision that Ezekiel gets that is a picture of here is when you get back home, when you get back to the temple, this is kind of this way that the Lord God reveals to Ezekiel, here's how the temple,

here's how I want the temple to be constructed. It's an interesting kind of thing because it was never constructed like this. It had never been and has never been. And who knows, maybe only in heaven will it be. But we get for the next eight chapters in Ezekiel's book that we get to hear about, kind of, it's going to be a little, kind of like, remember back in Deuteronomy? Remember back in Numbers? Remember back in Leviticus when we had some of those cubits by cubits and all those kinds of things?

We're going to be taking a blast from the past and get some of those for the next eight chapters in Ezekiel. But it's all God's word. And so we let the Lord speak to us in his word this day and every day, including tomorrow. I'm praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike, and I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.