Good Figs
Today's Three-minute Bible Study
Print, Study and Apply
Title:
Good Figs ------------------------------------------ Date: 1/28/2000
Keywords:
"good"
"grace" "heart" "repent"
Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand
strong in the face of sexual temptation.
Passage: Jeremiah 24:3-7*
3. Then the Lord asked me, "What do you see, Jeremiah?"
"Figs," I answered. "The good ones are very good, but the poor ones are so
bad they cannot be eaten."
4. Then the word of the Lord came to me:
5. "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'Like these
good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I sent away from this place to the
land of the Babylonians.
6. My eyes will watch over them for their good, and I will bring
them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and
not uproot them.
7. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They
will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their
heart.
Questions
1. If the exiles were regarded as good, why were they sent away?
2. Do you recall from the history of the nations of Israel and Judah
what they had done that caused God to have them taken away from their land?
3. How could God possibly call them good?
4. When you are at the depths of your engrossment in pornography, is
it hard to believe that God still loves you?
Practical help
Judah's sin was unspeakably horrible: "They have built the high
places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal -- something I did not
command or mention, nor did it enter my mind." (Jer. 19:5, NIV) This was not their
only sin but merely one in a litany of grievous charges the Lord had against them. Their
sins had been learned from the Canaanites who had lived in the land before them. The
Canaanites were a particularly godless lot; some historians believe that pornography
originated with them (so you have them to thank). Although Israel had been deceived and
turned aside by the foreigners with whom they lived, they had no one to blame for their
sins but themselves.
So how could God call them good? Clues are found in verses 6 and 7.
They could be called good because God was for them. God was their builder and planter. God
had plans for them, to give them a heart for him. And he knew that repentance was in their
future. God, who doesn't sit around and wait for things to happen but looks ahead to what
he's going to do and knows the "rest of the story," (borrowing from Paul Harvey)
can call us good because we're his work. And because his work is so good, he loves it.
Take heart in knowing that God is for you too. He can look past your
present addictions to your future glory with him, and love you now because of it. Nothing
you do now can be any worse than what Judah did, and your sin is not so horrible that God
can't forgive.
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*Scriptures are from The Holy Bible: New International Version © Copyright 1973,
1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved.