Learn From the Past
Good Morning,
Finding my way into Jeremiah this morning, I was again moved by the warning of Jeremiah about carefully following the instruction of those who went before.
Jeremiah 6:16 “Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.”
Idiot modernists and compromisers have argued that we use a PA, and that is not old fashioned. They will say that we drive cars and not ox carts, yet the text talks about a "path" and in the next verse, "stumble in their WAYS from the ancient PATHS. We are not talking about a school bus or a horse-drawn wagon. We are talking about a way of doing things that the older men approved of, that method, that accepted course of travel.
Jeremiah 18:15 “Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up…"
Notice, this 150-year-old idea on a "way not cast up."
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's Commentary:
“ancient paths” — (Jeremiah 6:16) the paths which their pious ancestors trod. Not antiquity indiscriminately, but the example of the fathers who trod the right way, is here commended.
“not cast up” — not duly prepared… or not trodden. They had no precedent of former saints to induce them to devise for themselves a new worship.
New forms of worship are far from walking in a way approved by "the ancients."
Each succeeding generation carries the responsibility to build UPON the former wisdom and proven paths. Just as one group of men who pick up building a wall where the last group left off; they do not redesign, realign, or redevelop; they continue to build upon that which was built before they arrived.
The wise person will heed the lessons learned by former successful men and women. The prudent person will study the wise as well as the foolish and carefully guard his choices so as to not repeat stupid thinking but to carefully replicate wise decisions.
Proverbs 23:22 “Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.”
Proverbs 12:15 “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.”
Proverbs 19:20 “Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end.”
People who refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past are destined to repeat those same mistakes. But it can also be said, that those who learn from the wisdom of yesterday may likewise repeat those wise decisions.
Pastor Goddard