Personal note: Over the next two weeks we will not be preparing and posting new messages each weekday as we normally try to do due to family visits. Yesterday we spent time sightseeing with my sister prior to her flight home to Florida. Today my brothers Mike and Pat will join me for a visit to the America's Transportation Experience Museum in Hershey. This next weekend we will head to Wisconsin, taking along my brother, Mike, for a three day reunion with the Steincross cousins from our mom's side the following week. We are the aging grandchildren who got to know each other as children on a farm in a tiny town in southwest Missouri while visiting our grandparents, George Washington and Nellie Mae Steincross. We demonstrate the reality of the Scriptural statement, "Generations come and generations go" (Ecclesiastes 1:4). 

Message summary: Today we consider standing at the crossroads.

Listen to our message on your audio player.

“This is what the LORD says: ‘Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.’ But you said, ‘We will not walk in it’” (Jeremiah 6:16).

Crossroads seems to be a common way of naming things with Crossroads churches, Crossroads malls and Crossroads counseling services to name only a few. Not surprising there's a Crossroads Tavern but I won't link to that!

On Sunday I taught our Crossroads ABF class a lesson based on today's text. Although I don't know how our class name "Crossroads" got its name, I felt a Biblical lesson on this topic would be helpful and the daily text came to mind.

Today I share an overview of the message and then as the week proceeds I'll share another couple of messages elaborating and providing suggested application.

Jeremiah’s ministry was directed to the kingdom of Judah in the years just prior to the Babylonian Exile around 600 BC. He essentially urged the people to repent of their sins and turn back to God, which should be at the heart of all true ministry. In today’s verse the direct appeal is from God, "This is what the LORD says". We should always listen to what God's Word says but this comes out as a direct appeal.

They were instructed to “stand at the crossroads and look". In this instance the crossroads was that critical period in which they lived. An old commentary states that this is the “image from travelers who have lost their road, stopping and inquiring which is the right way on which they once had been, but from which they have wandered”.

The crossroads of life is a critical time of decision-making not just outward, but also involving inner contemplation. It is a good time to examine our lives. In the case of Jeremiah and the initial recipients it was the sobering reality of the imminent judgment and destruction of the kingdom. Quite bluntly, given the direction our country is taking, it can have a similar meaning today.

However crossroad experiences can also be very personal such as the death of a loved one, a life-altering illness or trial, our own aging and sense of mortality, or choosing to tackle a longstanding, destructive addiction.

God called the kingdom of Judah to "ask for the ancient paths". Today the last thing most people are interested in is "ancient paths". Our culture is obsessed with the lure of the new. For so many the ancient paths are not appealing and are generally scoffed at.  “Out with the old, in with the new” is the mantra for many.

The Precept online commentary makes this point,

“Ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls". The meaning here is spiritual and a call to obedience as found in God’s holy law. This is the ancient paths. This is the "good way" and by walking in it one will truly find rest for the soul. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls".

We are called to “ask for the ancient paths”. But crossroads abound and we must make an ongoing decision to stay on the ancient paths, seeking where the good way is, and determining to steadfastly walk in it. It is in these paths we find rest for our souls.

But many then and the great majority today emphatically declare, "We will not walk in it". The “ancient paths” are maligned from so many sources. But we need to stay on the “ancient paths.”  We must commit our lives to being obedient servants to Jesus Christ our Lord, to the entire infallible, authoritative Bible, and to the great example set for us by scores of dedicated, sold-out believers throughout the ages of the Bible and the Church.

Our earnest prayer is this, "I stand at the crossroads and look; I ask for the ancient paths where the good way is, and by God’s grace I choose to walk in it and accept Your promise that I will find rest for my soul".


Be encouraged today!  Hebrews 3:13

Stephen & Brooksyne Weber