A Devotional Thought From Lamentations

The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.

Lamentations 4:12

          Pray that such a thing does not happen to America. Governments and people around the world look at this great country and would never think or believe that our enemies could march into our homeland, trampling the good life we have, but according to Jeremiah that’s what the kings of the earth thought about that great city of the great God and the land of His people. At that moment in history they thought that land would never see such a thing, but it happened. The world was amazed, the grapevine was a buzz, the ordinary folks were stunned, and the governments of that ancient world could not believe their eyes. Who would have ever thought? Who would have conceived such a dramatic course of events? Who would have imagined God would allow it?

          Anything can happen! No nation, no power, no life is secure outside the God of the Bible’s protection.

A Devotional Thought From Lamentations

How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! How is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!

Lamentations 1:1

Jeremiah views the ruins of Jerusalem with a heart that is dumbfounded by what he sees. Look at this! Look at what has happened to God’s City. She was a great city! She was a crowded city. One can imagine the constant buzz of talking in the market place, the cry of the merchants hawking their wares, the laughter of children, the singing of the sanctuary wafting over it all. But now she is a widow, as it were. All the men and boys are gone. The woman and girls are mostly dead or slaves on their way to Babylon. She was a princess among the provinces of the land. She was the “Big Pomegranate.” Young people with ambition looked at her as the golden city, the place where dreams came true. She was A #1, Queen of the Hill, at the top of her game (Does that sound like any city or nation you can think of?). And now look! She is a tributary slave, conquered by invaders, broken down, by cruel warriors, decimated by the sword, famine, and sickness. This is what she had become.

When Jeremiah prophesied it no one could believe it: Great cities do not just disappear, great cultures are not just destroyed, people do not die in mass numbers, just because of sin. But they do, sometimes. In this case it was because of a people’s sin, their disobedience to God’s commandments, their unbelief in His revealed statements. Cities and states, and societies, today need to take note, the same commandments that would have delivered God’s people in the ancient days are available to cities, and states, and peoples today, and followed they will have a saving effect on the group that obeys them.

A Devotional Thought From Jeremiah

For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling of fear and not of peace. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! For that day is great so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.     

Jeremiah 30:5-7

As Jeremiah is given a vision of Israel’s future he sees a dark and terrible day when great tribulation will be upon the people of God. As he views the terror of that day he asks rhetorically, is it possible for a man to be in labor pains to bear a child? Of course, a rhetorical question needs no answer. But just to be plain: no! Men cannot bear children. Jeremiah goes on to say, then why as I look in my vision do I see men holding their bellies like a pregnant woman holds hers to protect it, and ease the heaviness and pain of labor. Why have their faces gone pale in this false labor? Because the days of the tribulation that is coming are going to be awful. People will suffer the brutality of invasion and war. They will be in harm’s way, disease and death will be a daily possibility. Even if they are not physically harmed emotional pain will tear them apart, so that they will walk about holding their bellies as if in labor. Jeremiah calls this the time of Jacob’s trouble, a terrifying time in the future of the world. I would call that bad news, but here’s the good news: God will save his people out of that day.

A Thought Provoked By The Prophet Jeremiah

And the LORD hath sent unto you all his servants the prophets,…They said, Turn ye again now everyone from his evil way, and from the evil of your doings, and dwell in the land that the LORD hath given unto you and your fathers for ever and ever; And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt. Yet ye have not hearkened unto me, saith the LORD; that ye might provoke me to anger with the works of your hands to your own hurt. Therefore thus saith the LORD; Because ye have not heard my words, Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations roundabout, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations. Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle. And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the King of Babylon seventy years.

Jeremiah 25:4a,5-11

It is clear from the writings of Jeremiah and other prophets that the reason God brought Nebuchadnezzar and other oppressors into the land was because of his people’s failure to be faithful to Him, their failure to obey His teaching and commandments. They worshiped gods who were no gods; they practiced evil in the wicked worship that they did observe; their morality was often immoral; and they rejected the dire warnings that God sent them through His servants the prophets.

We can imagine some of their responses to the men who were preaching God’s word: “You don’t still believe that old Bible stuff do you? Your sermons are such a downer. We are God’s people and are sure He would not allow such punishment to come to our great land. The morality of the Torah is eight hundred to a thousand years old, c’mon get with it. Catch up to the present.”

Yet, the warning that Jeremiah gives here from God, is that Nebuchdrezzar will come because of your sins, so wise up and change your ways. If you don’t there won’t be any more laughter in Jerusalem, the weddings will be gone, the manufacturing and business will be gone, there will be no lights in the windows at night, and the land will be a desolation. The very nation of people itself shall be carried away into Babylon for seventy years.

They refused to turn from their sins and wickedness, and as a result the prophet’s sermons were proved to be true.

Though we don’t like to hear it, this is a lesson for modern-day societies who have turned from following the faith and morality of the Bible. If such tragedy and destruction could happen to the people who are the apple of God’s eye, it could certainly happen to the lands we love today. The message for Christian civilization at this time in history is the same as it was then: And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt.

A Devotional Thought From Jeremiah

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the Lord.     Jeremiah 6:15

          God is declaring that a day of reckoning is coming to His earthly people, not because He doesn’t love them, because He does, but because they had committed great sins, and they were so brazen and so wicked hearted that they were not even ashamed of their sins. He uses the striking phrase neither could they blush. They could do the most evil deeds, the most licentious activities, the most despicable behaviors, the most impure religious acts and feel no guilt. They were so sold out to sin that they could not even blush. There was no innocence left in their souls, their spirits were so polluted that their faces did not even redden a little when they thought of what they did. They were so sin obsessed that they could not feel ashamed. Can you imagine people that absorbed in sin?

          Well, though we don’t like to admit it, there are many in our modern western societies who give these ancient sinners “a run for their money.” Society today accepts, approves, and even endorses sins that have been taboo throughout the ages in almost all societies. There is no shame. There is no blushing. Sometimes I am embarrassed for the people I see on television who proclaim their sin with no embarrassment in the slightest: no blushing; no lamenting; no desire for purity. The viewer gets embarrassed for them, how sad.

          Preachers, parents, public officials, friends , and communities need to start using the “s” word again: sin. If that is too religious for them use an equivalent: wrong, improper, criminal, illegal, immoral, unethical, inappropriate. There are behaviors that people should be ashamed of. If we want modern society to get better not worse we need to make sin shameful again.

A Devotional Thought From Isaiah

… our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary.     Isaiah 63:18

          In one of the places where Israel is pictured as crying out to God because of the oppression of their enemies, Isaiah represents their words as: our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. To the Israeli people the glory of their God and religion was seen in their place of worship, the Temple in Jerusalem. Sometimes it appears that their regard for the place of worship probably exceeded their regard for God, himself. But at their best the Temple was for them the holy location where they got close to God through worship in the midst of their everyday lives. So on this occasion when their enemies invaded and overwhelmed them they called to God telling him that the Temple was trodden down by those who had come in to do harm. The invaders had desecrated their holy building of worship. The enemies did it. Those who wish to harm us did it. Those who do not believe in God did it. Whatever the background that caused this mess, and the back story was spiritually significant, the trashing of the Temple physically was not done by the residents of Jerusalem themselves.

          In a modern-day contrast the riots in Baltimore, Maryland on April 27, 2015 appear to be the opposite. The back story is significant also, but the actual trashing of the city was done by the people of that city themselves. Even with the legitimate questions awaiting answers from the police investigation concerning the death of a man in police custody, and the criticisms of police procedures which apparently go back for years into the past, the looting, burning, and trashing of the place you live and love is an irresponsible and sinful act. Sin is the missing word in the reports of this mayhem and others like it. Sin blinds people to the harm their actions do to others. There are other words some want to apply to the situation like frustration, rage, anger, misunderstanding, but none of these justify the burning of one’s own neighborhood and city. In this case, while there were some outside agitators, the majority of harm to the city of Baltimore appears to have been done by the very people who live there proving the Bible’s teaching that people who yield to sin in their lives are among their own worst enemies.