Verse of the Day 10/19

Through the Bible - Jeremiah 4-5, 1 Timothy 2

 

Good morning,

What is one of the more outrageous excuses or rationalizations that you've heard recently?  Was if from the personal sphere or did it come from government/politics?

 

More and more we see that personal and societal issues are being decided with little or no concern with how they match up with God's principles outlined in the Bible.

 

Over the weekend, the Bible reading plan outlined above, moved us into the book of Jeremiah, who some theologians refer to as the "weeping prophet".   What he weeped or lamented over was how far the nation had fallen away from God.

 

For today's verse we'll go to Jeremiah chapter 2.

Jer 2:11 Has a nation changed its gods,
Which are not gods?
But My people have changed their Glory
For what does not profit. ......

Jer 2:13 'For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
And hewn themselves cisterns — broken cisterns that can hold no water.    NKJV

In Biblical times and today there are times when peoples, nations have forsaken God for more self or should I selfish rule.

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, much like the prophet Jeremiah took a stand for God against Nazi rule in Germany in the late 30's and 40's.  He was executed for his stand shortly before the end of World War II.  In a letter from prison he wrote, "For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible it merely confirms the fundemental wickedness of evil."

If we have a Christian "worldview", we should be filtering what is going on around us with God's Word, and see through what what is disguised as light for what it is.  History shows us examples of what happens when a society doesn't.

 

In our country, it's not that we have forgotten God (is it?), but we do see people trying to eradicate God from every aspect of the public arena.  God is being replaced by government programs and legislations.  Can you see the similarities with the verses above?  What are the cisterns, the modern cisterns that we see the can hold no water, no life giving water?

 

Consider the two evils mentioned in Jer 2:13 forsaking, turning from God, and carving out broken cisterns or systems that hold now water, or possibly which leak and waste money.

 

What should a history lesson on God's dealings with His people inspire in us?

"And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness."  Abraham Lincoln

In Christ,
Mike
mikevw@bellsouth.net
http://mikesvotd.blogspot.com
Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace  NIV

Jer 2:4-14

 

4 Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob and all the families of the house of Israel. 5 Thus says the Lord:

 

"What injustice have your fathers found in Me,
That they have gone far from Me,
Have followed idols,
And have become idolaters?
6 Neither did they say, 'Where is the Lord,
Who brought us up out of the land of Egypt,
Who led us through the wilderness,
Through a land of deserts and pits,
Through a land of drought and the shadow of death,
Through a land that no one crossed
And where no one dwelt?'
7 I brought you into a bountiful country,
To eat its fruit and its goodness.
But when you entered, you defiled My land
And made My heritage an abomination.
8 The priests did not say, 'Where is the Lord?'
And those who handle the law did not know Me;
The rulers also transgressed against Me;
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
And walked after things that do not profit.

 

9 "Therefore I will yet bring charges against you," says the Lord,
"And against your children's children I will bring charges.
10 For pass beyond the coasts of Cyprus and see,
Send to Kedar and consider diligently,
And see if there has been such a thing.
11 Has a nation changed its gods,
Which are not gods?
But My people have changed their Glory
For what does not profit.
12 Be astonished, O heavens, at this,
And be horribly afraid;
Be very desolate," says the Lord.
13 'For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
And hewn themselves cisterns — broken cisterns that can hold no water.   NKJV