Tuesday, August 23,
2016
“Pray no more for these people,
Jeremiah. Do not weep or pray for them,
and don’t beg me to help them, for I will not listen to you. Don’t you
see what they are doing throughout the towns of Judah and in the streets of
Jerusalem? No wonder I am so angry! Watch how the children gather wood and the
fathers build sacrificial fires. See how
the women knead dough and make cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven. And they pour out liquid offerings to their
other idol gods! Am I the one they are hurting?” asks the Lord.
“Most of all, they hurt themselves, to
their own shame.” So this is
what the Sovereign Lord says: “I
will pour out my terrible fury on this place. Its people, animals, trees, and crops will be
consumed by the unquenchable fire of my anger.”
This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel,
says: “Take your burnt offerings and
your other sacrifices and eat them yourselves! When I led
your ancestors out of Egypt, it was not burnt offerings and sacrifices I wanted
from them. This is what I told them: ‘Obey me, and I will be your God, and you will
be my people. Do everything as I say,
and all will be well!’ “But
my people would not listen to me. They
kept doing whatever they wanted, following the stubborn desires of their evil
hearts. They went backward instead of
forward. From the day your ancestors left Egypt until
now, I have continued to send my servants, the prophets—day in and day out. But
my people have not listened to me or even tried to hear. They have been stubborn and sinful—even worse
than their ancestors. Jeremiah 7:16-26(NLT)
My mother had a soft, nurturing
way. She was the kind of person that
would rather be hurt by someone’s unkind words or actions than to ever cause a
ruckus. I inherited some of that…but
probably not enough!
As a young child, I took advantage of
my Mom’s good nature more than once. If
I didn’t get what I wanted I’d whine until Mom would find a way to make me
happy. It was worse when I became a young
teen. I recall one time especially when
my whining over wanting to go somewhere against Mom’s better judgment, had
pushed her to the limit; she finally blurted out, O.K., do what you want!
That was the envelope being pushed to
the point of Russell spilling-out through the broken seams. I remember thinking, uh-oh…what just happened? I was almost a bit afraid that I had gotten
my way; it felt eerie and somehow like I had wrecked something.
Which is the way you’re supposed to
feel when you’ve blown it (big time) with the one who
loves you more than anyone else in the world, and you’ve pushed that person
away like a discarded old shoe.
This is exactly how Israel had acted towards
God, and the LORD told Jeremiah to tell his treasured nation just exactly what
Mom told me…go ahead…do it your way…I’m done! And He told Jeremiah to quit praying for them
– they needed judgment to straighten out their disobedient and arrogant ways!
I grew up in a church tradition where
America was constantly compared to Israel.
We, America in general, and the New Testament church in particular were
the New
Israel. Well, it’s not a bad
comparison, and you could do worse damage to theological systems. But mostly it was second-chance thinking;
Old Israel had blown it, and now this New Israel has another shot at getting it
right.
Question of the day is: Have we even come close?
For You Today
It would be way above my pay grade to tell you not to
pray for America anymore because of our national, cultural sins. But I sense it’s necessary to say it seems
like we’re dangerously close to it.
So let
me put it this way: if you’re
predisposed to pray for your country, it would be a good move to step on it;
who knows how much time is left?
Go to VIDEO
NOTES
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