Nearly eight hundred years after Moses spoke promise of blessings and curses on the plains of Moab, just before Israel crossed into the Promised Land, Jerusalem was under siege and about to be taken.
The prophet Jeremiah wept.
“…He hath fulfilled His word that He had commanded in the days of old…” Lamentations 2:17 AKJV.
Eight Hundred years of grace as Israel, vacillated between obedience and disobedience.
Yahweh blessed. The people prospered. The people drifted away.
Yahweh provided judges to deliver and lead. The people wanted kings.
Kings led astray, priests led astray, false prophets led astray, elders led astray.
The people came to prefer being astray.
Jehovah God, long suffering in His patience, brought the promised judgment.
God’s not blind. He isn’t looking the other way.
We may redefine His ways but He doesn’t.
He keeps promise.
Now, brought face to face with that reality…
“… I weep; mine eye… mine eye runneth down with water, because the Comforter who should relieve my soul is far from me…” Lamentations 1:16 AKJV.
What to do?
Arise, cry out in the night; in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord; lift up thy hands toward Him for the life of thy young children… Lamentations 2:19 AKJV.
Was it too late?
“…Thou hast covered Thyself with a cloud, that our prayer should not pass through…” Lamentations 3:44 AKJV
“…when I cry and shout, He shutteth out my prayer…” Lamentations 3:8 AKJV
“…The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand; they are knit together (wreathed), and come up upon my neck; He hath made my strength to fall; the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up…”Lamentations1:14 AKJV
It was too late.
Suffering may come because of wrong doing but…
“…the Lord will not cast off forever…
But though He cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the multitude of His mercies… Lamentations 3:31-32 AKJV
“…It is because of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Thy faithfulness… Lamentations3:22-23 AKJV
Substitute America for Jerusalem.
Father… we have drifted away.
Would that it is not so far that we have ceased to…
“…ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk in it…” (Jeremiah 6:16 AKJV)
and…
seek You while You may be found, call upon You while You are near.
We want Your ways to be our ways.
We trust in them and Your love for us.
Guide us in them.
We will… and it is good that we…
“…both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord…” Lamentations3:26 AKJV.
In Yeshua’s name we pray…
Amen.
May God’s love be in us all.
Elder.
