Day 7: A God Forsaken Place

Lamentations 2:5-10 :

The Lord has become as an enemy.
He has swallowed up Israel.
He has swallowed up all her palaces.
He has destroyed his strongholds.
He has multiplied mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.

He has violently taken away his tabernacle,
as if it were a garden.
He has destroyed his place of assembly.
Yahweh has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion.
In the indignation of his anger, he has despised the king and the priest.

The Lord has cast off his altar.
He has abhorred his sanctuary.
He has given the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy.
They have made a noise in Yahweh’s house,
as in the day of a solemn assembly.

Yahweh has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion.
He has stretched out the line.
He has not withdrawn his hand from destroying;
He has made the rampart and wall lament.
They languish together.

Her gates have sunk into the ground.
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not.
Yes, her prophets find no vision from Yahweh.

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground.
They keep silence.
They have cast up dust on their heads.
They have clothed themselves with sackcloth.
The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

One thing that the fall of Judah and Jerusalem shows us is what it is like to be forsaken by God. I’ve mentioned this before. It’s like experiencing a little bit of Hell. When God turns His back on you, you not only lose your access to God, as is expressed in the fact that Judah had no priests, but you also lose your government, which was expressed in the fact that Judah’s kings were taken into exile. Government may seem like a problem today, but let’s not forget that the absence of government is actually much worse. Government, even in its perverse form today, is still an extension of the hand of God. Even though justice is often poorly applied, it is still applied against many evil doers, even today. The same goes for religion. Because many are still allowed to live as Christians in peace, the 10 Commandments are still in operation among believers in the world. If God were to remove all government and all Christians, the world would experience the kind of Hell that Judah was experiencing here.

Another part of this horror was the fact that they stopped hearing the voice of God. His word was no longer being taught to the people. Proverbs reminds us of what this this is like. Let’s read that again:

Proverbs 20:20 :

Whoever curses his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in blackness of darkness.

It may not seem, like this proverb is talking about God’s word, but I believe that it is pretty clear. When you are cut off from your father and mother, you are cut off from the influence of God’s word in your life as a son or a daughter. The same thing happens when you are cut off from God. The worst thing that happens to you is that you lose your sense of direction. As rebellious human beings, we easily lose sight of the fact that God’s authority and God’s word are absolutely necessary for our well being. All God has to do is take those things away and it becomes painfully clear that we needed them all along.

Day 199: The End of Bad Governments

Jeremiah 50:21-28

“Go up against the land of Merathaim,
even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod.
Kill and utterly destroy after them,” says Yahweh,
“and do according to all that I have commanded you.
A sound of battle is in the land,
and of great destruction.
How the hammer of the whole earth is cut apart and broken!
How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations!
I have laid a snare for you,
and you are also taken, Babylon,
and you weren’t aware.
You are found,
and also caught,
because you have fought against Yahweh.
Yahweh has opened his armory,
and has brought out the weapons of his indignation;
for the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, has a work to do in the land of the Chaldeans.
Come against her from the farthest border.
Open her storehouses.
Cast her up as heaps.
Destroy her utterly.
Let nothing of her be left.
Kill all her bulls.
Let them go down to the slaughter.
Woe to them! For their day has come,
the time of their visitation.
Listen to those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon,
to declare in Zion the vengeance of Yahweh our God,
the vengeance of his temple.

In this passage, God gives us two reasons why He chose to destroy Babylon. First He says: “you have fought against Yahweh.” Second, He says he is doing it for “the vengeance of his temple.” As I mentioned before, it was God who commanded Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and the temple. It is always right to do what God says. It appears that Babylon’s problem was deeper.

This passage reminds us that it is possible to do the things that God says but still be disobedient in your heart. God expects us to obey because we have decided to do what is right from our hearts. If we are grumbling or complaining when we obey, it isn’t what God wants. In Babylon’s case, they weren’t merely grumbling. God tells us here that they took the opportunity to actually fight against the God of Israel. When Babylon tore down the temple, they did it with evil desire against God, not out of obedience to Him.

Do you remember when Joshua was leading Israel in their conquest of Canaan? There were times when God allowed Israel to lose bitterly. God did this when Israel decided to do something on their own, without God’s blessing. He also allowed them to lose when one of them disobeyed His command to not take plunder. When we are required to serve God in order to maintain justice, God requires that we do it His way. If we don’t, we become a problem to God. God will eventually punish us if we choose to take justice into our own hands. This is something that all governments should be paying close attention to. It should also be comforting to those of us who are persecuted by our governments. All governments that decide to fight against the One who put them in charge, will eventually be judged by Jesus, just like Babylon was.

Pastors are Avoiding Government Matters

Why do pastors and leaders avoid talking about government matters? Thankfully, there are a few who do, but it appears that the vast majority in the United States avoid talking about the government.

This is not wise because the Word of God has things to say about what is going on in government today. Without the Bible being applied to government, government has a chance to go unchecked and become increasingly wicked. I believe that it is very likely that the reason we are seeing the horrific wickedness in government now is because we as believers have avoided our responsibility to apply the Great Commission to the government.

Jesus told us to go into “all the world” and to teach “everything” Jesus commanded. Jesus commanded that government is not to be wicked and is also to submit to Jesus. The Great Commission even says that “all authority has been given to me.” This means that even the Great Commission says that governments must all submit to Jesus. This is what we are to teach those in government so that they can be convicted of sin and accept the Gospel which saves them from their sin.

If we refuse to show people their sin, we are refusing to preach the Gospel. Here’s a message from one pastor who understands this issue. He’s also guiding his congregation to not take the vaccines. You can hear the reasoning in this video:

Day 156: Ask and Receive

Jeremiah 37:16-21

When Jeremiah had come into the dungeon house and into the cells, and Jeremiah had remained there many days, then Zedekiah the king sent and had him brought out. The king asked him secretly in his house, “Is there any word from Yahweh?”

Jeremiah said, “There is.” He also said, “You will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.”

Moreover Jeremiah said to king Zedekiah, “How have I sinned against you, against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me in prison? Now where are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, ‘The king of Babylon will not come against you, nor against this land?’ Now please hear, my lord the king: please let my supplication be presented before you, that you not cause me to return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there.”

Then Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guard. They gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers’ street, until all the bread in the city was gone. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

God really hates lies. He even calls it out as a major reason for His punishments in the book of Revelation. Here’s what He says:

Revelation 21:8

But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

You could say that Jeremiah was now in a sort of Hell on earth situation. He had spent many days in a dungeon during a time when no one had food. I doubt very much if he had eaten at all while sitting in the dark and cold. When the king took him out to talk with him about his visions for the future, Jeremiah still didn’t lie. He had to tell the king that he was going to be taken by the Babylonians. I think that most people would lie in this situation in order to get out of suffering, but an honest man doesn’t do that. There’s a worse place than any place here on earth and that is Hell and Jeremiah was obviously aware of what would happen to him should he ever fail to tell the truth about what God said. You can contrast his behavior with that of the king. The king wouldn’t even talk to Jeremiah openly but talked to “him secretly in his house.” In a sense, the king was lying by his behavior, just to protect his reputation.

Even though Jeremiah was obedient, starving to death in a dungeon was a horrible thing. Even though he had to tell the king the truth, he reasoned and pleaded with the king to be allowed to not die in the dungeon. I would like to take this opportunity to talk about suffering a bit more because I think that those who don’t suffer that much sometimes act like it’s a good thing that we should somehow enjoy. It is true that suffering for the Lord is always good, but Jeremiah demonstrates the wisdom in choosing to do what we can to stop suffering, even for the Lord. Jeremiah didn’t want to suffer if he could avoid it and he asked God’s representative of the evil government of his time if he would allow him to not go back. Remember, God had told Jeremiah that He would be with him and protect him, yet God had allowed Jeremiah to end up starving to death in a dungeon. It really wasn’t adding up. God chose to require that Jeremiah ask to be taken out of the situation and God arranged that this condemned king would choose to remove Jeremiah from the dungeon and feed Him instead.

Could it be that God wants us to ask Him to remove our suffering? I believe He does. That doesn’t mean that all of our suffering will be removed, but I do believe a great deal of it will be. Jeremiah demonstrates this but so did Paul. He asked God that his “thorn in the flesh” be removed. In that case God gave him the grace to overcome it without removing it, but Paul still asked repeatedly. Even Jesus asked to be removed from some of His suffering if it was God’s will. Jesus had to go through the whole thing for us. I think that’s why God wants us to ask. Jesus already went through the fire for us. I think that God desires to take take some of that fire from us when we ask. So I believe that when we are suffering, we should ask God to take us out of it, even if that suffering has served a good purpose in our lives.

Day 152: Tyranny and the Fear of God

Jeremiah 36:19-26

Then the princes said to Baruch, “You and Jeremiah go hide. Don’t let anyone know where you are.”

They went in to the king into the court, but they had laid up the scroll in the room of Elishama the scribe. Then they told all the words in the hearing of the king. So the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it out of the room of Elishama the scribe. Jehudi read it in the hearing of the king, and in the hearing of all the princes who stood beside the king. Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month, and there was a fire in the brazier burning before him. When Jehudi had read three or four columns, the king cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was in the brazier, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier. The king and his servants who heard all these words were not afraid, and didn’t tear their garments. Moreover Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah had made intercession to the king that he would not burn the scroll; but he would not listen to them. The king commanded Jerahmeel the king’s son, and Seraiah the son of Azriel, and Shelemiah the son of Abdeel, to arrest Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet; but Yahweh hid them.

There’s a lot about these verses that are troubling because of how similar they are to things that I see happening in the United States and in the world today. Here we see that the king and his men took written words of God and attempted to destroy them, while the people and their princes respected God’s word and were afraid. It appears that evil men had taken hold of the highest positions of government, leaving the vast majority under their wicked domination. There were even princes of the people who feared God, yet the top levels of the government boldly opposed Him. It’s pretty obvious that these evil leaders had come to the conclusion that God didn’t have any real power to do anything against them. What I see is that evil usually has to force its will by taking over human governments. It appears that the common man and most leaders are able to fear God after hearing His word, but the most wicked are not moved. When those most wicked men take over the government at the highest level, the righteous men often have to hide, and that’s what Baruch and Jeremiah did.

There are some good things here. The fact that God gave Jeremiah and Baruch a chance to hide is one of them. Another good thing is that there were princes who did fear God. They must have known, however, that the king and his men didn’t because they told Baruch and Jeremiah to hide before they even went to the king. Could it be that the princes were aware of evil but were too afraid to oppose the king all this time? It’s interesting to me that so many common men and even leaders were able to fear God even during this time of God’s judgment. The Bible is clear that even in the very last days, this same kind of thing will happen. Even though the anti-christ will take power, he will kill huge numbers of believers during the great tribulation and many Israelis will go into hiding. Some will be protected by God in such a way that they won’t even have to hide. It would appear that the majority of the people were willing to fear God at this point. That causes me to think that a democratic form of government would have worked better in this situation. Even so, leaders would have to respect that form of government in order for it to work and when a tyrant takes over, they may claim to be democratic but actually work against it.

Time to Wake Up and Face Tyranny

If the building you are in appears to be burning down, the only moral thing to do is to warn others and to get out. Now is the time for us all to face the truth.

Much of our government and many of our institutions are attacking innocent people as if they were criminals. It’s important that we all do one important thing: we must recognize that it is wrong and oppose everyone who is involved.

If you are not sensing the problem, please make sure and watch this video clip by Alex Jones (full video is at: https://www.banned.video/watch?id=60f20e91e7ef8467b1c69f22):

It’s time for all of us to wake up and oppose tyranny. Evil is never OK, and evil coming from the government is especially wicked. There really is only one good thing to do and that is to oppose it and pray that God will allow us to bring justice to those who are doing this evil using the few brave leaders that are still obedient to the conscience that God has given them.

You might be wondering how we got here. Our once great nation is being threatened by our own government in a way that is almost identical to what England did to America in the 1700’s. How is it that wicked men found their way into the most powerful positions in the United States government? I suggest that is is because good men, those who were following the God of the Bible, did not involve themselves in the affairs of the government. God’s law applies to the government, just as it does to the individual, but when God’s people refuse to apply God’s law to the government, it allows wicked men to take over (full interview at: https://rumble.com/ve58k1-christians-must-resist-tyranny-pastor-says.html).

It really is past time to wake up, apply God’s law to our government and defy the tyranny that already has found its way into our lives. May God strengthen us to do what we should have been doing all along.

Good News: Counties Take a Stand

Pastor Matt Trewhella is reporting that counties all over the United States are taking a stand to protect their citizens from infringements of the Constitution by the state and federal governments.

The people are learning about Christian doctrine through The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates. Here’s what they are beginning to understand:

“The doctrine of the lesser magistrates declares that when the superior or higher civil authority makes an unjust/immoral law or decree, the lesser or lower ranking civil authority has both the right and duty to refuse obedience to that superior authority. If necessary, the lower authority may even actively resist the superior authority.”

Here’s the report by Pastor Matt: