Day 15: Getting Real with God

Lamentations 3:40-51 :

Let us search and try our ways,
and turn again to Yahweh.
Let’s lift up our heart with our hands to God in the heavens.
“We have transgressed and have rebelled.
You have not pardoned.

“You have covered us with anger and pursued us.
You have killed.
You have not pitied.
You have covered yourself with a cloud,
so that no prayer can pass through.
You have made us an off-scouring and refuse
in the middle of the peoples.

“All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.
Terror and the pit have come on us,
devastation and destruction.”

My eye runs down with streams of water,
for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
My eye pours down
and doesn’t cease,
without any intermission,
until Yahweh looks down,
and sees from heaven.
My eye affects my soul,
because of all the daughters of my city.

It appears that, at this point, Jeremiah realizes that the only right thing for Israel to do is to take a good look at their ways and come clean before God about the reality that they have sinned. The problem is that it doesn’t appear that God is forgiving them right now, so Jeremiah is in torment. He knows that they should be admitting that they are wrong, but he feels as if God isn’t listening to them. His people are still getting devastated by His anger.

Do I believe that God isn’t really seeing the confession of His people? No, I believe God was seeing it. I don’t believe that just because Jeremiah wrote about waiting until God happens to notice their confession, that God hadn’t noticed. I think that this is just evidence that this as an honest lamentation. It’s not a record of truth about God’s behavior. It’s an honest record of man’s emotions about the torment of God’s punishment. It’s man’s feelings about what God might be doing right now, even though He wasn’t. This should be comforting to us.

God expects us to be honest with Him about our feelings, even when they are wrong! Have you ever considered the fact that God already knows what you are feeling before you express it? Just because you don’t express your feelings to God, doesn’t mean that He can’t see exactly how silly they are right now. These lamentations are yet another evidence that God wants us to pour out the truth about what we feel to Him, even when we are wrong. God is a real person and He cares more than any other person we know. He wants our emotions even though they are imperfect. If you think about it, this makes sense. If we want our emotions to improve, we must bring them, as imperfect as they are, to God so that He can change them. God is able to deal with our wrong feelings and help us walk back into the light.

Day 14: Remembering the Multitude of his Loving Kindnesses

Lamentations 3:28-39 :

Let him sit alone and keep silence,
because he has laid it on him.
Let him put his mouth in the dust,
if it is so that there may be hope.
Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him.
Let him be filled full of reproach.

For the Lord will not cast off forever.
For though he causes grief,
yet he will have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
For he does not afflict willingly,
nor grieve the children of men.

To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,
to turn away the right of a man before the face of the Most High,
to subvert a man in his cause, the Lord doesn’t approve.

Who is he who says, and it comes to pass,
when the Lord doesn’t command it?
Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?
Why should a living man complain,
a man for the punishment of his sins?

It may be that man’s most significant problem is that He keeps trying to supplant God. An amazing thing that Lamentations shows us is that we can do this even while undergoing suffering. God Himself may be disciplining us, and we will still try to do something to make things better for ourselves. Jeremiah reminds us, here, that the best thing we can do is to “sit alone and keep silence.” He isn’t saying this because all is lost. In fact, the exact opposite is true. “For the Lord will not cast off forever.” Instead of trying and trying to solve our own problem, it’s time to return to simple faith.

So what is the fact that we should consider as we keep our silence in our suffering? Here it is: God “does not afflict willingly.” Eventually, He will save us. Besides, “Why should a living man complain… for the punishment of his sins?” That’s what we are really doing when we get all upset about our suffering for our sin. We are complaining about our punishment, all the while failing to remember that God doesn’t want to be punishing us in the first place! I do recognize that there are times when we suffer when we did not sin, like Job did, but even then, we can trust that God has something good in mind, like Job came to understand.

The simple fact that we can rest our faith on, is that God intends to “have compassion according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.” May we remember this when we suffer.

Day 157: What Sense Does This Make?

Jeremiah 38:1-6

Shephatiah the son of Mattan, Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchijah heard the words that Jeremiah spoke to all the people, saying, “Yahweh says, ‘He who remains in this city will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans will live. He will escape with his life and he will live.’ Yahweh says, ‘This city will surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, and he will take it.’ ”

Then the princes said to the king, “Please let this man be put to death, because he weakens the hands of the men of war who remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words to them; for this man doesn’t seek the welfare of this people, but harm.”

Zedekiah the king said, “Behold, he is in your hand; for the king can’t do anything to oppose you.”

Then they took Jeremiah and threw him into the dungeon of Malchijah the king’s son, that was in the court of the guard. They let down Jeremiah with cords. In the dungeon there was no water, but mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire.

It’s hard for me to complain about my problems as a Christian when I think about Jeremiah. He had just been given his freedom from a dungeon only to be forced into a muddy well. Wouldn’t he have been better off in the dungeon? I wonder if Jeremiah began to question his decision to ask the king to leave the dungeon? It’s hard to see how Jeremiah could have been happy about anything. Everyone hated him, he was starving, he was in a small space and sinking in mud to top it all off. Is this what it means to serve God? Would anyone decide to follow Jeremiah’s example? How could this be God’s will?

This is really hard to deal with don’t you think? God told Jeremiah to spend his life giving people a message that they wouldn’t receive. Then he told him to use his money to buy property that was going to be taken over by foreign invaders, and then allowed people to throw him into a mud hole to die. Have you ever felt like what God is doing doesn’t make any sense?

As I mentioned before, Jesus knew about these things and He actually told us what we should do in these circumstances. He told us to become extremely glad because these are the kind of things that happen to people that God intends to reward. As bad as things were at this low point in Jeremiah’s career, that fact was that things were going to become very, very good for him in the future. Thankfully, we get to read about that too. For now, we should practice thinking like Jesus told us to think. Let’s not think about the mud hole we are in, let’s consider what it means for our eternal future. Every minute we get closer to our eternal destiny and we can’t even begin to imagine how amazing it will be for us when we arrive.

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 111: Refusing to Listen to God

Jeremiah 25:7-14

“Yet you have not listened to me,” says Yahweh; “that you may provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt.”

Therefore Yahweh of Armies says: “Because you have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says Yahweh, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a 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 lamp. This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

“It will happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,” says Yahweh, “for their iniquity. I will make the land of the Chaldeans desolate forever. I will bring on that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations. For many nations and great kings will make bondservants of them, even of them. I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their hands.”

The reason that I am so serious about going through the Bible like this, is because I can’t think of anything more important to people today. The reason that our world is suffering so much, is because people are continuing to avoid God’s word. It should not be a surprise to me that people will avoid my blog and Daily Bible Radio too because that’s what people tend to do to God’s word, but the reason I do it anyway is because the consequences are so high and this passage talks about that.

When we refuse to listen to the Bible, it’s a sign that there’s something else that we would rather have. We don’t want the Bible to tell us that we can’t have something we deeply desire, so we would rather provoke God to anger than to give up our sin. God makes it clear that it will be to our own hurt if we continue to live this way.

Then what we have are two examples of nations that refused to listen to God’s word. First, we have Israel. Because Israel stubbornly refused to listen to God, their cities were going to be deserted and become a national example of what happens when people decide to ignore God. Then we have the example of “the land of the Chaldeans.” Because Babylon also refused to follow God’s word, they would become “desolate forever.” It doesn’t matter if you are God’s favorite, like Israel was, or you are a nation of the world, God’s word cannot be avoided. I believe that this implies that the opposite is also true. Whether you are Israel, or another nation of the world, following God’s word will make your nation great.

We also have a very interesting detail about God’s world-wide control over all authority on earth. Notice that God says: “I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon…” God took full responsibility for the actions of this foreign government official. There is a great deal more we learn about how God dealt with this man in the book of Daniel, but here we clearly see that God was in charge of Him. He even called this Gentile leader: “my servant”. It could be that Nebuchadnezzar became a follower of the God of Israel, but we also know that God claims to be over all kings on earth. Whether a king believes in Him or not, God is the one in charge of their actions because He is the highest authority and is the one who gives that authority to the nations. When those nations avoid His word, it eventually leads to their end.

Day 62: God Takes Jeremiah’s Side

Jeremiah 12:5-13

“If you have run with the footmen,
and they have wearied you,
then how can you contend with horses?
Though in a land of peace you are secure,
yet how will you do in the pride of the Jordan?
For even your brothers, and the house of your father,
even they have dealt treacherously with you!
Even they have cried aloud after you!
Don’t believe them,
though they speak beautiful words to you.

“I have forsaken my house.
I have cast off my heritage.
I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.
My heritage has become to me as a lion in the forest.
She has uttered her voice against me.
Therefore I have hated her.
Is my heritage to me as a speckled bird of prey?
Are the birds of prey against her all around?
Go, assemble all the animals of the field.
Bring them to devour.
Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard.
They have trodden my portion under foot.
They have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.
They have made it a desolation.
It mourns to me, being desolate.
The whole land is made desolate,
because no one cares.
Destroyers have come on all the bare heights in the wilderness;
for the sword of Yahweh devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land.
No flesh has peace.
They have sown wheat,
and have reaped thorns.
They have exhausted themselves,
and profit nothing.
You will be ashamed of your fruits,
because of Yahweh’s fierce anger.”

It obviously doesn’t matter whether or not you are a majority if God decides to be on your side. It’s fascinating to me but it appears that what we have here is God agreeing with the horrible position the Jeremiah finds himself in. He appears to be saying that if you are being overpowered by common soldiers, how will you be able to deal with the more advanced weapons when they are leveled against you? He appears to be talking about Jeremiah’s family compared to those in Judah who weren’t in his family. Even Jeremiah’s own family was against him but they were talking to him as if they were being nice. This really made God angry and He goes on describing the great horror that He was going to bring on them and all of Judah.

I believe that God wants us to realize that when we suffer, He really suffers with us. When we represent him and we are persecuted, God is also being persecuted. He takes it personally and the difference is, He has all the power to do something about it. God is not aloof when it comes to our suffering. He is participating and here we read He even comments about it. He may use it as a reason for His acts of wrath against those who do evil. We see this in Jesus’ words to Saul when he was blinded on the road to Damascus.

Acts 9:4-6

He fell on the earth, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

He said, “Who are you, Lord?”

The Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise up, and enter into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

Remember, Saul was persecuting Christians. He wasn’t persecuting Jesus directly, but Jesus took it personally. It appears to me that God did the same thing with Jeremiah, and it just made things worse for Judah. They made God more willing to bring wrath on them by how they treated the prophets. We can be sure that when we feel pain, God does too. When we are sad, so is He. He may even be making comments about it like He did here to Jeremiah. When that happens, it doesn’t matter if you are the only one doing right on the earth. Only those on God’s side are going to win.