Daily Posts

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Days 236 & 237 — Lamentations

Jeremiah wrote Lamentations at the fall of Jerusalem. Don’t think that he was a drama king, for people of his culture were a lot more vocal in their grief than we are in ours. Further, his circumstances were grievous. I encourage you to read with compassion for him and his people. He uses some moving imagery to tell us what that historical event was like for the people who lived through it; contemplate some of those that strike you.

Recall that Jeremiah did have hope of restoration. God foretold that they would return to their land after seventy years’ exile. That should give us hope, for God is the same today; He never changes. He is still about using for good the bad things that happen because of sin.

Why do you suppose God preserved the book of Lamentations for us? As I have pointed out many times before, God’s punishment of His Old Testament people teaches us lessons about how awful sin is, the ugly consequences it bears for the sinner, and how hopeless man’s situation is. Which makes God’s mercy and grace toward us all the more amazing.

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Day 235 — Jeremiah 51 – 52

Babylon was taken by Persian emperor Cyrus the Great within one hundred years of this prophecy. He didn’t destroy it, but maintained its importance as a capital of the new Persian Empire he gained from the defeated Babylonians. Upheaval of war caused the city to wane until it was ultimately abandoned in the first century. Located in Iraq, it is still a ruin.

God mentioned the Medes by name as the conquerors of Babylon. Media was a small and obscure kingdom at the time of this prophecy, and no one could fathom its rising to defeat Babylon. The Medes united with the Persians to gain the strength to do just that. We’ll read about the sudden fall of Babylon in the book of Daniel.

Notice how small the numbers of deportees were. God’s people had certainly dwindled from the hundreds of thousands who entered the Promised Land under Joshua’s leadership.

All of this reminds us that God will judge. He will judge His own people. He will judge at the risk of His own reputation. We must never presume to think that we can escape deserved judgment.

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Days 233 & 234 — Jeremiah 46 – 50

As you read about the destructive judgment on these people and their land, remember that they lived out the things told about. Imagine the scenes and feelings described, and know that God knows how to bring judgment.

We’ve all had those days when nothing goes right – fingers fumble, shoestrings break, incredible things happen to slow us down. Hopefully we’ve all had the opposite, days in which we are amazingly agile and efficient, when we just miss the train at the railroad crossing and the computer systems are all running quickly. Guess which of those kinds of days the instruments of God’s judgment on the nations will have as they march on these nations to fulfill God’s purpose. Further, God has power over our feelings, to strike fear or embolden. Can you imagine a fear so great that a father is unable to help his child, can only wring his hands uselessly? To the one for whom God appoints the fumbling and fear, they will multiply remedies in vain. Man has absolutely no power to avoid God’s judgment. Our only hope is God’s mercy. Praise be to God, He is a good and loving and merciful God!

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Day 232 — Jeremiah 41 – 45

The land was in sad shape when the appointed leader couldn’t keep peace and the intended victims of a murderer could bribe the killer using some basic food stores as incentive. The group of people in this story were the very poorest of the land who had escaped deportation three times because they were too unimportant for Nebuchadnezzar to bother with, too weak to present a threat of rebellion against him. When the Babylonian official gave Jeremiah his choice as to whether he would go to Babylon with the last wave of exiles or remain in the land, Jeremiah opted to remain.

Since the people knew God’s will about where they should live in light of the lawless and leaderless condition in Judah, they were accountable for their choice to leave rather than stay. Remaining would have been an act of faith; leaving for Egypt, that crutch in difficult times since Abraham’s day, represents walking by sight. When the land of Judah was destroyed, reduced to rubble and left to be overtaken by thorns, thistles and wild animals, going to Egypt made sense in man’s eyes. Egypt’s Nile River and the flood control measures the Egyptians had built ensured a reliable food supply. Egypt’s culture had endured so long that its stability was unquestionable. Pharaoh offered substantial protection against the Babylonians.

What looked wise in man’s eyes was not wise at all in light of God’s revealed will for this remnant of Judah. As unimaginable as it was to everyone of that day, God had the power to pull their crutch out from under them. If He said He would protect them, He would. Their choice, a choice to give themselves over to open worship of the gods of Egypt that apparently had been powerful enough to keep them secure and prosperous for thousands of years, was veiled in a reasonable quest for security that any human being could understand. Whatever it was, their choice to leave Judah to seek refuge in Egypt was sin.

Contrast Habakkuk’s lovely and bracing prayer expressing his choice to trust in God regardless of the circumstances, with the choice of these people to pursue security and comfort above God’s will for them. Whom are you most like? Is there a need in your life for a change in choice?

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Day 231 — Habakkuk

Habakkuk is my favorite minor prophet. In case you had difficulty following the book, it is a conversation between Habakkuk and God in which the prophet complains to God and God answers. It’s my favorite because I can relate to his complaints, and because there is a lovely prayer in the end, a hidden gem in this obscure book in a less-traveled portion of God’s word.

Don’t we all wonder about the questions Habakkuk asks God:

  • Are you listening? God’s response showed that He was listening, even though the prophet thought He might not be, as indicated by the circumstances around him.
  • Why don’t you do something (in this case, about the injustice that was so offensive to him)? God had a plan ready for launching in His time – an amazing plan.

Then, when Habakkuk perceived God’s plan, apparently even witnessed it, he didn’t like it and complained to God about it! His next questions were along the lines of, “Are you kidding me? Do You know what You’re doing?”

God’s response was to assure Habakkuk that His plans work toward the end He has established, when “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” That end is certain. This book is a wonderful reminder in the midst of the hopelessness of man’s sin dilemma and the dark consequences it produces that we’ve been reading about in Jeremiah, that GOD WINS IN THE END!

God’s response was not the answer Habakkuk wanted to hear, but it was enough for him somehow. That’s the way it is when we hear from God. If we seek answers elsewhere, an undesirable answer, even if it is truth, may cause us to rage against God. But the one who seeks his answer from God (remember Job? Elijah?) finds God’s answer enough to satisfy. Habakkuk was appalled by the reality he had to accept, and in this sin-cursed world we all will be at times. Look in the final words of the book for this man’s lovely testimony of submission to God’s will. Can you pray the same prayer of submission in the circumstances you face today?

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Day 230 — II Kings 24 – 25 & II Chronicles 36

After a lot of talking about it, God finally did send His people away from the Promised Land. They didn’t just relocate to another home, but their removal from the Promised Land meant that they suffered the loss of the promise given to Abraham and thus to them. They had no reason to believe they would ever return, no reason to believe there was any hope of a future relationship with God, unless they were fortunate enough to hear Jeremiah’s prophecies. Even if they did hear them, many of them still wouldn’t believe, reaping the consequences of their choices not to believe. It was a sad ending to what could have been an unendingly bright future.

Understand that this is the fruit borne by sin. It cuts short a bright future. It results in destruction, ruin, suffering, and death. It removes hope of anything better. Do you think you could have done better than God’s Old Testament people did? I used to get frustrated reading their story, believing that I would have been faithful where they were unfaithful to God. That is a lie of Satan designed to keep us from looking to God for hope and help, running to Him for salvation from enslavement to our own desires. God’s Old Testament people are examples given to us so that we are warned to keep from pursuing the same choices and suffering the same consequences that they did. We will never do any better than they did without some kind of help from God.

And God has given that help in the form of Messiah. That is the only reason we enjoy hope of ending up any better than the sad fate of Judah in these chapters.

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Day 229 — Jeremiah 38 – 40 & Psalms 74 & 79

God placed the judgment and correction of His people before the honor of His name. The defeat and destruction of His people would sacrifice His reputation in the eyes of His people and the people of every nation. He judged them anyway. That is no different than the apparent defeat when God’s Son hung on the cross, and when He died a criminal’s death and was buried to end all hope of salvation through Him. It only looked like defeat.

King Zedekiah didn’t believe that God would judge him even after Jeremiah explicitly told him that God would indeed judge him and the entire nation. He thought that because he had escaped deportation two earlier times, he was favored enough to avoid judgment completely. His fate seems horrible: the last thing he saw before the Babylonians put his eyes out was his loved ones slaughtered. You can bet they didn’t use anything to dull the pain when they put his eyes out, either. He marched to Babylon in shackles with those wounds fresh. He had been mistaken about knowing God’s mind. He was ridiculously obtuse in his refusal to believe; can you believe his asking Jeremiah to pray to God on his behalf? Do you know anyone so obtuse about the truth of God’s word? Do you know anyone who is so convinced that he knows God’s mind that he believes God won’t do what He says He will do? Such people won’t escape judgment, any more than Zedekiah did.

Others believed Jeremiah’s warnings, but not enough to act on them. Such belief amounted to disbelief, for the results it produced.

These examples are warnings for us, according to I Corinthians 10:11 and 12. So if we think we are standing firm, we’d better be careful so that we don’t fall.

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Day 228 — Jeremiah 35 – 37

Even in the last few years before the first deportation to Babylon, God gave Judah the opportunity to repent. He sent Jeremiah’s scribe Baruch on a risky mission to warn the people, giving them yet another chance to turn back to God in repentance and humility, and be forgiven. The effort gained nothing and put Jeremiah’s and Baruch’s lives in jeopardy. That was hard on God’s two servants, to be put at risk for the possibility that their people might be saved. It’s not that He cared nothing for Jeremiah’s and Baruch’s lives, but that He cared so very much about the spiritual welfare of His people. He risked even more in sending Messiah to earth to suffer in death. Does God’s practice with His Old Testament people and His servants have any implications for your life?

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Day 227 — Jeremiah 32 – 34

God speaks further in these chapters about His plan to effect His people’s salvation from sin, and what that looks like. You may wonder what buying and selling land has to do with salvation. It speaks of transformation and hope. Think of the transformation of the land if it goes from a desolate, uninhabited and likely uninhabitable waste, to land that people want to buy. Buying and selling speaks of commerce, improvement, activity, life. Have you had seasons of life where you felt like a desolate waste? Perhaps you’re there now. That’s the effect of sin – not necessarily your own sin, but the effect of living in a sin-cursed world where such things happen. But that was never God’s design for us, and He doesn’t want that to be our end. Instead, He wants the desolate places rebuilt, bringing Him renown, joy, praise, and honor. That is quite a transformation. He wants salvation to make the same kind of dramatic change in your life. Would you call your life more a desolate waste or something built up for God’s renown, joy, praise and honor? If it’s the former, you are not living out the salvation God has provided for you.

As you read these chapters, contemplate the descriptions of restoration and what God is saying about what He wants to do for you. Consider how the salvation you’re experiencing measures up to the salvation He wants to give you. If it needs to look better, please don’t wait to confess that to God and ask Him to do the necessary transformation in you. Then trust Him to do it.

In any case, we all owe praise and thanks to God for His great salvation.

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Day 226 — Jeremiah 30 – 31

God’s message of restoration for His Old Testament people is vitally important to us. We shouldn’t read it with half-hearted attention, or we will miss precious truths that God has preserved for us.

The first precious truth in this passage is that God is a saving God. But before we can appreciate that, we must understand how desperately His people need a Savior. In verses 30:12-13 He tells His people, “Your wound is incurable, your injury beyond healing. There is no one to plead your cause, no remedy for your sore, no healing for you.” That wound is sin; sin’s effects leave us damaged. Think of the worst wound you have seen; I think of my daughter’s knees the summer she scraped off several layers of skin and they oozed pus for weeks. While I treated those wounds my stomach did weird and uncomfortable things. About the time the pus dried up, she fell again and the pus oozed again. Those wounds seemed incurable. We are all in that position, wounded by sin, suffering incurable wounds that have marred the beautiful creatures God made us to be. Further, “There is no one to plead your cause, no remedy for your sore, no healing for you.” We are hopeless in our wounded state. But in verse 17 God says, “I will restore you to health and heal your wounds.”

How will God do that, when every time God rescued them they proceeded to neglect Him, then forget Him, and they broke their covenant with Him? He planned a new covenant that He would make with them. (This is really important, because we are New Covenant people!) This time God would “put (His) law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” The terms of this covenant are that God would do a transforming work in their hearts and minds so that they would truly be His people and know Him in the way He wants to be known, the way He created them (and us!) to be known.

As you read through these chapters, make note of what God’s salvation looks like. Some quick snatches from these passages that might help you get started are:

  • Freedom from bonds and enslavement.
  • Peace and security,
  • Freedom from fear
  • Healing
  • Rebuilding

What needs healed in you? What needs rebuilt in your life? Can you appreciate the blessings of peace and security and freedom from fear in this unstable world? This is a picture of the salvation God offers you, to be enjoyed now. If perhaps the healing isn’t the physical healing for which you hope, or the peace and security don’t equate to material abundance, don’t disdain God’s salvation as a lie; rather, use your questions to draw closer to God. Entrust Him with your honest confessions, ask Him to give you the salvation He longs to give you, and choose to trust that He will do it. Doubtless, the salvation He gives you will prove far superior to what we could even think to ask Him.