Thought for Today

When facing God’s judgment—or in the midst of being under it—there is reason for hope. God disciplines out of necessity and His judgment is perfect. That means it will never be excessive. Severe, possibly, but not excessive.

You may be thinking, “That still doesn’t sound like hope.”

But, consider the book of Lamentations. What is that book’s context? Babylon has captured Jerusalem. The Temple has been destroyed; mass famine and starvation; gold and silver scattered in the streets, worthless. Nothing is left. Better to have been killed quickly during the battle, than to face the slow death the survivors were now facing.

Yet in the midst of the suffering, we find Lamentations 3:21–25. For context, Lamentations 3:19–26 (NAU): Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness. Surely my soul remembers And is bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,  “Therefore I have hope in Him.” The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. It is good that he awaits silently For the salvation of the LORD.

Even during times of judgment one can still repent, turn to God, and find mercy. The question is: “Will we?” As previously mentioned, most during that time chose not to. Even though God blessed them afterwards with a bountiful summer harvest and told them it would go well for them if they chose to stay in the area, they still didn’t listen. They chose to go down to Egypt where further calamity awaited. Rather than repent and turn to God, they chose to continue to worship their favored idol, the Queen of Heaven (worship of her led by the women).

The offer of repentance remains. But whether we do or not is lefrt up to us. As we just saw, even after the utter devastation and loss faced by the Jews after Jerusalem’s capture, they still refused to repent. That is not an example to follow.

Yet, even after that, God was not finished with them. He gives the promise of restoration, should the Jews turn back to God once they’ve been scattered throughout the world. We saw that happen when Israel was reborn in 1948. While they do not yet collectively follow God, that day will also come (one of the reasons the world so hates the Jews is that their existence points to the reality of a sovereign God).

For us, if we repent, there is hope. Even should the United States, various nations in Europe, or elsewhere, fall, there is still hope for individuals. Repentence and forgiveness remain possible.

Far better to humble ourselves now, to acknowledge our need of God, our need of salvation through Jesus Christ, than to face the devastation that surely will follow under God’s judgment. But even during that time of judgment, it is still better to turn to Him, to seek His forgiveness.

God has warned us. Scripture is full of those warnings. Faithful pastors have been declaring those warnings. Will we seek after God? Will we humble ourselves? Or will we continue to listen to false teachers who tell us what we want to hear, who proclaim peace and prosperity, even when facing imminent judgment? Collectively as a nation, will we continue to rail against God and to voice our intense hatred of Him, and for everything He represents? What will we choose? Either way, God has laid out what will happen, for good or for ill.

What will we choose?

Personal note: I’m continuing to have computer configuration issues. Between that and Christmas, posts may continue to be sporadic until after the start of the new year.