May the mumbling commence!
With exile close at hand, God gave the people of Judah a promise. Read it from Jeremiah 16:14-15 –
"However, the days are coming," declares the Lord, "when men will no longer say, 'As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,' but they will say, 'As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.' For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers.’”
Despite rampant unfaithfulness, the faithfulness of the Lord will continue from the past into the future. What a promise in such a bad time! The exile the Lord would be sending His people into was intended for restoration not for destruction. So, why should we go anywhere else with our fears and concerns? Read from Jeremiah 17:12-13 –
A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary.
O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame.
Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust
because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.
Without water, many things will turn to dust. Without water, life is impossible. You know, ashes will turn to ashes and dust to dust. As I read this set of verses, I thought of the story recorded in the gospel of John. People were gathering to stone a woman caught in adultery. Jesus was asked what they should do with her. The Law called for her (and the man with whom she committed adultery – who in this case was absent from the proceedings) to be stoned to death, but the Roman rule had removed the right for Israel to execute people. Jesus stooped and wrote in the dirt, the dust of the ground. And Jesus commanded the person without sin to cast the first stone (Jn. 8:1-11).
Without the Lord Jesus in our lives, we are all written in the dust. We all can be easily erased by the blowing of the wind (which, in Kansas, is quite prevalent). Let us go to the Lord Jesus with all our concerns and fears and sins. Jesus, the living water, will turn our destiny in the dust of death into a spring of living water within our very souls. It is the great reversal. God allows U-turns. Read from the story of King Josiah of Judah from 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles:
Then Shaphan the secretary informed the king, "Hilkiah the priest has given me a book." And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king.
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king's attendant: "Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord's anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us."
Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophetess Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District. She said to them, "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, 'This is what the Lord says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read. Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and provoked me to anger by all the idols their hands have made, my anger will burn against this place and will not be quenched.' Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, 'This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the Lord. Therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.'" (2 Kings 22:10-20a)
So they took her answer back to the king.
Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. He went up to the temple of the Lord with the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, the priests and the Levites – all the people from the least to the greatest. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord. The king stood by his pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord – to follow the Lord and keep his commands, regulations and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, and to obey the words of the covenant written in this book.
Then he had everyone in Jerusalem and Benjamin pledge themselves to it; the people of Jerusalem did this in accordance with the covenant of God, the God of their fathers.
Josiah removed all the detestable idols from all the territory belonging to the Israelites, and he had all who were present in Israel serve the Lord their God. As long as he lived, they did not fail to follow the Lord, the God of their fathers.
So, let’s turn this ship around and sail faithfully towards the Lord. And we will turn from dust to transformed creatures of the living water. So be it.
Enough mumbling for today…
Peace Out
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