Headline News:
They are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. Their tongues are bent to lies. They are not courageous for the truth on earth, for they proceed from evil to evil. No one trusts any brother and every neighbor will slander. Everyone will deceive his neighbor and not speak the truth. Through deceit, they refuse to know the Lord. Does this sound like a city, county, community near you? Sounds like my newspaper every morning.
But this headline was written around 600 years before Jesus was born, by a prophet named Jeremiah. Read his book, chapter 9. He harped on this for a long time before God finally let the Babylonians have His people for 70 years to see if they could repent and follow orders. Some of you may only know Jeremiah through his song “Jeremiah was a bullfrog.” This song was written by Hoyt Axton in 1970 with the title, Jeremiah as a prophet, but the producer of The Three Dog Night group who sang it changed prophet to bullfrog because he said the world would not understand prophet.
Ironically, Jeremiah did sound like a bullfrog croaking the same message for years, trying to convince God’s people to toe the line or be carried into exile; did they listen? Read the book, they did not listen then and they are not listening now.
Repent, John said, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. As Isaiah said, hear the voice crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; make His path straight.
Neither John nor Jerimiah had airplanes and limos to carry them from place to place. All they had was God’s Spirit and Power to tell it …croak, croak, croak, croak.
“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sins and heal their land.” There’s the answer to the question, “What can I do?” It is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14.
God gave us the perfect out 600 or so years later. He sent His Son, to die for us who deserved to die and all we have to do is believe in Him and obey Him to be eternally delivered from our Babylon (whatever that is going to look like)… Wake up is correct English, woke is not.
As I said last week, stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross.
LIFE does not meet tonight, see you next week
The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Jim