ALONE AND WITHOUT HELP

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“Go up to Lebanon and cry out, let your voice be heard in Bashan, cry out from Abarim, for all your allies are crushed. I warned you when you felt secure, but you said, ‘I will not listen!’ This has been your way from your youth; you have not obeyed Me. The wind will drive all your shepherds away, and your allies will go into exile. Then you will be ashamed and disgraced because of all your wickedness. You who live in ‘Lebanon,’ who are nestled in cedar buildings, how you will groan when pangs come upon you, pain like that of a woman in labor!”

Jeremiah 22:20-23

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you found yourself alone, feeling isolated and without any source of help?

I know I have in my life and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It was a time of extreme loneliness, a time that was full of pain in the midst of difficulty, a time when I was cut off from those who I may have been able to rely on in the past.

Maybe you can relate.

As we see in today’s passage and our continuing study of Jeremiah, the people of Judah were in the midst of being alone and without help. And it wasn’t going to get any better. Look again at these words:

“Go up to Lebanon and cry out, let your voice be heard in Bashan, cry out from Abarim, for all your allies are crushed. I warned you when you felt secure, but you said, ‘I will not listen!’ This has been your way from your youth; you have not obeyed Me. The wind will drive all your shepherds away, and your allies will go into exile. Then you will be ashamed and disgraced because of all your wickedness. You who live in ‘Lebanon,’ who are nestled in cedar buildings, how you will groan when pangs come upon you, pain like that of a woman in labor!” Jeremiah 22:20-23

The Israelites of Judah had made the choice to worship other gods, even though God had commanded not to, and there were plenty to choose from. Their obstinate, disobedient attitude, refusing to turn away from sin and back to God, incited His wrath and judgment against them. If they wanted to turn away from God and abandon Him, then they would experience what it felt like to be abandoned themselves.

But this didn’t happen in Judah first. For the northern kingdom of Israel experienced God’s punishment first.

Like their brothers and sisters in the south, the people of God in Israel had willingly and willfully chosen wickedness over righteousness and so God allowed the Assyrian nation to come and lay the kingdom to waste, hauling any Israelites who survived the onslaught into exile. Unlike their southern counterparts, they would never return to rebuild and restore.

In times of trouble, the people of Judah could call on their northern brothers and sisters for help in times of need. They had someone to fall back on, someone to come to their aid, someone they could rely on. But with the destruction of the north, that security blanket was now gone and the people of Judah and Jerusalem were on their own to fend for themselves.

They were about to learn what it felt like to be alone and without help.

Going back to our passage, we find God inviting his people to climb to the highest points to cry out to their allies for assistance, to Lebanon and Bashan and Abarim. Their cries for help would go unanswered because they would find no one left to come to their rescue. The Israelites in the north had been crushed and soon the Israelites in the south would be as well for God’s consequences were coming upon them in the form of the Babylonian nation, coming to devastate their land and take them away into seventy years of exile, seventy years of being alone and without help. The pain this would bring was likened to the labor pains of a woman at birth only that pain would not just come for a moment and then subside. It would sustain over time as the Israelites experiences being distanced from God, ashamed and disgraced because of their wickedness.

Friends, are we listening to this word of God today? If we are sinning in direct disobedience to God’s word and ignoring His calls to repent and change while abandoning Him in the way we live our lives, then we are putting ourselves in a position where His judgment can and will come upon us, a judgment that will show us just how it feels to be forsaken and deserted, how it feels to be alone and without help.

It’s been said that sometimes we don’t gain a full appreciation for God until we try to live without Him. His word today is showing us that living without Him isn’t something we should even want to consider.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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