Sweet Suffering

I have often wished that my spiritual gift was mercy.  If God had given me that gift, then I would have the right words to give someone when they are hurting or confused.  If God had given me that gift, then surely I would be able to use it more than any of the other spiritual gifts, since we live in a world that seems saturated with suffering.  But, my spiritual gift is not mercy.  As a matter of fact, when I began discipleship and my pastor evaluated my spirit, my heart, my abilities, my personality and my experience to help me determine my spiritual gift, it was mercy of which I had the least. 

One of the qualities of someone that has the gift of mercy is that they are more inclined towards alleviating the cause of someone's hurt, rather than to look for any benefit from their pain.  Whereas my natural reaction to suffering is to begin searching for answers.  My natural reaction to those who are hurting is to try and figure out why God is allowing them to hurt.  I want to give them answers more than I want to give them comfort.  That is because one of the weaknesses of my own spiritual gift is to see answers as comfort.  But not everyone wants answers, sometimes they just want to be comforted and usually any effort I attempt at comforting ends up awkward and botched.

Last night, my mother called me to tell me that one of our family members went in for a lumpectomy and ended up having a double mastectomy.  The cancer has likely spread to her lymph nodes, and if so, she will have to begin chemo.  She is not much older than me.  She has a husband, children, grandchildren, sisters, parents, family and friends that love her dearly.  As many of you who read this blog already know, my pastor, who is also my mentor and father figure, was also diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last fall.  Two people whom I love dearly are now fighting for their life.  So, I search for answers.

Why would God allow my pastor, a man who has dedicated his life to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to undergo such suffering?  Why would God allow my family member, a ray of sunshine in the life of so many, to experience such a seemingly cruel and unjust fate?  And while we're at it, why would God allow my friend's brother, a young man with a solid faith, a loving wife and small children, to be utterly crippled by ALS, unable to move, unable to play with his own children or wrap his arms around his own wife?   Why would God allow my husband's friend to give birth to a daughter that lived for only a few days, just long enough to become attached to, to experience the blissful embrace of her own child, only to have to let her go?  Why does God encumber us with such suffering?

And the answer He has impressed upon my spirit is because He is glorified in our suffering, but this is not the answer that most people want to hear.  He is glorified when, despite our suffering, we hold onto Him with both hands and refuse to let go, "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him."  (Heb 11:6).  He is glorified when our suffering brings us into a more intimate relationship with Him that we would have otherwise never pursued as long as everything in our life continued to go along smoothly, "Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me. Yet not My will, but Yours be done." (Luke 22:42).  Sometimes the suffering in our life is to remind us that there is nothing in our life that is more important than our relationship with God, so He will remove those things that have become stumbling blocks to our faith or those things that we have allowed to take His rightful place in our lives.  Sometimes our suffering is the only way we will keep our eyes on His abilities and His kingdom, rather than our own.  Sometimes God's allowance of our suffering is to simply save us from ourselves.

For those who simply want to be comforted, these answers will not satisfy your desire.  But for those who find comfort in answers, then the scriptural answer to suffering can be found at Hebrews 12:7, "Endure suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?" and at 2 Cor 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness."   You see, to truly follow Christ the way He calls us to follow Him, we must all endure suffering, because according to God's own word, it is our suffering that refines us.  It is our response to crisis that determines our priorities.  It is how we react to our suffering that determines whether we are true disciples of Christ.  Because it is through our suffering that we bear the greatest witness to the power of Christ that dwells within us--- the power of His Holy Sprit that has overcome the world, "In this world you will have tribulation.  But take courage, I have overcome the world." (John 16:33).

What I have learned about suffering thus far, is that it is not determined by how seemingly "good" any of us are.  What I have observed, is that those throughout history who seemed to have the greatest devotion to God, suffered greatly.  What I believe, is that it was their suffering which determined their great devotion, because it is our longing for the comfort that only the sweet presence of God can give, which brings us into genuine, deep, intimate fellowship with Him.  And what I know, is that it was God's own great suffering that brought about the ultimate presence of God-- the redemption and reconciliation of all mankind.

When I told my family member last night that I loved her and that our whole church would be praying for her, her beautiful response was, "We have a mighty and strong God, He will take care of me and all of us through this.  I'm grabbing hold tight and I ain't letting go.  All will be okay."  The one thing I have observed which my family member, my pastor, my friend's brother and my husband's friend all share in the midst of their suffering, is that they are all reaching out for something greater, they are all holding onto truth, and God is glorified.   Although their circumstances of suffering may differ, each one of them dug down deeply into their faith and have resolved to hold onto God with both hands.  And God is glorified.  They have inspired my own faith, they have strengthened my own resolve to hold onto God no matter how brutal the storms may get in my own life.  And God is glorified.  And as they each weather their own brutal storm and hold onto the cross of Jesus Christ with both hands, despite the waves crashing all around them, they glorify God with their sacrifice of faith and are glorified themselves as they each long for the comfort that only God can give and enter into the sweet intimate fellowship of His presence that only suffering can bring.

We are all part of the Body of Christ, and each of us have distinctive and unique gifts that He has given us to operate in unity with each other.  Each of us being one part, designed to work in conjunction with all the others, to make up a whole.  Whereas one may be weak, the others are strong.  One of the weaknesses of those with the gift of mercy is basing decisions on emotions, rather than on scriptural reason-- reacting to God's purposes in allowing people to suffer, being blinded by their emotions, rather than embracing what can be learned from it.  On the other hand, one of the strengths of my spiritual gift is to analyze a situation objectively and to speak the truth of God's word even when it is unpopular and difficult for others to accept-- my willingness to challenge others with truth in order to encourage their spiritual growth.  And one of those challenging truths is that God disciplines and refines us through our suffering, "so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 1:7). 

" 'Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? "Father, save Me from this hour"? No, it is for this purpose that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify Your name!' Then a voice came from heaven: 'I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.' " (John 12:27,28).

"And if we are children, then we are heirs: heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." (Rom 8:17,18)

"For our light and temporary affliction is producing for us an eternal glory that far outweighs our troubles." (2 Cor 4:17)

"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial that has come upon you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed at the revelation of His glory." (1 Pet 4:12,13)

"I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world!" (John 16:33)

Holes In The Road

Let's say there is someone in your life that tells you that it's best to have many large, deep potholes in the road.  Your initial reaction would be to correct that person and tell them no, it's best to have a smooth, well-maintained road.  Then you go on about your business until once again, someone begins to start talking about how much better it is to have large, deep holes in the road.  And once again, you correct them and tell them no, it is better for the road to be smooth and well-maintained.  But they won't leave it alone.  They keep bringing it up, forming all kinds of arguments, mostly based on their own opinion about potholes or what they've heard from other people. 

You try explaining to them that a smooth road is safer to drive and better for your tires and your shocks.  Still they argue.  You try explaining to them the truth that can be discerned from simply observing a car driving down a smooth, well-maintained path, versus a path full of potholes. Still they argue.  You try explaining to them that you've read the manual and you understand the reasons behind the mechanics.  Still they argue.  Finally, you try to explain to them that when you truly see the value in each road, you must repair them when they are broken, you must fill the holes when they are empty.  But they will have nothing of it, the roads must be allowed to be broken, the roads must have their potholes.  You are no longer allowed to say that the road is "broken", you are no longer allowed to say that the road shouldn't have holes.  When you offer repair, it is seen as reproach.  Emotions have become truth.

They ask you why you care so much about whether or not there are potholes in the road?  "Let us drive on our potholes in peace!" they say.  But before long, they start teaching the children in school that the roads should be full of potholes.  Then your children begin to ask, "What's wrong with driving on a road with potholes?"  They teach them that potholes are just a normal way of life, no need to fill them or maintain the roads, just leave the roads alone, just let them be.  What they fail realize is that they are not just driving on their potholes in peace, because you have to drive those roads too. 

What they fail to realize is that the reason you care so much about their insistence about potholes is because they are teaching a lie.  Blinded by their own delusion, they cannot see that the lie they teach is the foundation of their own imprisonment, a paradox to their own self-proclaimed intellectual reasoning. 

What they fail to realize is that when a person has made a lifetime commitment with eternal consequences to speak the truth and to seek the truth, then the only thing that person can do when confronted with a lie, is to speak truth.  Any deviation from the truth affects all of us.  Ask Eve. 

The reason we should all care about lies is because scripture says that we are to love the truth, because it is our love of the truth that will save us in these end days, "Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved." (2 Thess 2:9,10).  Unfortunately, scripture also says that for those who "refused to love the truth", God would send them "a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness." (2 Thess 2:10-12).  Let me repeat that, "they will believe the lie in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth.."

Truth is important to God, so it should be important to us.  And a very uncomfortable and unpopular truth, is that the God of the Bible judges sin.  The god of comfortable Christianity may not, but the God of the Bible does.  And the sooner professing Christians get to know the God that they claim to worship and serve, the sooner we can  get to standing on truth instead of arguing about it.  Because holes in the road affect everyone.

"So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter." (2 Thess 2:15)

"Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from any brother who leads an undisciplined life that is not in keeping with the tradition you received from us." (2 Thess 3:6)

"He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it was taught, so that by sound teaching he will be able to encourage others and refute those who contradict this message." (Titus 1:9)

"I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth." (John 17:14-19)

The Hem Of His Garment

I pray and I sin.
I seek God and then I fail.
I try so hard, my heart wants to stay determined, but my mind says, "You might as well give up because you know you will fail."
I struggle.
I struggle against my flesh, I war within my mind.
I am a sinner that longs for holiness.  A holiness that seems to always be just out of reach. 
I cry out for God, I call out to Him, "Make me holy!  I want more of You in my life!  Fill me with your Spirit until it overflows into the lives of others."
And yet, the battle rages on.
Who will deliver me from this?
How can I possibly endure when it seems like I'm fighting a war that will never end?  Day after day, failure after failure, weakness after weakness.
God help me!
God do You hear me?
Show me the way, Lord.  Free me from this madness.  Work in me, God.  Save me from myself.
I can't live without Your guidance.  My life means nothing if it does not bear You fruit.
A life about myself is vanity.
A life consumed with this world is futility.
Why can't I hear You?
Why do You draw away?
Is it my sin?  Is it my failures?
No.
It is because the only way I can follow You is for You to keep moving.
The only way I can climb the heights to Your holy mountain is for You to keep moving forward and for me to keep moving my feet.
Today, I sit on this rock and complain about how bad my feet hurt.
Today, I rise up from this rock and continue walking anyway.
I come before You, dressed in the filthy rags of my own effort, but I reach out for You with both hands, convinced that if I can just touch the hem of Your garment, I will be clean.

"For she said to herself, 'If I only touch His garment, I will be made well.' But Jesus turning and seeing her said, 'Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well.' At once the woman was made well." (Matt 9:21,22)

"People brought all their sick to Him, and besought Him that they might only touch the hem of His garment: and as many as touched were made perfectly whole." (Matt 14:35,36)

"Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, Who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24,25)

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away." (Rev 21:4)

"Send forth Your truth and Your light, let them lead me; let them bring me to Your holy mountain, to the place where You dwell." (Psalm 43:3)

Business As Usual

The Apostle Paul tells us that Christ will not return until the apostasy happens, "Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.  Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first..." (2 Thess 2:1-3). 

Suffice it to say, for all those watching for Christ's return, we should have an understanding of what we should be looking for.  The Greek word the Apostle Paul uses in this verse is "APOSTASIA", which means rebellion, desertion, to leave or depart, to forsake, or to defect from.  It is translated several different ways including, "the falling away", "the apostasy", "the rebellion", "a revolt", and "a departure".  It is from the Greek word "APHISTEMI", which means to draw away, to cause to withdraw from, to seduce away or to shun, leave or let go.

Unfortunately, scripture does not tell us the circumstances for the APOSTASIA, but the word is used one other time in the New Testament at Acts 21:21.  The Apostle Paul had been preaching the Gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and the Jews accused Paul of forsaking, abandoning, or turning away from the Law of Moses.  So the context of this word can be understood as something that causes entire denominations to forsake, leave, or let go of basic tenets of their faith.  Something that causes a great division in the church.  Something that causes brothers and sisters in Christ to turn against each other, one side standing on the truth of God's word, the other side turning away from the truth of God's word.  Compromise versus uncompromise.

Many people in Jesus' day said "I can follow You this far, and no further."  They turned away when He didn't meet their expectations.  They turned away when He was leading them somewhere they didn't agree with or couldn't understand, "From this time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him." (John 6:66).  Today, entire denominations are falling away into apostasy, churches are splitting apart, brothers and sisters in Christ are turning against each other, because they follow Christ until they get to His laws about sexual immorality, then they say, "I can follow You no further."  So they devise their own version of Christianity and follow that.  Compromise versus uncompromise.

Prophecy is unfolding before our eyes and many cannot even see it.  As we go on with our business-as-usual mindset, many of us are part of this prophesied APOSTASIA and we don't even realize it.  We like to say that Satan is the great deceiver, but if truth be told, "self" is the greatest deceiver of them all.  God is at work, bringing about the culmination of this present age.  Satan is also at work, either getting us all wrapped up in our emotions or crippling us with apathy, so that we are blind to the hour at hand.  And that hour is very, very late indeed, because the rest of 2 Thess 2:3 says, "Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first....and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction.  He will oppose and exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship. So he will seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God."

I have come to realize that I am in error when I say that judgment is coming to this nation, because judgment is already here.  We are already living through God's judgment upon our waywardness and lukewarm commitment to Him, because He is simply allowing us to reap what we've sown in this nation.  He is allowing us to drink the cup of the maddening wine of our adulteries (Rev 14:8; Rev 18:3; Jer 51:7).  As the world continues to fall apart all around us-- and make no mistake, it will continue to get increasingly worse-- how many of us will be able to weather the storm with our flawed perceptions of God? 

"Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another... But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved." (Matt 24:9-13)

"For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.  And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, 'Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.'  Give back to her as she has given; pay her back double for what she has done. Pour her a double portion from her own cup. Give her as much torment and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself. In her heart she boasts, 'I sit enthroned as queen. I am not a widow; I will never mourn.' For this reason her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.” (Rev 18:3-8)

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Four years ago I started praying to be closer to God.  I began to long for Him to reveal Himself to me, to grow in knowledge and understanding of Him. I prayed, I waited, I kept an always watchful eye for my burning bush, I kept an always open ear for His thundering voice from heaven.  For weeks my prayers were only answered by silence.  Finally, one day while grumbling and whining to God about how hard I was trying, and how could He expect me to stay faithful when all I got from Him was silence, and why did He make it so hard for us to follow Him, blah, blah, blah, a thought gently, but authoritatively invaded my mind and said, "Start by reading what I've already revealed to you." 

I was floored. 

It was so simple and so obvious, yet so completely outside the realm of what I had been expecting.  His answer was there all along, I had simply drowned out His voice by my own expectations, none of which included for me to simply pick up my Bible and start reading.  You know,.... the whole thing. 

As I read the Bible, one thing began to become obviously apparent.  The god I had always envisioned in my own mind, was not the God of the Bible.  Make no mistake, I was saved as a teenager, I had been baptized and had considered myself a Christian my whole life.  However, all that time I had a very lopsided view of God.  He was the God of grace, the God of infinite love, the God that forgave my sins, the God that understood my weaknesses.  He was the God that fit neatly into my own personal reality. 

 

Sometimes God is more of a concept to us, rather than someone we get on our knees and interact with for a set-apart amount of time on a daily basis.  Almost everything I knew about God was what I had learned from others because I had never made an effort to read the whole Bible.  I was comfortable in my Christianity, so I had never actually gotten around to seeking Him with my whole heart. I was still living my life the way I wanted to live it, spending my time the way I wanted to spend it, making no real sacrifices for my faith.  The blunt reality was, all those years I had simply been a lukewarm Christian who never made the effort to read or study the revelation given to me by the God I claimed to worship and follow--the Bible.  You don't have to read the Bible to be saved, but you do have to read the Bible if you want to truly know and understand God and maintain any sort of spiritual growth.  The blunt reality was, I claimed to worship Someone I really didn't know or understand.  And if I tell the whole truth of the matter, I claimed to "worship" God, yet unbeknownst to me, I really had no idea what real worship was.

When I read the whole Bible, I was forced to reconcile the god I had always imagined versus the real, actual God that I claimed to worship and follow.  I had been a Christian all my life, but yet I found myself at 37 years-old asking myself, "Can I worship this God?" 

--Can I worship this God Who instructed Saul, "Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." (1 Sam 15:3).
--Can I worship this God Who instructed Israel, "You are not to leave even one person alive in the cities of these nations that the Lord your God is about to give you as an inheritance." (Deut 20:16).
--Can I worship a God Who would allow wayward Israel to reap what they had sown through their rebellion and sinfulness, even when it meant eating their own children, "You will eat your children, the flesh of your sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you... the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities." (Deut 28:53-57).

So many of us think we know God, but in reality we only know the version of Him we've made up in our own mind.  The god in our mind feels so real, so familiar, but it is really only our own self delusion.  You will know that you are worshiping the god of your own mind when he neatly fits within the paradigms of your own understanding.  When nothing about him contradicts the way you choose to live your life.  When he requires you to make no changes within yourself or your lifestyle.  When he could actually be a she, because it doesn't really matter whether God expresses Himself as male or female, right?  For so many who claim to be God's people, God is whatever they want Him to be.  Which means that when we control our own understanding of God and how He expresses Himself, He is no longer God because we have replaced His authority with our own.

I had earnestly asked God to reveal Himself to me, and His answer brought me to a place of decision, a fork in the road of my faith-- "Can I worship God as He truly is....the God of infinite grace, terrifying judgment and eternal consequences?  Can I worship a God that requires me to forsake the world and die to myself?"  I had to ask myself this because when I became a Christian, I accepted Jesus as my Savior but never really understood what it meant for Him to also be Lord of my life.  I had to ask myself this because I grew up in a nation that worships their own version of God.  I grew up in a nation that romanticizes relationships-- we want all the lovely parts but are quick to bail out when we get to the ugly ones.  We want all ups and no downs.  We want to stay in the honeymoon phase. 

 

The problem is, that the honeymoon phase won't carry us through trials, challenges, tribulation and suffering.  Only a real relationship with a solid commitment, not based on fleeting emotions or flawed assumptions, can withstand the brutal storms of this life.  And when you are in a real relationship with someone, you know that person intimately and you love them wholly and completely, the lovely and the ugly.  You love them at their best and you love them still, at their worst.  When you are in a real relationship with a solid commitment, you are in it for the long haul, you have made up your mind, you have set your face like flint, and nothing stands a chance of coming in between you and the one you love.  You have counted the cost, and still consider it a worthy investment. 

 

"Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame." (Isaiah 50:7)

"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and count the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?  For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, 'This person began to build and wasn't able to finish'...In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples." (Luke 14:28-33)

"You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart." (Jer 29:13)

"And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve Him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever." (1 Chron 28:9)

 

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and in his joy he went and sold all he had and bought that field.  Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it." (Matt 13:44-46)

The 0.01%

As I continue my study of the Book of Jeremiah, my endearment for the prophet grows.  I long to travel back in time and sit across from him, holding his hands in mine, looking into his sorrowful and fretful eyes and tell him, "I understand you."  I want to tell him, "I get it."  You see, Jeremiah was the last prophet God sent to the nation of Israel before He brought judgment against them.  He was the last voice crying out to his countrymen for repentance, before God utterly destroyed them for their rebellion. 

At that time, the people of Israel defined their relationship with God by their lukewarm religious effort, rather than any consistent personal pursuit of His presence.  They were more-so Jews in concept, rather than Jews in actual practice.  They had adopted many of the customs of their pagan neighbors, to the point that you couldn't tell apart most Jews in that day from their pagan neighbors.  Their worship of God consisted of a watered-down, perverted version of the actual precepts God had given them to live by.  Similar to today, the way most Christians live their lives, you can't really tell apart believers from unbelievers.  Similar to many Christians today, the Israelites reasoned that they were part of the nation that God called His own, they were descendants of Abraham, they were God's people, He would never bring judgment upon them, no matter how they lived their lives.  But one of the problems with spiritual nakedness is that a person thinks they belong to God simply by association, rather than by personal relationship.  And any personal relationship they might have with God consists mostly of outward religious acknowledgment, rather than any inward spiritual change.

2500 years later, Christianity has come full circle, right back to where our spiritual predecessors found themselves before their nation was utterly destroyed by God's judgment upon them.  Scripture tells us that Israel is to be an example to us, "Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did... Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.  Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall." (1 Cor 10:5-12).

Jeremiah is called "The Weeping Prophet" because he not only knew of God's impending judgment, but also because no matter how hard he tried, the people would not listen.  Israel had become so used to being around sin, so used to compromise, that most of them couldn't see any reason for them to repent.  They lived busy, bustling lives that focused more on themselves than on God--which is idolatry in its most base form.  They stopped putting God first and replaced Him with an image they had made up of Him in their own mind.  A god that would not make them feel guilty or convict them of sin.  They worshiped the image of God they had made up in their own mind, rather than Who God actually is-- this is another form of idolatry. 

At that time, the Israelites lived lives that were almost completely devoid of any real sense of God's fearsome wrath toward rebellion and sin.  And as history records, God finally gave them over to their idolatry and spiritual nakedness and by the time Nebuchadnezzar conquered Judah in 586 B.C., the Israelites had resorted to cannibalism--eating their own children to stay alive--during the two-year long siege against Jerusalem.  The last king of Jerusalem was forced to watch his own sons executed, before having his eyes gouged out so the last thing he would ever see was the death of his own sons.

I get Jeremiah because he was given the task of delivering an unpopular and convicting message that caused him mental and emotional anguish.  Not only because of its dooming and negative quality, but also because his message made him despised by his own people.  Jeremiah prophesied during a time that everyone did what they thought was right in their own eyes and his constant warning of judgment annoyed them.  I get Jeremiah because he prophesied during a time in which his countrymen, those who were supposed to be his brothers and sisters in the Lord, saw him as their enemy simply because he spoke truth. 

No one wanted to hear anything Jeremiah had to say because they had no desire to examine themselves or the way they were living their lives because their spiritual nakedness gave them a false sense of security.  99.9% of the people in Jeremiah's day made excuses for why they allowed spiritual compromise into their life, rather than humbling themselves in obedience to God's holy standard.  It takes great humility and strength of character to pray, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me...  point out anything in me that offends You, and lead me along the path of everlasting life." (Psalm 139:23,24).  Only about 0.01% have the humility and strength to pray such a prayer and submit to God's answer.  Be the 0.01%.

"Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matt 7:14)

"You will be hated by everyone on account of My name, but the one who endures to the end will be saved." (Matt 10:22)

"At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved." (Matt 24:10-13)

"But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.  For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But keep on the alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man." (Luke 21:34-36)

"For it is time for judgment to begin with the house of God, and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?  And if it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?" (1 Peter 4:17,18)