Read the Bible in a Year (27AUG19)

DAILY REMINDER – Today, August 27’s Bible reading is Jeremiah 51-52.

NEXT DAY REMINDER – Tomorrow, August 28’s Bible reading is Lamentation 1-3:36. May God bless you with the reading of His WORD.

JEREMIAH MOMENT – (27AUG19) “Babylon will suddenly fall and be broken. Wail over her! Get balm for her pain; perhaps she can be healed. ‘We would have healed Babylon, but she cannot be healed; let us leave her and each go to our own land, for her judgment reaches to the skies, it rises as high as the heavens’” (Jeremiah 51:8-9). Babylon had been God’s instrument of judgment against Jerusalem and Judah. His people did not want to serve Him, so the Lord made them have to submit and serve a foreign nation. God, however, had not forgotten His people and was going to allow for Babylon to be overtaken by their enemies as well. Their judgment was due to their failure to recognize Him as the Sovereign Lord. They had been prideful, arrogant, and conceited. They worshiped man-made gods and was a deity unto themselves. She had annihilated other nations but failed to humble herself before the Lord of Host who enabled her to conquer. Therefore, an army from the north, the Medes and Persians, was going to give her the same destruction that she had heartlessly given to others. The wealth and power over the nations that she once enjoyed and relished in was going to end suddenly. She could have been saved, but her self-reliance would not allow for her to humble herself. Therefore, Babylon’s world dominance was going to be severed and she would never rise again to be the world power that she had become.

The Iraq that we know of today was the Babylon of old. As we can see, Iraq is not the world leader as it once was. America has stepped into that role as the world’s superpower. Unfortunately, we are walking on the same path that the Babylon of old did. We are an arrogant nation full of pride and self-reliance. We say, “In God we trust,” but it has become nothing more than a popular hash-tag. We have overtaken countries and overthrown leaders just as the Babylon of old did for what we call DEMOCRACY. We too have been an instrument of judgment in the Lord’s hands to both help and dethrone ungodly nations, but we have become worse than those we were used to subdue. We have claimed that dictators have harmed their own people as an excuse to assassinate some and ruin others, but we are hypocrites. We have killed more people than Stalin and Hitler put together. Most of the people that we have killed are inside of the womb. But we call it a choice instead of a child. Politicians have argued that social security is in trouble, but why is that? Could it be that we have killed nearly sixty-million potential workforce employees who could have paid into the system? The babies we killed were potential scientists, doctors, inventors, pastors, teachers, first-aid responders, presidents and more. And what was it all for? SELFISHNESS! The Bible says, “Babylon must fall because of Israel’s slain, just as the slain in all the earth have fallen because of Babylon” (Jeremiah 51:49). Do we not think that we too will not fall because of the blood that cries out to God day and night over the innocent babies we have and continue to slay daily?

We are the world’s leaders in importing and exporting pornography. We have violence all across our streets. We have a two-tier justice system – one for the commoner, and the other for the wealthy and well-connected. We have made an abomination out of the Constitution to include such things that the founding fathers never meant for it to mean such as gay marriage and transgenders as a special class under the law. We sexualize children, fake a war on drugs, and have share options for people to buy as an investment into our prison systems, which is far from the claim of rehabilitation. What chances do they have to become productive citizens in society upon release if they are deemed un-hirable? All that’s mentioned here is just the tip of our sinful iceberg. There is so much that we are doing as the nation of Babylon, but our day of being dethroned is coming. The Bible says, “You who live by many waters and are rich in treasures, your end has come, the time for you to be destroyed” (Jeremiah 51:13). This verse was indeed speaking to Babylon of old, but America sits as the Babylon spoken of in Revelation 18, which is almost identical to Jeremiah 51. May God help us should we fail to change because our fate will be just as severe. Something to ponder….

QUESTION OF THE DAY - (27AUG19) “It was because of the Lord’s anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end he thrust them from his presence” (Jeremiah 52:3). The Lord always warns before He punishes a nation and/or individual. He had sent many prophets, watchmen and messengers to warn Israel about their idolatrous ways, but they would not listen. Why is it that we want to always do things our way instead of God’s? The Lord pleaded with Jerusalem and Judah to turn back to Him, but the more He warned, the more rebellious they became. Therefore, they brought punishment on themselves because they would not heed the Lord’s warnings. We make it difficult on ourselves when we fail to be obedient to the Lord. He wants the absolute best for us, but we must submit to Him and not follow what is wise in our own eyes. The Lord had given Israel the land of milk and honey, but their keeping it was conditional based on their obedience. We too have been offered admission into the promised land, but we have a choice as to if we go or be denied admission based on how we submit to Christ. Something to ponder….

JEREMIAH MOMENT – (27AUG19) ^“There at Riblah the king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes; he also killed all the officials of Judah. Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon, where he put him in prison till the day of his death” (Jeremiah 52:10-11). Jeremiah had warned King Zedekiah that if he failed to submit to King Nebuchadnezzar, that these things would happen to him. King Nebuchadnezzar was the one who installed him as king in place of his nephew Jehoiachin. Unfortunately, Zedekiah had too much pride to listen to Jeremiah’s warnings, and after two years, Babylon was finally able to break through the walls of Jerusalem and took him captive. Not only was he taken after he was abandoned by his army, the others, including the priests who had mistreated Jeremiah was taken into captivity and executed. Their pride caused them to sin and their sin brought about death. “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7).

When the Lord warns us concerning sin in our lives, we are to listen and turn from our sinful ways. None of us is without sin, but when we truly follow Christ, we do not take pleasure in sin. We as believers are to ask the Lord for help in being victorious over sin. We cannot do it on our own and will fail every time if we try. Nevertheless, the Lord sees our struggles and forgives us when we truly repent and ask for His help. The Bible says, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10). The Lord always warns before He judges, but He is a loving Father who is there to help us with whatever sin that we struggle with and holds us bound if we heed to His voice. Something to ponder….