Skip to main content

Lamentations 5:1 O God, look at the mess we are in - Day 240

Good evening friends,

Have you ever felt that God doesn't have a clue about the situation you are in?  This seems to be the case in the last chapter of Lamentations.

Blessings

Jeff

The beginning of a list of the consequences of exile.

I always find it interesting when an inspired writer reminds God of something.  In reality, all the things on the list are exactly what God intended Judah to experience when they went into exile.  So what do we make of this?

Does prayer change God's knowledge of our circumstances? No.  Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that God knows what we need before we ask him.  Yet we are also told to ask for our daily bread.  I think the point is that our prayers remind us of our dependency on God.  Our prayers change us, not God.  In this case, as Jeremiah recounts the problems, we are reminded that all these things resulted from Judah's disobedience.  These things are happening to us because we deserve them.

Does prayer change God's plan? No.  The theme of the chapter is Restore Us to Yourself, O Lord.  God always had a plan for the restoration of a remnant after the exile.  Jeremiah's plea is the secondary means by which God implements His plan.  We are really praying "your kingdom come, your will be done" when we speak to God about rescuing us from the consequences of rebellion.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leviticus 18:21 - Partial restoration of creation order

Dear Friends, Some times we forget that Moses wrote Genesis.  Obviously, he did not have first hand knowledge of the events of creation.  But God did and revealed them to Moses.  The "story arc" is clear to Moses despite the millenia of history between Genesis and Leviticus.  The plan for ultimate restoration is hazy, but God is at work repairing some of the damage. Blessings, Jeff What is the prohibition on child sacrifice doing in the list of prohibited sexual relations? Be fruitful and multiply - First commandment in Genesis.  God made the world to be inhabited.   Having children is how this  was to happen.  So child sacrifice was a direct violation of this first command to Adam and Eve. Marriage is one man and one woman is the creation order. Seems simple enough.  I can imagine men thinking, Yeah but God didn't say which woman.  I will do the one woman thing if she is my sister, or aunt or …..  So God gives all these examples of unlawful unions.  To this day, man stil
Post a Comment
Read more

1 Chronicles 24:1-6 How about those Levites! Day 332

Good morning friends, Good foundations are important.  Our author turns to the religious life of the returning exiles. Blessings, Jeff We have seen the emphasis on the Davidic line in the  political life of Israel.  The other area of emphasis is the Aaronic priesthood and Levitical workers. In this passage we have a quick review of the somewhat sanitized picture of the start of Aaron's line.  The returning exiles would have known that Nadab and Abihu did not just "die before their father without children".  They rebelled against God by offering unauthorized fire and were themselves consumed by fire from the Lord. Leviticus 10.  The case of Abiathar  son of Ahitub son of Ahimelech, who was faithful to David, but later rebelled with Adonijah is also not mentioned. But the passage points to the importance of the Aaronic line to the rebuilding of the temple by the exiles.  The history of the northern kingdom which was without the Levites from the beginning could not be repeat
Post a Comment
Read more

Revelation 22:3-5 Final and eternal restoration - Day 365

Dear saints in the Lord, Congratulations!  You made it.  We have been through much turmoil in the last year ('20-'21).  But God is faithful to His promises.  I trust that you have been blessed in your reading and have drawn closer to God.   Since we didn't get the blog up and running at the beginning of the challenge, I am going to go back and post entries to cover that first month or so.   Blessings, Jeff Nothing accursed in the city of God, the new Jerusalem.  The presence of sin will be gone.  I am working on memorizing Westminster Shorter Catechism and currently on question 82.  Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God? No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God but does daily break them in thought, word and deed. I think our passage today points to the truth of this question.  Do you notice how this answer is not exactly the same as the question. "Any man" becomes "no mere man since the fall
Post a Comment
Read more