Today's Quick Word
Today’s Quick Word
Judges 19:30 Everyone who saw it was saying to one another, “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Just […]
Judges 19:30 Everyone who saw it was saying to one another, “Such a thing has never been seen or done, not since the day the Israelites came up out of Egypt. Just imagine! We must do something! So speak up!
Every time I am confronted with Judges 19 I feel more and more nauseated by it. The events described, at every point, demonstrate so clearly what the outcome is when we ignore the God who designed and created us, and so live our lives mocking the guidelines he has so graciously set in place for us in order that we might glorify him and ‘enjoy him for ever’ as the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it.
God’s Covenant People, Israel, were already becoming established on the path to self-destruction, and it was less than 500 years since God had so miraculously rescued them from Egypt and given them his ‘blueprint’ for a life of abundant blessing in the Promised Land! I am faced with reflecting on the moral degradation that is happening around us today, and has been accelerating during my own lifetime. It is no wonder the Apostle Paul warned the Christians in Corinth of the importance of the Old Testament record in God’s Word because “these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did” (1 Corinthians 10:6).
Things only deteriorate when God’s people fail to ‘do something’ and ‘speak up’ until a whole endemic culture becomes so removed from God’s pattern for societal health and well-being that the common ‘conscience’ (made in the image of God) can no longer discern between ‘good’ and ‘evil’. Mercifully, in Jeremiah 33 God reveals his ongoing patient compassion and mercy to his rebellious people by, not only assuring them of his relentless love (ches-ed) and faithfulness, but by foreshadowing a coming Saviour (Jeremiah 33:14-17) who will rescue them from themselves as much as from external influences and whose own righteousness will deal with the problem of their sin!
Let us take every opportunity to ‘do something’ and ‘speak up’, to point people to Jesus who alone is our only hope in these dark and darkening days in which we find ourselves.
– Bruce Christian
