Whoa, Woe

But you, O LORD, reign forever; your throne endures to all generations. -- Lamentations 5:19

When Jeremiah wrote his lamentations down, things were about as bad as they could get:   We must pay for the water we drink; the wood we get must be bought … we are weary; we are given no rest … [w]e have given the hand to Egypt, and to Assyria, to get bread enough … [s]laves rule over us … [w]omen are raped in Zion, young women in the towns of Judah.  Princes are hung up by their hands; no respect is shown to the elders (vv. 4-12). 

What was true of Jerusalem in the days of the prophet is true today in churches.  I started to say “in the Body of Christ”, but I don’t think that is possible.  There is too much nominal Christianity, too much of a mixed multitude.  It is the apostates that have gone over to the world (Egypt) and surrendered to the demonic (Assyria) because they could find no rest in Christ, no satisfaction in the Bread of Life.  We find leaders in so many of the churches of America are enslaved to lust, greed, gluttony, and perversion yet think themselves fit to be in authority over God’s people.  While the Lord invites us to drink of the Water of Life freely, those who preach the gospel for fun and profit will tell us that God won’t help us unless we give them our money.    

Bad as it may be in the Church, it is worse in the world.  Governments are not bound by the rule of law.  Oppression, violence, tyranny and corruption run wild from the highest levels of society to the lowest.  Much of an addled populace is placated by shabby, shallow entertainment, drugs, junk food, and government checks.   Our nation is in a debt-spiral to collapse.  Antichrist religions are on the rise, and nihilism is about the only philosophy that makes sense to otherwise intelligent people who have cut themselves off from God.

But, the Lord reigns.  The Lord is sovereign.  He has never lost control.  He does not panic.  He is not worried.  Nothing is happening that He can’t handle.  To understand this is to fear the Lord, and the fear of the Lord is not only the beginning of wisdom but peace in the storms of life.  We don’t deny the horrors around us or pretend that our troubles do not exist.  Instead wisdom tells us to get out of the path of destruction when we can but to never fear what may come for it all comes from the strong, gentle hand of God.