FollowBy Tom Chase
As I sit to write, I hear the sound of fireworks, the beginnings of celebration in my neighborhood. When this is published, most celebrations will be a memory. I want to write about our nation and the great God who gave us all we have. From our beginning, how dependent we were on Him. God blessed America! I love that about our nation. But I find my heart crying this July 4 as I think about how far we have strayed from our beginnings and from the One and Only who established us. I think that is our problem. We have left our God.
We, the Men’s Bible Study Group, have just begun a study in the book of Jeremiah, the last prophet to Judah prior to the pouring out of God’s judgment, the exile, and the destruction of the temple. God said to Jeremiah,
“I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”
What a call … what a negative message, it seems! So, up and to this point, I’ve been asking, “Why?” Why send Jeremiah? The judgment is a done deal. It’s already on its way. Even if they turn and repent, it will still come. I am discovering at least part of the reason. God used Jeremiah to lay out His charges against Judah again. Not to convince Himself that they deserved it, but to convince them that they deserved it and needed it. There comes a time for God’s judgment. It is right and in line with what He has previously communicated—yet, even though the punishment is coming, He longs to communicate and help those who need His judgment, to see the reasons why it is needed and necessary.
God showed Judah with images, such as an unfaithful wife, just how poorly they had treated God. They had chosen chunks of wood and rocks in exchange for their glorious God. It’s ludicrous and almost laughable (almost). Yet God sent Jeremiah because Judah and Israel needed to see ultimately how superior He (God) is to anything else they could choose. We need that too.
After all Israel’s and Judah’s faithlessness, listen to the heart of God. God says to unfaithful Israel, who had already been exiled years earlier:
“Return, faithless Israel,” declares the Lord,
“I will frown on you no longer,
for I am faithful,” declares the Lord,
“I will not be angry forever.
Only acknowledge your guilt—
you have rebelled against the Lord your God,
you have scattered your favors to foreign gods
under every spreading tree,
and have not obeyed me,”
declares the Lord.
Punishment was needed and sent, yet restoration was still on the heart of God.
I understand that the nation of Israel and America are profoundly different. Israel has a covenant relationship with God and America does not. So I am not taking God’s promise to Israel and trying to make it apply to America, but I see the heart of God and a little more of who He is from how God has dealt with Israel.
So, what about America? Are we at the point of needing punishment in America? It would seem so, and certainly time will tell. There are many similarities as to how America has treated their God and how the nation of Israel treated theirs. God has already been gracious to us, much and the same way He was and has been to them. But what about the restoration piece? I don’t know the plans God has for America. When I read the last chapters of the Bible, it appears America is nowhere to be found. My heart is for America to return to her God. We need Him!
So, if possible, how does a nation return to God? I could begin stating many things that the nation, our nation, has done wrong. It would be easy for me to point out here or there, the things that America needs to begin to do (or to stop doing). I could get caught up talking about all the evil out there and forget all about my own heart. If America is to return to its God, to be revived, it must start with me. It begins in my heart! Where have I been like Judah, choosing wood and stone? Where have I been unfaithful and compromising? God, would you search me and know me? O God, would you start with me? The part of this story that I have been writing about found in Jeremiah 1-6 (take a read if you like) that I think really applies to you and me is the heart of God for His people. I love the heart of God!
“Return, faithless people,” declares the Lord, “for I am your husband. I will choose you.”
As you let that sink in, I have included the lyrics to the following song, “Ode to a Lost Innocence,” by Silverwind. I think it is both a call to America and to us as individuals to return to Him (listen to the song here and follow along with the words below).
Ode to Innocence Lost
By Silverwind
Think about the days when you were just a child
When your thoughts were pure and your heart was undefiled
You always stood for what was best no matter what the test
And everybody knew you were different from the rest
Remember when the truth you knew was still a flame
And your simple honesty gave you a name
But something happened deep inside to swell you up with pride
The day you left your sovereign guide is the day your conscience died
So return, return to the innocence of your youth
And recall, recall the purity of truth
Oh revive, revive the freedom you knew then
And put your trust in God again, America
You used to fight to bring all evil to an end
But then you let that enemy become your closest friend
If you would open up your eyes
You would realize the pleasure that you idolize
Is a trader in disguise
So return, return to the innocence of your youth
And recall, recall the purity of truth
Oh revive, revive the freedom you knew then
And put your trust in God again, America
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