An Appalling And Horrible Thing

Jeremiah 7: 23-24

But this is what I commanded them, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you. 
Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward. 

Jeremiah 5: 30-31

An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it? 

This was the Nation Israel, and Jeremiah was lamenting how the people were suffering. He could see that God wanted to give them good, the bounty He placed in this Earth for their benefit. But the people didn't want God. They had a "better idea"!

So the Prophets, the ones who were to give the people God's instructions, gave them false "visions" that they made up themselves, to tell them what they wanted to hear. And the priests, who were to bring their offerings to God and mediate in their disputes, based their rules on their own understanding, instead of researching what God had said. 

These two constituted the government in Israel before they had a king. And were to counsel and guide the king in his rulings. 

But they were wrong. So they steered the people in the wrong direction, backward instead of forward. And the people lost the ability to prosper, lost the understanding of how God designed the Earth to function, and built their world on it defectively; so it didn't work. 

And the people were conquered and carried away to a far-away country as slaves. 

Today we need to observe their errors and consequences, and take to heart the cause-and-effect process they experienced. That should encourage us to search deep in Scripture for the basis of the bounty God put here for us. Learn from their mistakes, and determine to follow God in His ways, the ways He told us to interact with one another and with our environment. 

We need to understand the priorities God gives to all the elements of Creation, to count as more valuable what God values highly, and less valuable (but not worthless) the other parts. 

There is a system of authority that is intrinsic in all our World, and to recognize that hierarchy of authority and live according to it is what Jesus complimented the Centurion in Capernaum on as having "great faith" (Matthew 8:5-10). This soldier saw that Jesus had in the spiritual realm the same kind of authority that he had in the military: as under authority, and having authority over others. 

When our priorities get skewed and twisted out of shape, this is what happens. 

When governments and church leaders forget that they are under God's authority, they set themselves up as the final authority, and rule and teach their own ideas, which come from their own understanding, and are therefore in error, coming from our sin-nature. 

They want to have authority over others without submitting to the Authority that is over them. 

This results in governments imposing tyrany over the masses of people, imposing on them many rules and regulations that only benefit the ones in power.

And churches that approve of what God condemns as harmful to us, and goes so far as to excommunicate members for disagreeing with their demonic demands, and even for mere personality issues. 

O Father, thank You for giving us our Maker's instructions: the system of loving You and one another as the foundation; and all the particulars of the rules and precepts laying out how we are to do that--how we can consider other as better than ourselves, and how to worship You alone, giving You the honor and glory You alone deserve. 

O Father, I pray for all those who are in authority over us, whether in our governments, our employment, our churches, or even our families. As Your children, teach us to honor all who have power over us, to obey and live our lives in humility and meekness. 

And guide and direct those who are over us to submit to You as Final Authority in their ministry of serving all of us. Whether as king, president, governor, police officer, pastor, mentor, boss, parent, or whatever other position we/they hold, help us to live our daily lives under Your rule, and under and over others that You have given us to benefit us so we can help one another. 

Father, even in this time period I am living in, I have seen how You bless a people when their leaders are godly, and how as the moral tone of a Nation declines away from Your standards, we lose the benefits we had, and suffer loss and dysfunction and troubles and sorrows. 

And when the moral slide continues, Father, all Your godly children find themselves under persecution, as is already in the World now, and is spreading. 

Help us, Father, to be effective witnesses to Your Truth that benefits the whole World; and strengthen us to withstand the persecution, at whatever level, we will encounter as we do so. 

Continue to work Your Plan that You revealed to us in the writings of Your prophets, as You direct and control everything that relates to it. Continue to use all the acts of Your people, as well as all the works of those who reject You, as You bring this World into accepting the lie of the devil to welcome the One World Government that will attack Your people Israel and bring our Great King to defeat them! 

Even so,come, Lord Jesus!