Lets all please read together Jeremiah 5:1-9 CSB
1 Roam through the streets of Jerusalem. Investigate; search in her squares. If you find one person, any who acts justly, who pursues faithfulness, then I will forgive her.
2 When they say, “As the Lord lives,”they are swearing falsely.
3 Lord, don’t your eyes look for faithfulness? You have struck them, but they felt no pain.
You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline.
They made their faces harder than rock, and they refused to return.
4 Then I thought: They are just the poor; they have been foolish. For they don’t understand the way of the Lord, the justice of their God.
5 I will go to the powerful and speak to them. Surely they know the way of the Lord,
the justice of their God. However, these also had broken the yoke and torn off the chains.
6 Therefore, a lion from the forest will strike them down. A wolf from arid plains will ravage them. A leopard stalks their cities. Anyone who leaves them will be torn to pieces
because their rebellious acts are many, their unfaithful deeds numerous.
7 Why should I forgive you? Your children have abandoned me and sworn by those who are not gods. I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery; they gashed themselves at the prostitute’s house.
8 They are well-fed, eager stallions, each neighing after someone else’s wife.
9 Should I not punish them for these things? This is the Lord’s declaration. Should I not avenge myself on such a nation as this?
In the beginning of Jeremiah chapter 5 the scene depicted here is of a very perverted city of Jerusalem. The Israelites had once again turned their backs on God. I mean these were God’s chosen people. Up to this point, God had blessed them many times over. (Here’s some examples) God specifically reserved a territory of land for them. He delivered them from slavery and captivity. He at certain times helped the Israelite army defeat their stronger foes in battle. Their list of blessings goes on and on… But for the umpteenth time, they forgot to stay faithful to God and again chose to live their lives in perversion and sin.
Here, the prophet Jeremiah was given a specific assignment by God to go into Jerusalem and travel around the city and find just one righteous citizen who still remained faithful to God. Jeremiah went from the town squares to the marketplaces. He went from visiting the poor side of the tracks to the upper class neighborhoods of the cities’ powerful elite. Nowhere could he find just one righteous follower of God. God even told Jeremiah that if he found just one true follower of His, that He would forgive the entire city. This was not to be. Jeremiah became distraught when he found no one after his exhausted search. It seemed to Jeremiah that Jerusalem had sunk into a perverse black hole due to the idolatry, adultery, prostitution, pagan rituals, etc running rampant throughout the city. God tremendously blessed Jerusalem up to this point with so much but the Israelites chose yet again to turn their backs on God yet and slip back into their sinful habits.
Let me ask you, does this picture sound exactly like what is happening in our modern society, especially in the Western World today (i.e the U.S., Canada, U.K., Europe etc.)? Has God still been good to us? Has God richly blessed us in our modern society? Yes, He has. God has blessed all of us with so much on this planet. For most of us we have the freedom to worship Him in any type of church or other house of worship without facing direct bodily persecution. For most of us we can wake up in the morning and not worry about what we’re going to eat or drink for the next day. For most of us God has provided a roof over our heads so that we can stay dry, cool, and warm away from the harsh outside elements. You see, our list of God’s blessings too goes on and on.
Now let me ask you two more questions: Have we remained faithful to God? Have we turned away from the evils and perversions of this earthly world? From the looks of it, by watching the news and seeing the physical world around that answer is no. As God’s creation, we have fallen very short of God’s standards. We are still failing God because of the sin, evil and perversion still prevalent in our secular world. Even in our Christian churches, selfish clergy and sinful congregations who possess evil agendas and perverse ideology have turned our houses of worship into dens of degradation. The list of our sins goes on and on….
Like Jeremiah was, God is distraught and saddened by our sinful and destructive ways. We really don’t deserve God’s blessings. We don’t deserve His Divine love and forgiveness. If God wanted too He could snuff out our entire planet again with one snap of His finger. God did it once before with the great flood during the days of Noah. But instead, God promised us that would never happen again. God loves each of us and He wants closeness with all of us, So, you see, it’s never too late for our society to turn back to God. It’s never too late to say to God that we screwed up and that we need His forgiveness.
The Bible says in 2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. This verse didn’t just apply to the Israelites and to other nations in the Old Testament. This verse is God’s promise to all of us today that if we turn away from sin and ask God to forgive us, our nations too will be healed and restored. If God can and will do that for us as an individual, imagine the greater blessings and grace that He would bestow upon us as an entire human society if we all did the same.
So today, my friends we all have two choices, we can choose to be righteous (sinless) or unrighteous (sinful). Jeremiah couldn’t find one righteous person in Jerusalem on that day. So I ask you today, do you want to be part of that group? Think about your own heart condition and lifestyle today and self-evaluate which direction you want to go. Is it directly to God or away from Him? AMEN
