Rev. Don Campbell
Jeremiah 38-40; Psalms 74, 79
THOUGHT FOR TODAY, August 18, 2019
“WHEN GOD’S MERCY RUNS OUT”
God had warned them, but they chose to listen to the false prophets who promised peace. King Nebuchadnezzar began a siege against Jerusalem, which lasted about 18 months. God had said that the nation which would not willingly submit to Babylon would be conquered, resulting in death by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence (Jeremiah 27:8). As the food ran out, people would starve, and the stench of rotting corpses would be followed by pestilence. As the city weakened, a breach was made and Zedekiah, his officers, and his soldiers fled. They were overtaken, Zedekiah was captured and taken in chains to Babylon, but only after his sons had been slaughtered before his eyes (Jeremiah 39:1-7).
Jeremiah describes the horror of the siege in Lamentations 4:4-11:
The tongue of the nursing infant sticks
to the roof of its mouth for thirst;
the children beg for food,
but no one gives to them.
Those who once feasted on delicacies
perish in the streets;
those who were brought up in purple
embrace ash heaps.
For the chastisement of the daughter of my people has been greater
than the punishment of Sodom,
which was overthrown in a moment,
and no hands were wrung for her.
Her princes were purer than snow,
whiter than milk;
their bodies were more ruddy than coral,
the beauty of their form was like sapphire.
Now their face is blacker than soot;
they are not recognized in the streets;
their skin has shriveled on their bones;
it has become as dry as wood.
Happier were the victims of the sword
than the victims of hunger,
who wasted away, pierced
by lack of the fruits of the field.
The hands of compassionate women
have boiled their own children;
they became their food
during the destruction of the daughter of my people.
The LORD gave full vent to his wrath;
he poured out his hot anger,
and he kindled a fire in Zion
that consumed its foundations.
Mercy had run out. Judgment had come.
We live in an age of mercy (Galatians 6:16), but it will someday run out: “When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?’” (Revelations 6:12-17).
CONNECTIONS
1. How does Paul’s warning of 1 Thessalonians 5:1-4 reflect the same attitude which many had in the day of Jeremiah?
2. What warning does Jesus give in Matthew 24:42?
