Two Reposts: Do You Grieve? Innocent By-Standers?

These are two posts I wrote over 4 years ago on my other blog (updated slightly for this blog), but they seem so fitting right now.


Do You Grieve?

“... Then the Lord called to the man clothed in linen ... and said to him, “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.”

            
As [Ezekiel] listened, he said to the [other men], “Follow him throughout the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion.... but do not touch anyone who has the mark....”  (Ezekiel 9:3-6) 

            
Do you grieve over the condition of our country?  Over the ways people are trying to erase all signs of God, to make Him illegal, to excuse immorality, to change biblical black-and-white into fifty shades of gray?  

Do you grieve over the lost souls, the condition of godless schools, the broken families, broken vows, broken homes and broken hearts?  (Over the condition of your own heart?)  

Or are you okay with the way things are?  Indifferent to the godlessness and immorality all around us?  Do you dabble in it, just a little bit?  Enjoying a tiny taste of sin here and there?  Do you partake in the degrading, immoral television shows and movies and music and lifestyles?  Because "it won’t affect me."  

Do you grieve?

         
God notices our hearts.  If we grieve over immorality or not.  If we have a heart set on righteousness or not. 

Psalm 14:2:  “The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.”  

We may not be able to do much to change the way our country is going.  But we can grieve over it.  We can become heart-broken over it, instead of indifferent.  We can intercede in prayer for our country.  We can seek righteousness.   

“I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.  So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their own heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign Lord.”  (Ezekiel 22:30-31)

“Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her squares.  If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city.”  (Jeremiah 5:1) 

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.  Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.”  (2 Chronicles 7:14-15)    

“For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.”  (2 Chronicles 16:9) 

It might not matter much to the world if we grieve over the condition it’s in, if we live the truth out loud and boldly, never compromise or hide our faith, and if we set our hearts on righteousness and humbling ourselves before God.  But it matters to God.  And it affects how God deals with our country and with us when it’s time to pour out punishment on the wicked.  If we are not grieving the immorality in society (and in our own hearts) and the bold ways society is defying God, we are passively supporting it.   

            
Do you grieve? 


[And personally, as I sit here in August 2020, I think it's too late for America, for the world.  I think the fuse has been lit on God's prophetic time clock, and the end is on its way.  But you never know.  You never know if God will hold off the end if He sees Christians humbling themselves and interceding for their country.  He might.  But even if He doesn't - which I think is most likely - it makes it even more important that we get our lives and hearts in order now.  Because soon enough, it will be too late.] 

Innocent By-Standers?
            
“Therefore, this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim king of Judah: He will have no one to sit on the throne of David; his body will be thrown out and exposed to the heat by day and the frost by night. I will punish him and his children and his attendants for their wickedness; I will bring on them ... every disaster I pronounced against them, because they have not listened.”  (Jeremiah 36:30-31)

            
As I was reading this passage, one word stood out to me above all others: attendants.

            
What could his attendants be so guilty of to get that kind of punishment?  Aren’t attendants just like slaves to the king, unable to really do anything other than what the king tells them to do?  Can they really be held accountable for their choices when they were forced to obey the king?  And just what horrible thing were they guilty of doing?

            

Let’s go up a couple verses to where Jehudi reads a scroll to the king that Jeremiah gave him.  This scroll is God’s words given to Jeremiah about all the sins of the people and the punishments that God would inflict on them.  It is meant to be a warning, to turn the hearts of the people toward repentance.  And this is how the king responds: 

           
“Whenever Jehudi had read three or four columns of the scroll, the king cut them off with a scribe’s knife and threw them into the firepot, until the entire scroll was burned in the fire.  The king and all his attendants who heard all these words showed no fear, nor did they tear their clothes.” (verses 23-24)

            
What I found interesting – and convicting – is that the attendants were guilty here not for something they did do but for something they didn’t do.  They did not take the warnings of the Lord seriously, just as the king didn’t.  They did not grieve over their sins or fear the Lord or feel any conviction or remorse or repentance.  They did not take the truth seriously.  They simply followed the king’s lead. 

            
Sure, they were just by-standers, listening to the scroll being read to the king, watching him apathetically burn it up, but their “by-stander-ness” did not release them from their responsibility to take the words to heart.  Being an attendant to the king did not exempt them from guilt.   

            
Yes, the king was the one responsible for leading the people, for the spiritual tone and practices of the country, and for burning the warnings of the Lord.  But the attendants were responsible for their own smug, mocking hearts, their own apathetic responses, and their own fear of God.  Or lack of it.  Instead of worrying about what God thought; they worried about what the king thought.  Instead of fearing God, they fell right in line with the king, mimicking his own indifferent attitude toward God.  And God would hold them accountable for it, even if they were just "lowly attendants."

            
This message stood out to me because so many of us are “attendants.”  We may not be leaders, but we are part of the group.  And I wonder how many of us seek to appease the “leaders” or adopt the group’s attitudes, instead of humbling our hearts before the Lord and doing the right thing according to Him?  How many of us “go along with the group” so that we don’t stand out as weird or “too-holy”?  How many of us compromise our standards or beliefs so that things don’t get uncomfortable for us or so that we don't offend others (people who should be offended by godly truth)?  How many of us sit by and watch others “burn” the words of the Lord and destroy the truth because it’s too scary to stand up for it?  How many of us do not feel any conviction anymore when people around us do wrong because we are busy mimicking them?  How many of us have grown lukewarm or have surrounded ourselves with “truth” that tickles our ears or have replaced God with idols of our own making?  

How many of us have no real fear of God anymore?   

            
In our country, so many of us – even Christians – have become attendants who are just sitting by, apathetically watching others burn the warnings and truth of the Lord.  And we don’t feel any shame or guilt or conviction or grief in our own hearts.  

But when the time comes, we will be held accountable.  Not for “burning the scroll,” but for “blending in.”  For showing no fear of our Holy God. 

“I will punish [them] for their wickedness ... because they have not listened.”       

“[They] showed no fear, nor did they tear their clothes.” 

Who do you fear more?  Who do you seek to please and be like?  The people you are around, the group you follow, the mainstream social "majority" ... or the holy God to whom we will all give an accountant some day soon for our lives and choices?  

Does your life accurately reflect how much you fear the Lord?  

Is this comforting to you or convicting?