By WAYNE STEWART
In Jeremiah 12, we see a complaint made by the prophet to God.
It is a complaint we all make when we see bad people with no regard to God in powerful positions. We utter this complaint when we think things aren’t going our way. We utter this complaint when we don’t think God is doing his job as he should.
Now, let’s get to the complaint.
“You are always righteous, Lord, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Who do all the faithless live at ease? You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts.
“Yet you know me, Lord; you see me and test my thoughts about you. Drag them off like sheep to be butchered! Set them apart for the day of slaughter! How long will the land lie parched and the grass in every field be withered? Because those who live in it are wicked, the animals and the birds have perished. Moreover, the people are saying, ‘He will not see what happens to us.’” — Jeremiah 12:1-4
Like a chorus line, it seems Jeremiah stole the words out of our collective mouths. We cry out, “Lord, why don’t you take care of these awful people. They are messing everything up.”
Those of the lost could easily stand up and offer their reproach for believers, “They never talk to us about you Lord, so I don’t really know if you are real. They say we are going to hell, but we don’t even know the charges against us. These people who say they call upon your name act just as bad as we do, so why should they get special treatment?”
The reproach, I’m afraid, is well founded.
A true believer has an inherent sense of the evil that surrounds the world. Some believers act on that sense and call upon God to shine a light on the evil, then they go forth in the name of Jesus Christ to rescue people from a world held in the clutches of Satan.
Still, there are other believers who do nothing but hide in their homes and churches, hoping the outside world will go away, yet they do nothing. As Jesus said, they hide the light of God under a bushel while they wonder why the world is in the state it currently finds itself, wanting God to bring about his judgment on the world.
The sad part is, there are very few of us, even true Christians, ready to see the Day of the Lord; so instead of us wishing people to be punished, why don’t we work to save people, because as Peter told us, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” — 2 Peter 3:9-10
Judgment is coming, just as sure as the sun rises, but until that time those who take the name of Jesus Christ have a job to do — live the gospel so that others may see Jesus in us.
Let’s look at Jesus’ prayer for believers in John 17:20-26, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me — so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
Jesus prayed this prayer just a few hours before he had to endure the cross, he knew what was coming, but he still had all of us on his heart and was interceding for all believers for all time.
Jesus could have easily said, “These ungrateful people are not worth it, I will render my judgment now and all will enter unto damnation.”
Aren’t you glad Jesus chose the path of the cross? That cross is our path to life, as Paul wrote; “even while we were still sinners Jesus laid down his life for us.”
It wasn’t righteous people he went to the cross for, he went to the cross so that we could be righteous.
If we truly are to be called followers of Christ, we must allow the Holy Spirit to create a Christ-like heart inside of us; also we must pray for courage so that we can enter into the fray and bring the message of the gospel to a world that would rather see us dead.
That should be the hope and privilege for every Christian.
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