“‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.’
For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.
“Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
not been restored?
Oh that my head were waters,
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
for the slain of the daughter of my people!
Oh that I had in the desert
a travelers’ lodging place,
that I might leave my people
and go away from them!
For they are all adulterers,
a company of treacherous men.” [1]
Recently, while reading the news in the early hours, I found myself terribly distraught—more disturbed than usual by what I was reading. In fact, as I read, I was reduced to tears. I find that I am often reduced to tears as I observe events that occur in our world today. It is almost impossible not to be broken-hearted by the broken, fallen condition of the world in which we live.
The news I read that morning, related how a mother in Kansas had beaten her two-year-old son to death because he wouldn’t eat a hotdog. [2] She and her boyfriend had beaten the child severely, and then were terrified because he was injured. The little boy was taken to hospital, where he died two days later. Shouldn’t that break our hearts? Then, I read about a mother in North Carolina who traded her one-year-old daughter for an old Plymouth automobile. [3] Shouldn’t we weep at such callus attitude toward one’s own children? Some things are so dreadful that it is impossible not to be broken-hearted.
More recently, we learned of a scheme to lure pregnant women from Pacific Islands to Arizona where they were crammed into cramped quarters until they gave birth. Their children were then taken from them and sold, as though children are a commodity. [4] Should we not weep for the pain of these mothers when their children are stolen? Should we not weep for the pain that these same children will experience throughout their lives?
Those accounts, tragically, don’t appear to be exceptional. Similar accounts of heartless mothers have broken my heart during past years. For example, a mother in Ohio traded sex with her eleven-year-old daughter for heroin. As a reward to her daughter for performing sex acts with the disgusting man to whom she was sold, the mother gave her daughter some of the heroin as “a reward.” [5] A mother in Maryland traded sex with her eleven-year-old daughter in order to pay off a debt. [6] We witness the constant recruitment into sexual slavery as young girls and boys are bought and sold, even being brought into Canada and the United States by ruthless gangs that care not that these young people are being destroyed for monetary gain. [7] Aren’t such despicable acts enough to cause us to weep? Should we not show compassion for those suffering souls?
As I was preparing this message, I thought I had perhaps found the bottom of this cesspool of evil humanity, and then I read an account of a mother and daughter who abused a woman with cognitive disabilities. Raylaine Knope and her daughter, Bridget Lambert were sentenced to prison after they were arrested for abusing—physically, psychologically and verbally—a disabled relative. They forced her to sleep in a cage in the yard and do daily housework and yard chores for food and water. They struck her in the head with boards and burned her arms with cigarette lighters. At one point, they even forced this poor soul to eat her deceased mother’s ashes! The woman whom they abused was a relative, though I do not have the details on the relationship. [8] Shouldn’t such stories break the heart of the most jaded Christian? Can we actually remain unmoved?
Accounts such as these could be multiplied many times over and on a daily basis. They are reminiscent of the warning delivered by the Apostle. Writing Timothy, Paul warned him and all who would read that letter, “Understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people” [2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5].
The Apostle saw a day when people would be consumed with their own situation. Indeed, he wrote of “times of difficulty,” hard times, dangerous times. As you read that dark catalogue of characteristics defining those last days, the focus of each of those complaints—magnified as the total list is applied to society—is symptomatic of exaltation of the “self.” I must wonder whether we are seeing the fulfilment of prophecy, and in particular, whether we are witnessing the fulfilment of this particular prophecy in this day. There is much to break the heart of the one who follows the Lord Jesus. We live in a fallen world. Sometimes I try to rationalise the dark news, telling myself that it is only because of more access to news reports that we know of such atrocities. However, our world is a dark environment, and wickedness does abound. The heart of fallen people is far more evil than any of us might ever imagine.
Awful as these accounts are, I suggest that the failure of the faithful to warn our fallen culture of the consequences of defiance toward God is too awful to contemplate. You will notice that Jeremiah mourns, not because of the degradation of society witnessed in his day, awful as it was; he was grieved at the mortal wound, the self-inflicted wound, that condemned the people whom he loved. Look again at his words.
“‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.’
For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.
[JEREMIAH 8:20]
The man of God was heartbroken when he realised the pain that would of necessity come on the nation, pain resulting from their own foolish choices after they had rejected the LORD. Would they have hurt themselves in this fashion had there been more prophets? Would they have wounded themselves so severely had the priests been more than paid religious cheerleaders greedy for personal gain and willing to say whatever was demanded by a perfidious populace?
In a similar fashion, I suggest that we who are known by the Lord, we who follow the Risen Son of God, should love our fellow citizens so much that we are compelled to warn them of the consequences that must inevitably follow when they reject the mercy of God. We should love our neighbours so much that we weep, knowing that they must be judged by the True and living God because they have turned to their own degraded ways and refused to acknowledge the Living God.
THE INEVITABILITY OF JUDGEMENT — In verses preceding our text, the Prophet of God voiced the response of the people to whom he then spoke,
“Why do we sit still?
Gather together; let us go into the fortified cities
and perish there,
for the LORD our God has doomed us to perish
and has given us poisoned water to drink,
because we have sinned against the LORD.
We looked for peace, but no good came;
for a time of healing, but behold, terror.
“‘The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan;
at the sound of the neighing of their stallions
the whole land quakes.
They come and devour the land and all that fills it,
the city and those who dwell in it.
For behold, I am sending among you serpents,
adders that cannot be charmed,
and they shall bite you,’
declares the LORD.”
[JEREMIAH 8:14-17]
The invaders were even then threatening the nation. The people were panicking. Panic-stricken, they hardly knew where to turn as the threat of being conquered pressed upon every mind. They had treated the words of the Lord God with disdain, and now the warnings that the Prophets had trumpeted were about to come to pass. In their terror, the people huddled together like a flock of birds, unable even to flee.
Hosea had accurately described the actions of people when they are faced with the certainty of judgement. He wrote,
“Ephraim is like a dove,
silly and without sense,
calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.
As they go, I will spread over them my net;
I will bring them down like birds of the heavens;
I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation.
Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!”
[HOSEA 7:11-13a]
The people realised they could not avoid what was coming. The nation had chosen to reject God and His righteousness; now, at last, judgement had come. There was no possibility of escape.
I have watched history unfolding throughout the seven decades plus of my time on this earth. Of necessity, I watch events as they occur, as you do. As I observe the flow of history, I am always weighing what I witness against what is prophesied in the Word of God. Contemporary history does not present a pretty picture; nations rise and fall, and even those nations that we imagine to be moral and righteous are constantly tested as savages probe the edges of civilization as we know it. The student of history will remember that Rome was not conquered by the barbarians; Rome was overthrown by its own decay. The same is true of every great civilisation to this day.
Jedidiah Morse, the father of Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, was an American scholar. Educated under Jonathan Edwards and Samuel Watts at Yale University, Mr. Morse earned the sobriquet of “Father of American Geography.” [9] In an “Election Sermon,” Mr. Morse forcefully argued, “To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions; in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom, and approximate the miseries of complete despotism.
“I hold this to be a truth confirmed by experience. If so, it follows, that all efforts to destroy the foundations of our holy religion, ultimately tend to the subversion also of our political freedom and happiness.
“Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them.” [10]
Centuries after Mr. Morse had delivered his sermon, in a nationally televised address offered in support of Senator Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, who would become President of the Republic in less than two decades after he had spoken, stated, “When Nikita Khrushchev has told his people he knows what our answer will be. He has told them that we are retreating under the pressure of the Cold War, and someday when the time comes to deliver the ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally, and economically.…” [11]
There is wisdom conveyed in the statements just quoted, wisdom that many would jettison today. They jettison the admonition of those who have gone before at the peril of the nation and at the risk of introducing chaos into the world as we know it. No one must ever imagine that we can ignore history. The British statesman and philosopher, Edmund Burke, was prescient when he wrote, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” Neither should anyone imagine that a sanitised history drafted to meet our personal desires will provide a sound foundation for advancing the future. We divest ourselves of the morality of our fathers, ensuring that we will be compelled to experience the judgement that inevitably follows our foolish plunge into satiating our fallen desires.
THE GRIEF GOD’S PEOPLE EXPERIENCE —
“My joy is gone; grief is upon me;
my heart is sick within me.
Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people
from the length and breadth of the land:
‘Is the LORD not in Zion?
Is her King not in her?’”
‘Why have they provoked me to anger with their carved images
and with their foreign idols?’”
[JEREMIAH 8:18-19]
The Prophet was deeply moved at the disaster that would soon be unleashed on his nation. Jeremiah knew that the LORD would no longer protect His chosen people, their sin had grown too great, too egregious, too pervasive, too insidious; there could be no turning back from judgement. The knowledge that God would soon judge His people made the man of God physically ill, sick to his stomach. The judgement that Jeremiah warned of had come at last, and the LORD had withdrawn His protection. Now, disaster loomed over the land.
The most ardent patriots are those who grieve the deepest when judgement comes. For years, the Prophet had warned of what must happen because the nation had forgotten God. Now, at last, he must witness the fulfilment of God’s righteous judgement; there would be no further delay. The sad cry in VERSE NINETEEN is not solely the cry of the Prophet, this cry of grief is wrung from the LORD’s own heart. “Why?” There is no explanation expected or given; it is an exclamation of divine sorrow at the needless pain the people would now suffer.
For years Israel had heard the warnings. Those who had heard the Prophet appear to have alternated between amusement at Jeremiah’s prophecies and anger that he dared say such things. At one moment they seem to have adopted an attitude of studied ignorance of Jeremiah’s warnings; at other times they were moved with rage because he had spoken so plainly. What had never happened was national repentance, turning again to the LORD Who would have received them and restored them, to the God Who would have spared them from judgement. The nation had continued as though God’s blessings were guaranteed and as if judgement would never come. The social order continued in pursuit of self-interests while ignoring righteousness and godliness. Therefore, we witness God’s great heart as it breaks because of what happened when He had withdrawn His hand from protecting the people.
As I wrote those words, I seemed to hear Micah as he warned the people,
“He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?”
[MICAH 6:8]
The man of God knew that the LORD’s just demands for Israel were not onerous. The Lord GOD sought people who would long for that which would glorify His Name. God was not moved by sacrifice, by slavish devotion to ritual; the LORD was seeking people willing to be transformed so that they would reveal the holiness of the Lord GOD through their daily lives. God still requires that His people reveal His presence through the manner in which they live each day. This is the basis for Peter’s plea for all who follow the Christ. “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” [1 PETER 2:11-12].
Christ the Lord is coming again, just as He has promised. Live in such a way that you are not embarrassed at His return. Hear what the Apostle of Love has written concerning this matter in 1 JOHN 2:28-3:3. “Now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”
When the Lord judges a nation, you may be certain that those who love that nation will feel deeply the pain of those who are judged. In a more personal application, the same truth holds whenever the Lord judges a congregation. And God does judge congregations, just as He judges nations. When God judges, the righteous will suffer along with the wicked. It is not that God is judging the righteous in these instances, but the righteous will experience the pain. They may experience directly the pain unleashed on the nation, or on the congregation. They will assuredly experience the pain of seeing those they love, institutions into which they have invested their sweat and their tears, as they are brought down. The righteous will grieve deeply as they witness the judgement. There will be no joy at what they witness.
The righteous are not spared the judgement that is poured out on a wicked nation. Believers who sought to honour the Lord were not spared from German bombs that fell on Great Britain during the Blitz. German Christians who sought the Lord and His glory were not spared from British and American bombs that fell on the cities of Germany. And those who longed for God’s glory during the days of judgement on Israel unleashed through the Babylonian invasion and subsequent captivity were not spared from grieving as the cruel invaders came into the land.
Do you recall the shock Habakkuk experienced when he learned that the LORD would deliver Israel into the hands of the Babylonians? He began by lamenting that God was doing nothing about the wickedness that seemed to engulf the land. He decried the violence that seemed to sweep over the land. He specifically begged God to take note of the destruction, the strife and the contention that ensured national paralysis. He questioned whether justice would ever again be served in the nation.
And then, God answered the Prophet.
“Look among the nations, and see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth,
to seize dwellings not their own.
They are dreaded and fearsome;
their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.
Their horses are swifter than leopards,
more fierce than the evening wolves;
their horsemen press proudly on.
Their horsemen come from afar;
they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
They all come for violence,
all their faces forward.
They gather captives like sand.
At kings they scoff,
and at rulers they laugh.
They laugh at every fortress,
for they pile up earth and take it.
Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
guilty men, whose own might is their god!”
[HABAKKUK 1:5-11]
When God revealed what He was about to do, the Prophet was shocked. He cried out in terror. It was as though he pleaded with God, “Oh, no, LORD, anything but that!” He realised at that point that when God unleashes His judgement, the consequences can only be described as terrible for the nation. Even more disturbing to the Prophet is the knowledge that those who love the Lord are not spared the terror that accompanies that judgement. When judgement comes to a nation, when judgement comes upon a society, the righteous suffer every bit as much as the wicked. Though the righteous are redeemed by the grace of the Lord, they are not spared the sorrow that descends on all.
Recently, we heard the Attorney General of the United States decry the assault against what is right and good in the nation. In a thirty-seven-minute speech at the University of Notre Dame’s law school, the American Attorney General spoke passionately about the consequences of moral chaos and the infringement of rights for organised religions and those who hole to religious faith. Among the things said were these observations. “…We have seen the steady erosion of our traditional Judeo-Christian moral system and a comprehensive effort to drive it from the public square.
“On the other hand, we see the growing ascendancy of secularism and the doctrine of moral relativism.
“By any honest assessment, the consequences of this moral upheaval have been grim…”
What was said is sufficiently important that I am constrained to quote major portions of the speech. The Attorney General continued by noting, “In 1965, the illegitimacy rate was eight percent. In 1992, when I was last Attorney General, it was 25 percent. Today it is over 40 percent. In many of our large urban areas, it is around 70 percent.
“Along with the wreckage of the family, we are seeing record levels of depression and mental illness, dispirited young people, soaring suicide rates, increasing numbers of angry and alienated young males, an increase in senseless violence, and a deadly drug epidemic.
“As you all know, over 70,000 people die a year from drug overdoses. That is more casualties in a year than we experienced during the entire Vietnam War.
“I will not dwell on all the bitter results of the new secular age. Suffice it to say that the campaign to destroy the traditional moral order has brought with it immense suffering, wreckage, and misery. And yet, the forces of secularism, ignoring these tragic results, press on with even greater militancy.
…
“In the past, when societies are threatened by moral chaos, the overall social costs of licentiousness and irresponsible personal conduct becomes so high that society ultimately recoils and re-evaluates the path that it is on.
“But today – in the face of all the increasing pathologies – instead of addressing the underlying cause, we have the State in the role of alleviator of bad consequences. We call on the State to mitigate the social costs of personal misconduct and irresponsibility.
“So the reaction to growing illegitimacy is not sexual responsibility, but abortion.
“The reaction to drug addiction is safe injection sites.
“The solution to the breakdown of the family is for the State to set itself up as the ersatz husband for single mothers and the ersatz father to their children.
“The call comes for more and more social programs to deal with the wreckage. While we think we are solving problems, we are underwriting them.
“We start with an untrammeled freedom and we end up as dependents of a coercive state on which we depend.” [12]
Wow! Talk about a prophetic voice! And the response of much of the media was to deplore such honest evaluation of the social chaos.
THE GREATER GRIEF OF LOST OPPORTUNITY —
“‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.’
For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.
“Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?”
[JEREMIAH 8:20-21a]
Something terrible has occurred among the churches of our Master. We who are the redeemed of the Lord have ceased experiencing broken hearts over the condition of the lost. We no longer grieve because our children have no heart for the Lord. However polite they may be, however insistent they may be that they actually love Christ and His people, if they have no heart for the faithful, we should grieve over them as they walk away from pursuing the Faith. We are thrilled when our children get a job that pays them a good wage, or when they finally marry the person with whom they have been playing house for months, or when they at last cut back on marijuana use to just an occasional toke. But we are not grieved that they are not walking with the Lord! We focus on the transient aspects of this life, ignoring the eternal. We have sacrificed the eternal on the altar of the temporary.
We have children who are lost. How shall we answer when they rise up on the day they are compelled to stand before the Great Assize, the Great White Throne on which Christ the Lord shall be seated? Will not our own children, on that awful day, charge us as uncaring, as heartless, because we did not plead with them to believe the message of the Gospel? Of course, they are responsible for their own choices; but do we not have an obligation to show our love by pleading with them to walk with the Master? I have often heard church members plead for understanding because they do not speak pointedly with their children. It is not uncommon to hear people who profess to love the Lord tell me that they are fearful that they will rupture the relationship with their children if they plead with them to believe the Lord.
Let me respond to that pitiful assertion by saying that you do not love your children if you are so fearful of rupturing your relationship that you fail to warn them. Should you avoid telling them of your concern that they are not serving the Lord, you are giving evidence that your love is tenuous at best. It is a faux love that does not dare risk the relationship in order to maintain a fragile peace. If you love your children, you will not be silent should they be threatened with attack by a vicious animal. When threatened, because you do love them, you will yell, you will scream, you will warn them to stay clear of the threat posed by the beast. Because you love your children you will warn them of any such danger. Because you love your children, you will not hesitate to urge them to seek major medical intervention when they are ill. You will take them to the physician or to the surgeon when they are in need of medical care. You will not hesitate to subject them to the pain of surgery or to the discomfort of prolonged medical treatment when their health is compromised; you do this because you love them.
How is it that we can warn our children of the danger of assault from vicious wild animals, or how it is that we will subject them to discomfort and even pain when we know it will deliver them from death, and we don’t dare plead with them to turn from their own sinful way to walk with the Lord? How can such a situation persist, except we don’t truly love our child? Or perhaps it is that we don’t actually believe that God must hold people accountable?
What I am describing is a symptom of a greater tragedy among the professed people of God. Judgement is coming, and we are not grieved. To be certain, eternal judgement is coming soon, but a judgement of our culture hangs over our heads now. And though the judgement is imminent, few are concerned. There is no urgency in our preaching or in our witness to our neighbours.
Jonathan Edwards preached a powerful sermon that stirred his congregation mightily. Such passion in preaching seems odd in this day. We seem to be insensible to the danger in which our neighbours live. We seem unaware of the peril facing our children. In that sermon, Edwards pleaded, “The God that holds you over the Pit of Hell, much as one holds a Spider, or some loathsome Insect, over the Fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his Wrath towards you burns like Fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the Fire; he is of purer Eyes than to bear to have you in his Sight; you are ten thousand Times so abominable in his Eyes as the most hateful venomous Serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn Rebel did his Prince: and yet 'tis nothing but his Hand that holds you from falling into the Fire every Moment: ‘Tis to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to Hell the last Night; that you was suffer’d to awake again in this World, after you closed your Eyes to sleep: and there is no other Reason to be given why you have not dropped into Hell since you arose in the Morning, but that God’s Hand has held you up: There is no other Reason to be given why you han’t gone to Hell since you have sat here in the House of God, provoking his pure Eyes by your sinful wicked Manner of attending his solemn Worship: Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a Reason why you don't this very Moment drop down into Hell.
“O Sinner! Consider the fearful Danger you are in: ‘Tis a great Furnace of Wrath, a wide and bottomless Pit, full of the Fire of Wrath, that you are held over in the Hand of that God, whose Wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you as against many of the Damned in Hell: You hang by a slender Thread, with the Flames of divine Wrath flashing about it, and ready every Moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no Interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the Flames of Wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one Moment.” [13]
Such passion is seldom witnessed among the professed people of God today. We are ashamed if someone demonstrates such concern for our friends or for our family. We are upset if a church member speaks with our lost child. “I’ll take care of her,” we pout. “I don’t need someone else doing my job for me,” we fume. However, we don’t confront our children when they are walking away from the Lord. We aren’t convinced of the danger they now face. We somehow hold to the false idea that we will have plenty of time, as though we held the future in our hands. May God have mercy on us.
Your pastor is so easily moved to tears whenever he thinks of the fate of the lost. When I was just a little lad, my dad would sing hymns and the old country and western songs that were popular in the forties and fifties. As was true of many people of that generation, he enjoyed the songs of Hank Williams. I grew up on such music. Among the songs that my daddy would sing to me were songs that called people to repentance and faith in the Risen Saviour. I recall one song in particular that touched my heart in those years so long past, and as I recall the words my daddy sang, I am again moved to tears. The song was written over one hundred twenty-five years ago; it was entitled, “The Great Judgment Morning.” These are the words to that mournful song.
I dream’d that the great judgement morning,
Had dawn’d, and the trumpet had blown;
I dream’d that the nations had gathered,
To judgement before the white throne.
From the throne came a bright shining angel,
And he stood on the land and the sea,
And swore with his hand rais’d to heaven,
That time was no longer to be.
And O, what a weeping and wailing,
As the lost were told of their fate;
They cried for the rocks and the mountains,
They pray’d, but their pray’r was too late.
The rich man was there, but his money,
Had melted and vanished away;
A pauper he stood in the judgement,
His debts were too heavy to pay.
The great man was there, but his greatness,
When death came was left far behind,
The angel that opened the records,
Not a trace of his greatness could find.
The widow was there and the orphans,
God heard and remembered their cries;
No sorrow in heaven forever,
God wiped all the tears from their eyes.
The gambler was there and the drunkard,
And the man who had sold them the drink,
With people who gave them the license—
Together in hell they did sink.
The moral man came to the judgement,
But self-righteous rags would not do;
The men who had crucified Jesus,
Had passed off as moral men too.
The souls that had put off salvation—
“Not to-night; I’ll get saved by and by;
No time now to think of religion!”
At last they had found time to die.
And O, what a weeping and wailing,
As the lost were told of their fate;
They cried for the rocks and the mountains,
They prayed, but their prayers were too late. [14]
I have vivid memories of a little boy sitting on his daddy’s lap and weeping as his daddy sang that hymn. I was so moved to think of people sent away from the Saviour. To this day, I weep whenever I think of people who will hear those dread words, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” [see MATTHEW 7:23]. Indeed, we are warned, “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” [see LUKE 13:28]. For me, the greatest sorrow now is the knowledge that I know some who will hear those dread words. Within my own family are some who are unsaved, and they shall assuredly hear those awful words, “Depart from Me, all you workers of evil” [see LUKE 13:27]!
The time is short. Perhaps it is closer than we dare imagine. Perhaps we will be compelled to cry out, as did the Prophet:
“‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.’
For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded;
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me.”
[JEREMIAH 8:20]
What can I say that will impel us to act? What can I say that will impose the urgency of the moment on our hearts? What can I say that will cause us to be concerned, truly concerned, for our family, for our friends, for our neighbours? Alas, there is nothing I can say if the Spirit of God does not speak to our hearts. And that is my prayer today. May God Himself speak to our hearts? May He cause us to become known as the church that cares. May our tears and our pleas mark our lives as we carry the message of grace to those who are lost, especially our loved ones. Do so, Lord. Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Nick Viviani, “Mother sentenced in death of boy for not eating hot dog,” WIBW, https://www.wibw.com/content/news/Mother-sentenced-in-death-of-boy-for-not-eating-hot-dog--562203601.html, accessed 7 October 2019; “Kansas mother sentenced in death of boy for not eating hot dog,” Associated Press, https://www.ksnt.com/news/kansas-mother-sentenced-in-death-of-boy-for-not-eating-hot-dog/, accessed 7 October 2019
[3] “Mom traded her 2-year-old daughter for a used car, police say,” October 6, 2019, https://www.navbug.com/article833628530/mom_traded_her_2_year_old_daughter_for_a_used_car_police_say.htm, accessed 7 October 2019; “North Carolina mom, 45, ‘sold her one-year-old daughter to purchase a car from a local couple,” October 4, 2019, https://www.breakingnewstime.com/north-carolina-mom-45-sold-her-one-year-old-daughter-to-purchase-a-car-from-a-local-couple/, accessed 7 October 7, 2019
[4] Associated Press, “Arizona GOP Official Charged in Baby-Selling Case,” The National Memo, October 10, 2019, https://www.nationalmemo.com/arizona-gop-official-charged-in-baby-selling-case/?cn-reloaded=1, accessed 12 October 2019
[5] Conor Swanberg, “After Trading Sex with 11-Year-Old Daughter for Heroin, Mom Gives Her a Disgusting ‘Reward,’” July 20, 2016, https://ijr.com/woman-who-traded-her-11-year-old-daughter-for-heroin-learns-her-fate/, accessed 7 October 2019
[6] “Mother Traded Sex With Teenage Daughter To Pay Off Debt Owed to Bejarni Rivas: Maryland Prosecutors,” Huffington Post, 04/29/2013, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mother-trades-sex-with-teenage-daughter-for-debt_n_3177380, accessed 7 October 2019
[7] See Amir Attaran, “Sex Slaves in Canada,” Literary Review of Canada, https://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2010/12/sex-slaves-in-canada/, accessed 7 October 2019; Tavia Grant, “The Trafficked: How sex trafficking works in Canada, The Globe and Mail Inc., February 10, 2016, (Updated May 16, 2018), https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-trafficked-how-sex-trafficking-works-in-canada/article28700689/, accessed 7 October 2019; Leif Coorlin and Dana Ford, “Sex trafficking: The new American slavery,” CNN, Updated March 14, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/20/us/sex-trafficking/index.html, accessed 7 October 2019; “Estimating the Numbers,” Frontline, PBS, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/slaves/etc/stats.html, accessed 7 October 2019
[8] Timothy Meads, “EVIL: Mother, Daughter Sentenced After Enslaving Disabled Woman, Forcing Her To Sleep In Cage Outside,” Townhall.com, Tipsheet, Oct. 17, 2019, https://townhall.com/tipsheet/timothymeads/2019/10/17/evil-mother-daughter-sentenced-after-enslaving-disabled-woman-forcing-her-to-s-n2554948, accessed 17 October 2019; The United States Department of Justice, “Louisiana Couple Pleads Guilty to Criminal Civil Rights Charges for Abusing Woman with Disabilities,” May 20, 2019, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/louisiana-couple-pleads-guilty-criminal-civil-rights-charges-abusing-woman-disabilities, accessed 17 October 2019; The United States Department of Justice, “Amite Woman Pleads Guilty to Conspiring to Obtain Forced Labor From Woman with Disabilities,” September 28, 2018, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/amite-woman-pleads-guilty-conspiring-obtain-forced-labor-woman-disabilities, accessed 17 October 2019
[9] “Jedidiah Morse,” (art.) Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedidiah_Morse, accessed 28 October 2019
[10] Quoted in William J. Federer, Great Quotations: a Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Quotations Influencing Early and Modern World History Referenced according to Their Sources in Literature, Memoirs, Letters, Governmental Documents, Speeches, Charters, Court Decisions and Constitutions, (AmeriSearch, St. Louis, MO 2001)
[11] Quoted in Federer, ibid.
[12] William Barr, Attorney General of the United States of America, October 11, 2019, https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics, accessed 17 October 2019
[13] Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God: A Sermon Preached at Enfield, July 8th 1741. At a Time of Great Awakenings,” Early American Imprints, 1639-1800; No. 4713 (Printed and sold by S. Kneeland and T. Green, in Queen-Street over against the prison, Boston 1741), 15-16
[14] Bert Shadduck, “The Great Judgment Morning,” (lyrics) 1894
