Here we witness a conditional branch being offered to God’s people. Yet another offer for God to forgive and for them to start afresh if they will turn away from their sin and shameful idol worship. Our God knows the heart of a man. His inner thoughts and sincere intentions. But God was not willing to accept his people’s half-hearted surrender to His will—His laws and commandments. And neither will He accept our half-hearted attempts. If we, those who have been grafted in, like Israel, His choice vine, are not willing to surrender our all to God, then we are not surrendering to God at all. There is no such thing as half His. Either we are His, or we are not. It truly is that simple. Our external, posturing devotion towards Him will never suffice. It certainly didn’t for Israel. We’ll explore this being willing/not willing in several passages of Scripture scattered between two Major Prophets, Daniel, and Jeremiah.
Know this as we move forward: If you genuinely desired to follow God, His laws, and commands with your whole heart, you would. Not in your own strength mind you, with God’s strength. God, knowing your heart, would equip you and keep you all the days of your life that you might continue to follow after Him. Not through your flawless adherence to the law, rather, from authentic, loving submission and genuine repentance before Him. I know this to be True because He’s done it for me. And, right now, there is a group of people who share this same yearning to love and serve and follow Jesus with their whole heart gathered from across the world in one accord: repentance.
How quickly we forget that not one thing that happens on this earth, to God’s children, must first pass through His Sovereign hand. Even our desire to seek Him, given us out of His great love for us—for you.
Today, in Washington, D.C, and around the world, tens of millions of believers have gathered with one like-minded objective: to repent. Seeking the Lord’s forgiveness for their sins—and those of their nation. They have fasted, I have joined them in their fasting, linking my earnest prayers with theirs, with yours, with those of the whole world so that we, as one Body, may touch the heart of God, finding mercy and forgiveness; staying His hand of imminent judgment. “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 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 I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” –2 Chronicles 7:13-14. And this is the heart of why they are gathering, fasting, and praying today. The reason why I join them—we, join them. To pray and seek God’s face. To acknowledge and sincerely turn from our sin.
It did not surprise me then, as I sought the Holy Spirit in prayer concerning what He‘d have me to share this week, that He led me to today’s Scripture verse in Jeremiah; this whole chapter chuck full of the just judgment that befell Israel at the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon—a portent. Which in turn, led me to Daniel, Chapter Nine (Jeremiah, and Daniel inextricably linked prophetically) and then on to Daniel’s earnest and contrite prayer of repentance for his people—and to King Cyrus, ruler of the Medo-Persian empire, a pagan used by God not to show favor not only to Daniel but to all of his people as well. I marvel at the faithfulness of God, of His leading us toward where He’d have us to be in the precarious throes of any given season. I wonder if the ancient Israelites felt this same sense of awe as God led them through their wilderness. But I digress. Today is about God leading His people into a place of solemn repentance. We’ve come full circle, friend.
Jeremiah 4:1 reaches its hand back to grab the Lord’s words of admonition found some verses behind in Chapter Three. “Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood. In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the Lord –Jeremiah 3:9-10. The people of Jeremiah’s time would have understood the language and imagery the Lord used to admonish their sin, their unfaithfulness, their lack of repentance. “For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns” –Jeremiah 4:3. God was telling Judah and Jerusalem that what was required of them was a spiritual about-face—a complete return to Him. His following verse confirming His latter. “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, circumcise your hearts, you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or my wrath will flare up and burn like fire because of the evil you have done—burn with no one to quench it” –Jeremiah 4:4. Though Judah and Jerusalem had each witnessed the flagrant sins of idolatry and more that the other tribes had committed, it failed to lead them into genuine, heartfelt repentance. Each tribe continued in their willful, sinful ways, merely feigning outward repentance. Their apostasy treated as some light thing. Sounding familiar? It ought to. We too witness so much of this sin of idolatry today in our own lands, often feigning the same superficial repentance that Judah and Jerusalem before us once did. Solomon warns us there is nothing new under the sun.
Reading Jeremiah, Chapter 4 through to the end, we find within its verses the bridge that speaks of the coming end prophetically spoken of in the Book of Daniel. “The whole land will be ruined, though I will not destroy it completely. Therefore the earth will mourn and the heavens above grow dark, because I have spoken and will not relent, I have decided and will not turn back”—Jeremiah 4:28.
Yet unlike shameful Judah and Jerusalem, unlike those who have hardened their heart toward the things of God—His will and commands, conversely, in Daniel 9, we hear a sincere, garment-rending, contrite prayer of repentance seeping out of Daniel’s every pore. “And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes:” –Daniel 9:3. Daniel begins his prayer with deep reverence. He acknowledged God’s Sovereignty, fidelity, and His great love for His people, just as Jesus taught His disciples to do. Then, Daniel moves into openly acknowledging his sins and those of his people. “We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments:” –Daniel 9:5. Daniel, as with any good leader, humbly links himself to his people, acknowledging their collective propensity to sin—he may not have shared in their same sins, but he humbly acknowledges that all people, himself included, have, and do sin. And as it was with Daniel, so it is today with those spiritual leaders that have sounded the clarion call, that all of God’s people might come, bowing down before Him in humility and adoration, and rending their heart, not their garments, before Him. Confessing and interceding not only for their sins but for those of our nation, for Israel, for the ones whose hearts are hardened, have been deceived, are blinded by the lust of the flesh, by Satan, the ruler of this world.
I link my arms to their arms today—my face with theirs, low before the Lord, seeking God’s forgiveness for my sins, for those of my children and neighbors, my mother, sister, and brother, aunts, uncles, and unsaved friends, my city and state—I seek forgiveness for the sins of the whole world—sins of omission count, and I certainly share in those. My silence at times, having spoken louder shamefully, than my words or actions have. I seek God’s forgiveness today for our turning away from Him—my turning away from Him, for murdering our unborn children and hating our neighbor. Beloved, I pray you’ll storm heaven with us today, linking arms then, face bowed low before Him in sincere repentance. “O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive. O Lord, listen and act! For your own sake, do not delay, O my God, for your people and your city bear your name” –Daniel 9:19.
And friend, if you’ve read this far trust that God has led you here so that you too would confess your sins, seek His forgiveness, and turn or return to Him. We’re praying for you!
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