Good morning,
Don’t be misled, you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. (Gal.6.7)
God
planned to begin my life just as World War 2 began and so my early
years had everything to do with enemies and fear and heros and fighting
for the right thing. It wasn’t until I was 7 years old that I began to
realize that war wasn’t just about my country and my little sister and
the bullies at school. My parents moved to a new area and began to look
for a new church. By God’s grace, they found a newly started church
that was pastored by a godly man who loved Jesus and his congregation
very much. It was during my 8th year that I found and accepted Jesus as
my Savior and Lord. It wasn’t too long after that that there was war
in the church and the pastor and his family were told to go somewhere
else. That was the beginning of a long journey of good and bad pastors
and good and bad churches that seemed to switch back and forth between
the holiness and hardness of God and the love and grace of God. One
side wanted to make sure that we were as holy as possible, while the
other side wanted to make sure that we were as happy and successful as
possible. God wasn’t the center, our behavior was.
As we have
gotten older in our relationship with missions and local churches we
have become increasingly aware of the spiritual warfare that has been
going on all around us. During these recent years of our lives we have
become more aware of what Jeremiah wrote back in his day. Something
really bad is happening in our land and in many parts of our world. For
the most part our churches have moved away from holiness and hardness
to the other extreme of what has become known as love and grace. The
church movement has used the words of love and grace in ways that have
moved people away from God to the freedom to live life “our way” with
God as our backup, or the good guy who will let us into Heaven some day
because he is so gracious. Sadly, what God said to and through Jeremiah
has become true in our day as well. Now we are very often living with
prophets who make up their prophecies on one hand and pastors and church
leaders on the other who rule their followers with and iron hand. It’s
still true as it was in Jeremiah’s time that the people who follow these
leaders are absolutely sure that they have found the right way. The
question for us today is also still the same. What will people like
this do when they stand before the loving and righteous Judge who gave
them his perfect Word to guide them through life. What will they be able
to do when he says, “Go away, I never knew you.” Please Lord, please
help us not to be in that position when our end comes.
Jeremiah 5:30 A horrible and shocking thing has happened in this land—31 the prophets give false prophecies,
and the priests rule with an iron hand. Worse yet, my people like it that way! But what will you do when the end comes.
Roy Wisner
