The Way Out of the Sore Judgments
How may these judgments be averted? How were they averted in the Bible? They were often averted or terminated through repentance; whole-hearted repentance, as different from ceremonial confessions from the lips. In Jeremiah 14:19-20, the prophet prays to the Lord about his land. Even though the calamity was to descend in the following chapter, at least the prophet gives us a pattern of what to do:
19 Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? Hath thy soul loathed Zion? Why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, and there is no good; and for the time of healing, and behold trouble!
20 We ACKNOWLEDGE, O LORD, our wickedness, and iniquity of our fathers [sins of the ancestors]: for we [in the present as well as they in the past] have sinned against thee.
We find in Jeremiah 15:4-6 that God pronounces judgment upon the land not only because of its present sins but also because of the wickedness of a previous ruler, about 75 years ago: Manasseh. The present sins had not only been bad enough, they had also opened up the files of ancestral sins. Now God was going to demand payment for all their debts – both the ones they were owing, and those of their fathers.
God will not demand the debts of our fathers if we were in no position to pay, through repentance, using the collective pronoun “we” and “our” in the prayer of repentance, as Jeremiah did.
Again and again, we read in Judges that “when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD” in repentance, and usually because of the sufferings resulting from the judgements their sins had brought upon them, God sent them deliverance (Judges 3:14-15; 4:3-4; 6:6-14). By chapter 10:9-16, they had sinned, been punished, repented, and fallen back so frequently into sin that God was no longer going to take them seriously. Yet when He saw their practical penitence, “his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel,” and He delivered them again (Judges 10:16).
One other example of repentance in Scripture, which moved God, and has never ceased to baffle me, is that of King Ahab, who is reported in several accounts to have been the most wicked ruler in Israel, one of the worst kings that ever happened to Israel. Yet, even this ‘record sinner’ moved God’s tender heart when, in response to God’s fierce pronouncements against him, he “fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly” (1 Kings 21:27). If God could be entreated even for Ahab, then the sinner does not yet exist whom God cannot forgive. If God would listen to Ahab, then God will certainly listen to you, and me, and the whole nation, and the Church, if we would but humble ourselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from our wicked way (2 Chronicles 7:14). Amen.
27 And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.
28 And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,
29 Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days … (1 Kings 21:27-29).
From The Preacher’s diary,
October 9, 1994.
LETTERS TO THE PREACHER
Dear Preacher,
“The Preacher” has been a source of revival, and has been thought-provoking for deeper experience in my walk with God. Please kindly keep sending me in large quantities. You have been used of God to bless thousands across the nation with your edifying pamphlet. God demands much more from you.
A.E. – Lagos
