You Can’t Just “Pass it on.”

Tuesday   9-8-15 (Home in Modesto)

Scripture reading:  Jer. 42-44    Ps. 48     Rev. 13

S=Scripture O=Observation A=Application P=Prayer  SOAP for the soul.

S.  Ps 48:9-11  God, we meditate on your unfailing love as we worship in your Temple.  As your name deserves, O God, you will be praised to the ends of the earth.  Your strong right hand is filled with victory.  Let the people on Mount Zion rejoice.  Let the towns of Judah be glad, for your judgments are just.  NLT

O. This psalm is written in a time of prosperity and safety.  Apparently Solomon’s temple was complete and worship there was being carried on regularly, perhaps around 930 BC.  The city of Jerusalem was safe in the hands of the God of loving care that they worshipped.   They felt that they were safe now and forever. 

But we leap ahead perhaps less than 300 years.  Corrupt political leaders had led Jerusalem’s growing population to totally forsake the living God, to desecrate His temple and fill it with their own ideas of religion.   It was a day of “anything goes”... “choose your personal ‘truth’”.   “Anything goes” that is... anything except the worship of the One True God which was too unyielding and confining.

A.  After decades of preachers calling for a return to the living Creator God and of these preachers being mistreated like enemies... finally God withdrew His hand of protection from Jerusalem and the glorious city was totally destroyed. 

What had happened?  Pure godliness and truth cannot be mechanically passed on from generation to generation.  Each of us and each of them must have our own personal encounter with God!  Anything less leads to a formal, culturally accepted religion that spawns atheism in the hearts of its youth.  And these youth will rise in political power to attempt to stamp out anything that smells of a true relationship with God.  History repeats itself 2,600 years later... in 2,015.

P.  Oh Lord, sometimes I feel like I am aboard a sinking Titanic.  America the Beautiful seemed so secure under Your care!  You were named with honor by our political leaders.  They often quoted from Your Holy Book.  They stood for truth. 300 years have passed since our forefathers landed on these shores to create a nation that honored You... and now in my lifetime I have witnessed this nation crash to the depths of officially rejecting You.  Yesterday I turned on my car radio and heard the Star Spangled Banner being played.  It took me back to my childhood when I was a part of Christian nation “under God.”  And I weep.  Is it all gone forever?  Will my grandchildren survive the onslaught of atheism?  Only if they have their own personal encounter with You and against the rising tide of evil, maintain a deep relationship with You.  So be it!  Amen.

Ralph