There is a video accompanying the news of the crash in Los Angeles a couple days ago where six were killed. A sedan speeds through a red light and broadsides another car with occupants just going about their daily routine. There is also a news video on the lightning strike in Lafayette Square across from the White House....from a security camera of some sort....where a bolt of lightning strikes....somewhere in the middle of the park. Three people were killed.
My wife and I were in Lafayette Square one year ago.....umbrellas in hand....sitting right by the same Andrew Jackson statue that the four people struck by lightning were sheltering by....including a retired couple about our age...tourists on vacation as we were. I posted this after we returned home....My wife an I spent a couple of days in Washington D. C. last week.The primary reason for these trips is to visit my father's grave in Arlington National Cemetery....but we always also play the tourist. According to my wife's pedometer we walked nineteen miles over the two days....while taking the Holocaust Memorial Museum....and the Museum of the Bible....and one of the Smithsonians. Our hotel was just off of Lafayette Square....so at night we would just pick a bench and look at the people looking at the White House. Something was missing this time....and I couldn't put my finger on what it was enough to even mention it to my wife....but I'll try here. I thought of the word....sadness....but that wasn't close enough....and then.....hollow....(not hallow....hollow)....came to my mind. It was a feeling of hollowness that I just couldn't shake.
We do not know what a day brings....that it might be this day that life ends....where Jesus will tell us either...."Well done, good and faithful servant.....enter into the joy of your master".....these words from the mouth of Jesus....in the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24 and 25....or we will hear....as Jesus warned in an earlier parable...."Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven.....on that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them....'I never knew you..."
I posted this not long ago...."Jeremiah had now been prophesying against rebellious Judah for a long time....persecuted by those who did not want to hear of the judgment coming to them. Ezekiel and Daniel had been taken away to Babylon....along with Jehoiachin....after Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem. Zedekiah paid tribute to Nebuchadnezzar.....but after three years was talked into rebelling by the false prophets. Jeremiah was warning them to no avail. Nebuchadnezzar came back....captured the city and burned the temple. Zedekiah was taken and punished severely. Along the way God had told Jeremiah not even to pray for the people....for He would not listen to them...."But where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you, in your time of trouble; for as many as your cities are your gods, O Judah." (Jeremiah 2:28)
God has been patient and longsuffering in warning us. Tomorrow is yet another Lord's Day. May God have mercy on these men as they enter their pulpits....may He give them a fearlessness to warn the sheep in front of him. May God have mercy upon these pastors....and thereby have mercy upon us!
Addendum: It was odd....because I was not a child....where reading was stressed....but for Christmas when I was nine years old....I was given a couple of books....one was on the National League.....(there were eight teams then)....and one was a child's book on....Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette. That long name made an impression on me....and the French aristocrat has been a hero of mine ever since. When on a trip to Paris....and on a walking tour....this is 2001....I asked the French guide where I might find the statue of the Marquis de Lafayette....and she looked at me and said...."Who?" The equestrian monument to Lafayette was given by Americans in response to the French giving us the Statue of Liberty. Do we Christians know much about Jeremiah? Have we even ever read Jeremiah? Could we even name five of the Old Testament books of the prophets? Do we know what the Olivet Discourse is? And have we ever even given a moment of meditation on what the meaning might be of Revelation 1:3...."Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near."
