When We Forget Who Is The Only Source Of Our Strength

                The thirty-fourth chapter of Jeremiah is worth looking at anew. Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army held siege against Jerusalem. Jeremiah had taken God's message of warning to the king and the people for a long time....and he did it again here....repent or God would turn the city over to the Chaldeans. Zedekiah threw him in jail for the latest warning....but in an attempt to mollify God....decided to obey just one of the commands of the law. The people had held many of the Hebrews in a slavery of servitude. It was only....according to the law....supposed to last for seven years and then they would be set free. Jerusalem hadn't been doing that. So Zedekiah covenanted with the people to let those in servitude go free. Well....Nebuchadnezzar's attention was turned to an emergency with Egypt. Maybe God wasn't going to judge Jerusalem after all....so the people then regretted setting the slaves free....and enslaved them again! Jeremiah prophesied that the Babylonians would turn right around and return and resume their siege....and that is what Babylonians did!
                 Although not an exact analogy....how many times have we prayed when in dire need of something....and then when God blessed us with an answer....we all of a sudden forgot our gratitude? I've done that more times than I care to remember. Well America in a way has done the same thing....also many times. There was an absolutely major revival just prior to the beginning of the Civil War....that started in New York City. The carnage then began....and there were later legitimate prayers of mortification officially offered....from the Congress and Abraham Lincoln....prayers of humiliation and seeking God's forgiveness. The 'killer angels' ceased in their work....but it did not take long for us to forget God in order to take our part in the industrial revolution. 
                 God watched all of this in Jerusalem....and through the words of Jeremiah....told Zedekiah that he had indeed done a good thing....but then then he broke covenant and made it worse....and therefore God would give all the people of Judah their liberty....their liberty to do what what they want free of God's hand upon them. In other words...Nebuchadnezzar would come back with a vengeance!
                 So what does that have to do with us? Well....we had....forty and fifty years ago....attempted to come closer to God as a people....1976 was called....The Year Of The Evangelical. We had a born again president. Nixon's hatchet man was wonderfully and powerfully brought to Christ. Another president....Ronald Reagan....would use the term....in sincerity...."Lord willing!" Great and wonderful ministries such as R. C. Sproul's Ligonier.org and John MacArthur's Grace To You....gty.org....and John Piper's Desiring God....desiringgod.org....came into existence....and then we changed our minds....and now the liberty that we demand is ours....the liberty to make America great again....free from God's guidance and hand upon us! Billy Graham for one....warned increasingly....as long as Jeremiah had warned Judah and Jerusalem....that judgment was coming. John MacArthur shouts out the same warnings as does Piper and many more faithful shepherds....but we do not have ears to hear.