THE REFUGE DEVOTIONAL

“ ‘Ah Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You.” Jeremiah 32:17 NASBS

Great is the God of faithfulness, Who abounds in loving mercy from generation to generation. The Lord is so loving that He will not let Israel, His chosen nation, continue down a pathway of unrepentant sin. For sin is progressive in its nature, and it violently opposes the truth of God’s word, growing darker and darker as time goes by. Sin ignites the fallen passions of man with an insatiable fire that burns even at night as his weary head rests upon the pillow. It seeks to rip God from His rightful throne so that it may have the preeminence in the human heart. Reader, if the heart is left unrepentant, it will damn man in the eternal bonds of hell where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. So, for purposes such as this, The Lord, The God of Israel, said to His chosen nation, as He said to His servant Job when He stayed the mighty waters of the sea, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.” So, the Lord said to His servant Jeremiah concerning the nation, ”Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?” Therefore thus says the LORD, “Behold, I am about to give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will take it. The Chaldeans who are fighting against this city will enter and set this city on fire and burn it, with the houses where people have offered incense to Baal on their roofs and poured out drink offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger.” “Indeed, this city has been to Me a provocation of My anger and My wrath from the day that they built it, even to this day, so that it should be removed from before My face, They have turned their back to Me and not their face; though I taught them, teaching again and again, they would not listen and receive instruction.” Though the Lord judged the sins of Israel very harshly, He made a promise to Jeremiah that His people would one day return to their land. In by doing so, He told Jeremiah to buy a plot of land and seal the deed in the presence of witnesses, weighing out the silver on a scale. He also told Him to take the deed and put in earthenware that would last a long time. Then the Lord said, “Houses and fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.” The loving faithfulness of God will judge sin, but He has promised to preserve his children in the midst of the judgments that are coming upon the land. The Apostle Paul said many years later, “There has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice.” Therefore, Christian, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and turn away from evil.” Christian, though the days are dark, there is a day coming when the only scars you will see are those of the Lord Jesus Christ. For He has redeemed you and called you from darkness to light. He has stored up all of the tears that have run down your cheeks and one day they will be poured out. Hold fast, though sin has been vanquished in your life, there is a time you will be free from its struggles. But until that day comes, gird yourselves for holy warfare and make no provisions for sin in your life. Fix your eye upon the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Author and perfecter of your faith, and let your battle crying be, “Ah Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You, who shows loving kindness to thousands, but repays the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them, O great and mighty God. The Lord of hosts is His name.”