Articles
Peace When a Sword Is at Our Throats
Peace When a Sword is at Our Throats
by Doug Kashorek
Jerusalem and the inhabitants of Judah were all that was left of God’s people. Smug that God had spared them many decades before from captivity, they did not like to hear that God considered the northern kingdom more righteous than they were because they had seen their destruction but had not heeded the warning. More than this, God had invited the idolatrous and sinful southern kingdom to return to Him if they would repent in deed and not just word.
Seeing Jerusalem utterly steeped in sin and idolatry and the looming destruction that God had in store for them, Jeremiah believed it was too late for his fellow countrymen and cried out, “Ah, Lord God, surely you have utterly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘It shall be well with you,’ whereas the sword has reached their very life’” Jeremiah 4:10. But, as long as we have breath and opportunity, is it ever too late for a gracious God who forgives trespasses?
Repentance also would be their peace. His people had brought this judgment upon themselves because of their “ways” and “deeds,” but there was still hope for a remnant if some would “wash [their] heart[s] from evil, that [they] may be saved.” Their repentance must be outward to “not sow among thorns” and inward to “remove the foreskin of [their] hearts.”
A similar remnant of God’s people today will be saved from destruction through repentance. We are told to “Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you” (2 Corinthians 6:17) and to also remove the foreskin of our hearts. This is only possible in Jesus, Colossians 2:11-12 tells us, “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.”
Will you take the opportunity from God to have peace?
- Peace_When_A_Sword.pdf (110.93 kB)
