Editor's note: Written during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Malaysian marketplace writer Ivan Tan’s maiden book “What If You Could Complete Jeremiah in 8 Weeks?” goes through the whole book of Jeremiah one chapter at a time. Below is Day 4 for Week 1 (see Day 1, Day 2, and Day 4 for Week 1):
It’s Time to Wake Up
Jeremiah 6
1 “O you children of Benjamin, Gather yourselves to flee from the midst of Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa, And set up a signal-fire in Beth Haccerem; For disaster appears out of the north, And great destruction.
At the beginning of Jeremiah 6, the Lord commanded the people to leave because disaster was coming. This was after many rounds of insisting the people of Israel and Judah to return to the Lord’s side and to worship Him again. That was the common theme throughout chapters 1 to 5 from the book of Jeremiah because the people had forgotten who the real God is.
Instead of holding God in reverence, they worshiped built statues and idols as their new gods. Instead of giving credit to the one divine God as their savior, they were praying to the handcrafted miniatures.
Rather than trusting in the miraculous power of a God who can heal and who has brought them out of enslavement, they preferred the fancily adorned sculptures they called god.
And so, after the long defiance, God has decided in Jeremiah 6 that a new nation will come to conquer and destroy them. And with it, God has asked for those who can still hear Him to prepare to escape the annihilation.
* * *
Friends, reflect for one second if such an environment exists in your midst.
Do you know of someone or a bunch of people who have strayed far from God and loving every moment spent with the godless, forgetting how our Maker has enabled and blessed everything around us?
How about those who have buried their heads into the manufactured goods and holding them in the highest regard surpassing that of even God’s stature in their lives?
If so, it begs you to consider reminding them of the truth that can set them free from these seemingly short-term pleasures that hold little value.
And friends, if God had indeed called His people to a point where He could say calamity will come visiting because they have remained stubborn and hell-bent on distancing themselves from God, then you must take this call just as seriously knowing that our compassionate and merciful God too has a limit to our wandering hearts. The further we go from Him, the weaker the bond we’ll have with Him, and the weaker our relationship is with Him, the more vulnerable we’ll be when the storms of life come ashore.
If we are dead serious about saving our lives right now, it’s best to prepare our hearts to run back to the Lord. And if in the event you’ve heard Him calling for a long time and still you’ve ignored His pleas and promptings, then it may be wise to read Jeremiah from the beginning to see what God might have wanted to inform you. For all intent and purposes, He might also summon you to run and escape because the great disaster might just be around the corner.
It’s time to wake up and go back to the Lord!
(The book is available in paperback and e-book format on Amazon.)
To be continued...
