■
- 4 D e a r L
e c i ò i o n
B y B it. EDW ARD B . H AR T 1 in the Middle East and in the Far East, complexity of nations at fever- heat short of war, what can the in dividual believer in Christ do in such an hour? The book of Lamentations has an answer for us. That which happened to Israel has come upon Gentile nations also. We recall the words of the apostle Paul in the Roman epistle, “ if God spared not Israel, take heed lest he spare not thee (Gentiles).” We remember also the Old Testament record of the prophetic warnings given by Moses in Deuteronomy 29:24,25, “ all na tions shall say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land (Pales tine)? what meaneth the heat of this great anger? Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers.” Gentiles will come at last to recognize God’s head in the his tory of the people Israel, a long rec ord of distress, of persecutions, of scat tering among nations of earth. What Gentiles need now to realize is that God must deal in like manner with them as He did with Israel if they heed not His Word, nor use rightly the Light given to them. The prophet Jerem iah kn ew that h is n a tion had lost its freed om be cau se it had lost its fa ith . Idols had displaced the Lord God in their hearts and faith had withered away. He spoke the divine message that the corruption of the nation had its roots in the spiritual declension in indi vidual experience. God ever sees the inner life of every nation, for He be holds with all-seeing understanding the hidden life of every individual. “His eyelids try the children of men . . . he beholdeth the evil and the good.” In America today there is a tragic deterioration of moral standards and behaviour. The termites of godless ness are at work within the very foundations of our nation. Indiffer ence to personal righteousness is the deadly disease which is striking at the vitals of our nation. The atheistic leaders of Russia seem to understand this inner disintegration far better than we ourselves realize it. In the third decade of this twentieth cen tury one of Russia’s leading diplomats predicted that the hour could come when America by inner softness and decadence would be unable to resist Russia’s might, and that in that hour Russia would strike with mailed fist. The Communist time-table had set
G reat is Thy Faithfulness.” You recognize at once the title of one of our great Christian hymns, yet few people realize the circumstances under which these words were writ ten. They appear in the book of Lamentations, that Old Testament threnody of sorrow, written by the prophet Jeremiah whose heart carried deep agony of grief because of the tragedy which had overtaken his na tion. When we understand the his toric background of these words we wonder how the prophet could sing such a song of praise in the midst of calamity, “ It is of the Lord’s mer cies that we are not consumed be cause His compassions fail not: They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in Him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:22-26) The Lord God had judged Jerusa lem three times, in 606 B.C., in 597 and finally in the collapse of Jeru salem in 587-6 B.C. Faithfully the prophet Jeremiah had warned his nation during forty years of preach ing. With cold indifference they had repudiated his warnings that judg ment would surely overtake them un less by re p en t an c e the remnant turned to God. But now—it was all over. This book of Lamentations was written after the tragedy had struck. The heart of the prophet was broken, for Jerusalem was in shambles and charred ruins. Yet in the midst of sorrows he praised God and wrote, “ Great is thy faithfulness. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed.” I wish to suggest that th ere is a close p a ra llel b e tw e e n cond ition s w h ich preced ed th is d ivin e judgm en t upon th e n ation Isra el and cond ition s w h ich p reva il in A m erica today. We must somehow underscore in our thinking this truth that God is no respecter of nations, as He is no re specter of persons. Someone has said recently that America must come to judgment “ because God is just.” He has His reckoning hour for America too! What, we ask, could possibly awaken this fair land to the real meaning of these days now upon us? What, we ask, is the place which the individual Christian should take in a world like this? With the tragedy of Hungary still fresh in our minds and hearts, with tensions mounting
the year 1973 for this thrust at the United States, but the deterioration within our nation has accelerated so rapidly that the Russian time-sched ule has been moved ahead by three years to 1970. Neither Chri s t i an preaching nor atheistic warnings have startled America awake. One of our great presidents, Theo dore Roosevelt, once said: “I preach to you, my countrymen, that our country calls not for the life of ease, but for the life of strenuous endeavor. The 20th century looms before us with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly by, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at the hazard of their lives, and at the risk of all that they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by and will win for themselves the domination of the world.” The handwriting of history and of God is on our walls today. Who will read to understand its warn ings? Look at the c o n t emp o r a r y scene. In 1951, a book written by Paul Kecskemeti, “ Strategic Surren der,” was published by the Stanford University Press and paid for by the United States Air Force. Studies pre sented in this book resulted from re search under the Rand Corporation. One of our weekly news magazines, U.S. News and World Report, recent ly reported that the Pentagon, our Congress, and President Eisenhower were greatly alarmed by the proposal in this book that America strategical ly surrender to Russian ideas and control. Our Congress, in the closing sessions, banned the use of any fur ther government funds to propagate literature of this nature. Senator Ken nedy warned the Congress in its clos ing hours before recess that within the years 1960 and 1964 Russia will be in a position easily and quickly to destroy 85 per cent of all American industry. I quote here the editorial comment of a local newspaper in re view of the Senator’s remarks, “What the experts call ‘the missle lag’ is essentially a weakness in American education, and a lack of seriousness in American national purposes. When there is a choice between private plea sure and public interest, we are in competition with a new society which is in deadly earnest, and there is no use pretending that amidst our com forts and our pleasures we are serious enough. That is why when the alarms are sounded, we turn over and go to sleep again.”
26
TH E KING'S BUSINESS
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker