Where Is The LORD?

(Part II)
Post 207

In the previous post we began to see how the overturning of our faith does not destroy the faith while it completely apostatizes its use. With this in mind lets ask the question; why does the Lord not respond today; in the real events of real problems, Where is the LORD?
This is not just an insignificant rhetorical question with no answer; this question MUST be answered if our faith is to have profit.
But In our very comfortable lives here in America, we generically have jobs and homes and are completely free of any discernable needs. We are so fat that we cry about occasionally not getting our momentary desires, never contemplating that we expect that our needs are of course fulfilled. In this existence it is easy to imagine anything we want about God because there are no needs that he alone can fill to cause us pause when he doesn’t. I can attribute my job to God if I want to, but with the training I have and the health to do the job, and with the availability of the position and the affluence of the materials, getting the job is simply a reasonable and expected outcome. Pagans get jobs too *1.
So just where am I to exercise the II Timothy 2:15 test of application of my division of the word of truth? I can actually have divided the word of truth incorrectly and still get the job. So where is the Lord in that? In this abundance of American life I can really get off track in all kinds of strange philosophy about God and misinterpret my successes in life as passing the test of a worthy workman that does not need to be ashamed.
When someone confronts me about my strange philosophies I can create all sorts of mental gymnastics to explain it and this is the striving about words to no profit that Paul mentions in II Timothy 2:14 as well as the profane and vain babblings that do nothing but increase further ungodliness by supporting the twisted thinking (II Timothy 2:16).
Couched between these two verses of corruption in the faith is a different road of thinking that is established on the lifestyle of a good soldier of Jesus Christ (II Timothy 2:3). We see in verses 4-7 that such a life choice has a different set of standards than meaningless untested words;
“No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then you are chosen. Don’t get snared by the pagan ways of looking at life.
“And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.” Even in the pagan world cheaters are not given the trophy. We ban steroid users, and levy fines on violators of the game rules because this is serious business, but in the faith? Who knows what the rules are, it’s all a matter of interpretation.
Yet here Paul makes clear this is not so. You do not win the crown if you go about it outside the rules. Even in traffic court “ignorance is no excuse”.
“The husbandman that laboureth must be first partaker of the fruits.” In a self-centered mindframe this means I get to be benefited first, but Jesus debunked that simplistic self-focus mentality of interpretation when he declared in his kingdom the first shall be last (Matthew 20:16). So what does this passage mean? The next verse informs us there is more to this than first meets the eye; “Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things.”
Think “Winter Olympics” and you begin to get the idea. If you choose and are chosen to take this path in life there are rules to follow if you want the prize for being the winner. The husbandman in this case is the athlete applying the practice and the soldier’s single eye to his mission. The fruits he gets first are the results of his application. He gets to evaluate his work before anyone else gets the chance. If his training is ineffective he is the first to see. But if his training is good he knows it personally as he observes the results; What was impossible before has become expected through mastery. This is the fulfillment of II Timothy 2:15; “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
But again, Until the Winter Olympics where will the test of rightly dividing be proven? It must be proven in the privacy of your own training as you are the first partaker of the fruit of your successes and failures. Long before the day of serious competition you know with a reasonable degree of accuracy how you will perform according to the degree of effort you put into the training. Did you regularly skip practice to go drinking with your friends? Did you cave to the desire for an occasional burger and fries? Did you sleep through your workout only putting in an appearance but not pushing your limits?

The Winter Olympics has now come.
The arena has been set up in the Middle East and the stands are full of spectator nations, and this contest is not figure skating; This contest is one of Faith. Israel is in great peril and America is the Champion of Christ to finally have the opportunity to show the results of the training.
But wait. Can we change the rules? We really shouldn’t even have competition because someone will get hurt. Lets just hold hands and sing “Joy to the World” leaving out “the Lord has come” part, of course.
These are the cries of one ashamed of his workmanship. That’s not a good way to begin the Olympics.
* * *

Once, a long time ago there was a nation in the very same condition of danger Israel is in today.
So perhaps as her defender we might want to read up on those events to see if anything applies today. Funny thing too; The historical narration with near virtually the same events is about a nation with exactly the same name; Israel. What’s the odds of that?

“Hear ye the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel (and the nation who has also claimed his name and now standing with her as defender): Thus saith the LORD, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain? Neither said they, Where is the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt? And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof…” Jeremiah 1:4-7a

Is this not directly applicable? Does it not apply to the United States of America as slightly indirectly as it directly applies to Israel? We have pastors that recognize God, but in the great time of need they don’t even ask Where is the LORD. They already know by long practice in their personal lives that God does not respond today as he did in ancient times for Israel and only 200 years ago for America, but nobody knows why. This is obviously not our pastor’s fault as they love God and have been asking for aid for a very long time with no result. “God asked what iniquity our fathers found in him that would make them go far from him, I will tell you the answer; It is that he does not help when we call, so what does he have to say for himself?”

But I remind you, God is not addressing your departure; that was a result of obediently following your fathers. He is asking you to answer why your fathers left him. The reason why this is an important distinction is because you need to evaluate the reason for your own sakes. God did not forsake your fathers; they forsook him. Now you are forsaken but that is a different problem that is sourced in your father’s decision and can only be evaluated at the source for a proper response from you now *2.
How about we let God finish his thought:

“…but when ye (as a people) entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination. The priests said not, Where is the LORD? And they that handled the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit.” Jeremiah 1:7b-8

So lets see now; God accuses us of having
• priests that don’t even ask Where is God,
• Lawyers and Judges that don’t even know God,
• Pastors that live in transgression against God,
• And prophets that practice their profession by another god and follow the ways of apostasy.
And God continues:

“Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children’s children will I plead.” Jeremiah 1:9
Even after all the line item facts of offense that would require God not to answer their/our cries, God is still not done with them, he continues to plead and promises to plead even generations later with their grandchildren. Well at least we know Israel won’t be utterly destroyed.
But wait. There are two points that should be noted:
First: this Jeremiah event was a long time ago and history shows God did plead with their grandchildren. And
Second: this is a result of a promise God made to Israel never to cast them off, so America can’t really rely on this children’s children promise even if Israel might because of a multiple application as prophecy.

And God begins his plea before the court of reason:
“For pass over the isles of Chittim and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods?...” Jeremiah 1:10-11a
God is not afraid we might find him in error if we really look into this, he instructs us to consider this diligently if such a thing has happened; Did these Pagan nations change gods in their entire history? Is it a Pagan practice to one year worship this god and next year worship that god after casting off the first? This is not the way of people, even those people that worship things that are not actually gods and have no power. It is the nature of man to cling hard to their gods even if they provide virtually nothing.

“…but my people have changed their glory for that which doeth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” Jeremiah 1:11b-13

Remember, this is God’s lawful pleading of defense in this argument of who is justified.
God did all this for his people giving them great glory. And in return, contrary to the nature of humanity, they traded in that glory along with the God that provided it, and replaced him with utter worthlessness.
God declared by proof he was the spring of flowing water that fed their nation in the middle of a desert country, but they turned their backs to the spring in favor of laboriously carving out their own holding ponds of stagnate water and worse still, all their labor was in vain as the holding ponds could not even hold water at all. Now that is some really smart folk!

And this is just the beginning of the first chapter of a fifty-two-chapter plea. I’m thinking God has a very sound case. But Israel is no longer alone in their insanity.

America; The people of America; The Christians of America; The pastors of the Christians of the people of America, This is now speaking of us. We have now also been entered in this case before the court of reason by our example of imitation.

What has made our fathers cast of our great glory and the God that provided that glory?
This is the God that brought us out from bondage of the tyrant king of England; The same God that miraculously aided our endeavors as documented in our foundational charters by our founding forefathers; The same God that quickly raised us up as a fledgling nation to defeat the Islamic oppressors of the trade routs of the word, and continued to elevate us up above all nations on earth, not to oppress but to bless. Not to consume but to aid their own success. What has this Great God done to cause our fathers to refuse his care and drive him from our governments and places of education? Why have we followed the example of Israel and traded fresh, unending, running water for stagnate holding ponds that leak? Having watched our spiritual patriarch crash and burn her faith resulting in such unspeakable holocaust, Having provided schools for the primary purpose of educating our children in that history, what would make us tear all that down? We gotta be even more insane than Israel!

And so as he pled with Israel God now pleads with America’s Christians as we endeavor to run to Israel’s defense without God;

“Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, when he led thee by the way? *3" Jeremiah 1:17
* * *

I understand that to the Christian who has really attempted to raise God’s much needed aid to no avail, it is really hard to feel anything. The mind knows these scriptures are true and right, but reality says I need help now and the reason why it doesn’t come is at this point irrelevant.
I know men of God who’s homes have been broken up by thieves, whose daughters have fatherless children, who face perpetual disasters of life that are so insurmountable it is all one can do to stay solvent. But while these are proofs to them that God does not help, God declares them to be reasons to ask; Where is the LORD?
When you ask that question with every intention of finding the answer, God helps the investigation by pointing at our fathers. They are the ones who have led us to this desolate place without God and so it is imperative that we trace back to the reason they departed from God. Perhaps it was a good and valid reason but perhaps it wasn’t. Once we discover the answer we can rightly determine if we should return to the God that abundantly blessed and provided and protected or continue our course without him.
God does not answer because we have been trained by our fathers to live outside of his will while pretending he is our God.

Dear troubled Christian, the curses you face that seem to want to kill you but never actually get the job done, are not proof that God does not work among humanity today; they are the tools to drive you to seriously ask Where is the LORD?

Can God save Israel if we choose him as our God of defense? Not only can he, but he would desire nothing else. Can God also restore America as he did Lazarus (John 11) if we choose him as our God? Not only can he, but he would love to perform just such a miracle.
But we cannot turn to God nationally as long as privately we only pretend to serve him.
The profits of our private catastrophic faiths are utterly ruined as is proven by the silence we get when we ask God for help. I use “we” as a politeness because I am no longer drawing stagnate water from a leaking sludge-pond of worthless faith. Won’t you join me in drawing living water from the spring our fathers abandon without cause?
* * * * * * *

*1 I should not have to spell out the detail that of course I know that all these things come from God and that the Christ based foundation of America is directly attributable for these conditions and that the Pagan gets jobs here too because of the conditions thereby created. But this is not directly obvious to the skeptic, which is my point.

*2 "Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask they father, and he will shew thee, thy elders, and they will tell thee." Deuteronomy 32:7
"And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters. And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith." Deuteronomy 32:19-20

*3 “Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?” Deuteronomy 31:17
This is not a guarantee of such a response; God is simply declaring the intended reason for the evils though the cause is self-inflicted. If you are struggling now with your troubles but refuse to accept they are due to your waywardness of heart, how bad can the troubles get? Look to the troubles of Israel as an example, but they do not ask; Where is the LORD?
If you don’t ask now, when will you ask?
*