Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Greetings, dear ones…

…with only 5 minutes left of this Friday the 13th morning. Sure hope I can use the afternoon to make up for the lack of production this morning.

If you think I’m off course with some of my views that always seem to surface, perhaps you could recommend some avenue of psycho-spiritual counseling that might possibly get me straightened out. I reason that I’m either seriously on course, or seriously goofed up.

Have a great day—as you scrutinize your own course.

Love, Dad/Ray.

OK, “This is the word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah”—a guy who lived and ministered a very long time ago—“…concerning the nations”—those nations contemporary to Jeremiah’s day. Therefore, these pronouncements from “the LORD Almighty” concerning their doom as judgment, punishment, and correction, are not relevant for us today. Right? WRONG! At least, that is my unavoidable perspective—even though I may prefer that it wasn’t. I don’t like war, mass destruction, and suffering any more than anyone else. But viewing the whole of our current national and world problems through the lens of Biblical revelation, and applying Biblical principles, I see no way to avoid similar judgment, punishment, and correction for our present nation and world. After all, we created humans who make up our nation and world routinely put down the Creator God of the Bible, and elevate ourselves—as though we and our own ideas are what make the world go around, and what this universe is all about. Good grief—we can’t even digest the sandwich we just ate without Him! So should not the plans and purposes of the Author of creation be consulted and revered in our management of creation? You and I both know the answer to that WHY question—it’s easily traced to the source of all human tragedy—the legacy of a NATURAL SIN NATURE—producing a universal condition of self-deception (Jeremiah 17:9)—that causes men to think more highly of themselves than they ought (Romans 12:3). By this standard, self-flattery is the opposite of flattering. Instead it becomes a celebration of ignorance, arrogance, foolishness. Paradox of paradoxes: MEN WHO CELEBRATE THEIR OWN GREATNESS ARE IN FACT CELEBRATING THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION!

That is the principle message I glean from Jeremiah 46. If I were to put that message into simple form in my own words and apply it to our own nation and world, it might go like this: “OK, human grasshoppers (Isaiah 40:22)—you who think you’re so big and smart and tough—you who insist that you are the masters of your own destinies—you who can’t seem to get through your thick hearts that your arrogance against Me is equal to taunting Me—you who embrace the delusion that you can successfully defeat evil and Me at the same time—carry on! Give it your best shot! Build your bombs! Polish your planes! Shine your ships! Acquire ammo! Load your guns! Lay your strategies! Get ready for conflict—because it’s coming as sure as the morning sun rises. And the sad fact is that most of you will never connect the dots—never recognize My hand in the devastation—never acknowledge that you have brought this disaster upon yourselves.” If you are listening with your best Bible ears, you will hear heaven weeping at this point (as I am)—not rejoicing.

Here’s the wonderful balance to the decree: “’Do not fear, O Jacob my servant (and those who choose to serve the God of Jacob and embrace His Jewish Messiah), for I am with you,’ declares the LORD ‘though I completely destroy all the nations among which I scatter you, I will not completely destroy you’” (46:28).