GOD WITHDRAWS
“You have invited as to a feast day the terrors that surround me. In the day of
the Lord’s anger there was no refugee or survivor Those whom I have borne
and brought up my enemies have destroyed” (Lamentations 2:22).
Jeremiah’s Lamentations are poems in the vein of funeral songs. They describe his pain and despair during the destruction of Jerusalem. Their purpose is to show that disobedience to God leads to disaster, and that God suffers when His people suffer.
God’s punishments on ungodly Jerusalem included: children dying in their mother’s’ arms, women eating their own children in order to survive, the destruction of the temple, and the death of their leaders. It is easy to blame God for all the evil and suffering, but this is a misunderstanding of Hebrew thought: when God does not prevent a danger, it is not fair. Many people think alike today, He was presented as the cause. Judah broke their pact with God, so God withdrew His protection.
The symbols that represented security for Jerusalem no longer existed: the gates of the city, the royal leadership, the ark with the law of God, and prophetic guidance. They depended on their symbols and ceremonies, and they did not realize that God’s divine presence had already withdrawn from the temple. ‘Then God’s presence was finally withdrawn from the Jewish nation, priests and people knew it not. Though under the control of Satan, and swayed by the most horrible and malignant fashions, they still regarded themselves as the chosen of God.”—The Great Controversy, ch. 40, p. 613. The same thing will happen at the end of the history of this world:
“When He leaves the sanctuary, darkness covers the inhabitants of the earth. In that fearful time the righteous must live in the sight of a holy God without an intercessor. The restraint which has been upon the wicked is removed, and Satan has entire control of the finally impenitent. God’s long-suffering has ended. The world has rejected His mercy, despised His love, and trampled upon His law. The wicked have passed the boundary of their probation; the Spirit of God, persistently resisted, has been at last withdrawn. Unsheltered by divine grace, they have no protection from the wicked one. Satan will then plunge the inhabitants of the earth into one great, final trouble. As the angels of God cease to hold in check the fierce winds of human passion, all the elements of strife will be let loose. The whole world will be involved in ruin more terrible than th.ir which came upon Jerusalem of old.”—Ibid, p. 614.
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Taken from: Devotional Thoughts for Women 2023
“DAUGHTER OF MINE” Do Not Be Afraid
From: Arsenia Fernandez-Uckele
Collaborators: Angelica Cuate & Esteban Cortes