What About Baruch?

"Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch: You said, 'Woe is me! For the LORD has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.' Thus shall you say to him, Thus says the LORD: Behold, what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up--that is, the whole land. And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the LORD. But I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go." (Jeremiah 45:2-5, ESV)
The world is in a financial meltdown, or so it would seem according to the latest news on any of the major news channels. Greed has been fueling the fires of power grabs and corruption in all walks of life. Banks, long considered to be a bulwark against the possible fall of government and society were some of the first to go down. And the saga hasn’t been played out to the end yet.
Where do Christians stand amid the turmoil that surrounds us? How will we fare? Sadly enough, the false prophets of a Christianity that declares God wants you to be rich have nothing to say. The large churches will possibly see a drop in membership, the preachers of a theology of prosperity “if you really have the Spirit” will eventually fall silent. The economic crisis may hit everyone; at least most people will feel the change to some extent. World news says that Iceland, that beautiful, self-contained island nation, will probably have to go back to the old ways of doing things and that it may well be a lesson for the rest of the world. While growing up, the catch word was “progress.” One company even boasted that “progress is our most important product.” In the last decade we have heard the word “sustainability.” It is a word that has been coined, not one you will find in older dictionaries. In fact, you will find it as two words, not one, if you use your spell checker. Somehow, we must sustain whatever it is we are doing. And now, heaven forbid, we will be thinking of the old ways. Regress, not progress. Christians will be affected by all that happens.
At possibly the most terrible time in the history of the Jews, Baruch, scribe to Jeremiah the prophet, was running around crying “woe is me.” That word woe means “cursed.” Baruch felt that as he was a righteous person, scribe to a man called by God to preach the truth, he should be exempt from all of the pain and suffering that his fellow countrymen were experiencing. Not so. Not even our physical life is exempt. Everyone dies, somewhere, sometime.
So what is our reward? Where are we to place our trust? If we have been faithful to God, won’t He see to it that we don’t lose anything of what we have worked so hard to get? “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” ( John 5:24, ESV) There is the reward. God has promised us eternal life. You are probably saying as you read this, “I know all of that already.” Yes, but do we really believe it? Do we really believe Jesus’s words about laying up treasure in heaven? How could we not know that all of this that the world puts its hopes in is destined for destruction? Are we so naive as to believe that any country or even the whole world economic order can withstand the power of our God? Nations have risen and fallen in the past. They will do so again in the future. No one nation is the guarantor of freedom or truth. Jesus is truth. He will be honored. He will rule the nations of the world. When Christians take seriously the Sermon on the Mount and begin living as Jesus commanded us to, we shall have the peace that passes understanding, even in the face of economic and material loss. We will learn to live our lives incarnadine, the color of the blood of our precious Jesus who economically didn’t even have a home of His own on this earth, but willingly died to give us a home in His heaven. This may be the greatest opportunity in history for Christians to really be counted on, to really take a stand for Jesus.

My apologies for the long time out in the blog, but we are up and running, howbeit, from a different venue. May God bless you. Please check the blog from time to time. Thank you.