Yesterday, we reminded ourselves of the true God and noted from the new movie A Great Awakening that there’s no question that America was founded on Christian principles. There’s also no question that America, like ancient Israel, is drifting (or plunging headlong away from) these principles. As always, the prophets have a word:

And the LORD said to me, “Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: Hear the words of this covenant and do them. For I solemnly warned your fathers when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, warning them persistently, even to this day, saying, Obey my voice. Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but everyone walked in the stubbornness of his evil heart. Therefore I brought upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not.” Jeremiah 11.6 – 8, ESV)

He continues:

The LORD once called you ‘a green olive tree, beautiful with good fruit.’ But with the roar of a great tempest he will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed. The LORD of hosts, who planted you, has decreed disaster against you, because of the evil that the house of Israel and the house of Judah have done…” (Jeremiah 11.16 – 17, ESV)

What evil have we done? It depends on whom you ask. I quoted Tim Keller almost six years ago in a blog entitled Where are you Loyalties?

The early church’s social project was:

• Multi-racial and multi-ethnic
• Highly committed to caring for the poor and marginalized
• Non-retaliatory, marked by a commitment to forgiveness
• Strongly and practically against abortion and infanticide
• Revolutionary regarding the ethics of sex

The early Christian community was both offensive and also attractive. Believers did not construct their social project in some strategic way to reach Roman culture. Each of the five elements was there because Christians sought to submit to biblical authority. They are all commanded. They are just as category-defying—both offensive and attractive—today. The first two views (ethnic diversity and caring for the poor) sound “liberal,” and the last two (abortion and sexual ethics) sound “conservative.” But the third element, of course, sounds like no particular party. – Tim Keller

I mentioned last week a conversation with a Jewish lady. We were dialoging fine, not always agreeing, but certainly amiable, until I let slip that I didn’t follow the culture’s embrace of all kinds of sexual behavior (element #5, above). Her response was swift and vitriolic while accusing me of hatred. She would say she is committed to the “poor and marginalized” (element #2, above) in supporting the “new” sexual orthodoxy. I asked, trying to get back to our Torah discussions, what she did with “God made them male and female,” but I’ll never find out.

Back to evil: God is committed to all five elements of the early church’s behavior. We can usually manage only one or two and seem bent on tearing each other apart. And that’s not counting the recent behavior of our President. Stay tuned.

In the middle of Jeremiah’s diatribe against his Jewish countrymen who have rejected God, there is this reminder in chapter 10 of whom they are rejecting.

God is unique…

There is none like you, O LORD; you are great, and your name is great in might. Who would not fear you, O King of the nations? For this is your due; for among all the wise ones of the nations and in all their kingdoms there is none like you. (Jeremiah 10.6, 7, ESV)

…the true, living, and everlasting King…

But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King. At his wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation. (Jeremiah 10.10, ESV)

…with POWER:

It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens. When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses. (Jeremiah 10.12, 13, ESV)

We just watched A Great Awakening about the great revivalist George Whitefield’s ministry in the American Colonies, including his long friendship with Benjamin Franklin. Strongly recommend. In one powerful scene, Ben drags George out in a lightning storm to show him how the kite and the key attract electric power. George yells, “Ben, what is the source of this power?” Jeremiah is clear.

“He makes lightning for the rain, and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses.”

Ben Franklin was a deist. For most of his life he believed precisely that God does NOT concern himself with the affairs of men. But he changed. He appealed to the deadlocked Constitutional Convention that they ought to pray. His speech contains this famous line:

I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth — that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? – Benjamin Franklin, June 28, 1787, Philadelphia

From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him. (Isaiah 64.4, ESV)

I wrote about Backsliding last November – backsliding, a common term in some of our churches back in the day – but it occurs only a few times in scripture. One is in one of our recent readings:

Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return. (Jeremiah 8.5, ESV)

Jeremiah has accused the people of backsliding before:

Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me,” declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.  (Jeremiah 2.19, NIV)

“Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding.” “Yes, we will come to you, for you are the Lord our God. (Jeremiah 3.22, NIV)

I just reviewed my blog on backsliding as well as the one on Professor Ehrman and Charles Templeton who rejected God’s Word. It seems there a lot of ways to reject the word:

“How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie. The wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be dismayed and taken; behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them? (Jeremiah 8.8, 9, ESV)

We can pretend to be people of the word and reject it at the same time! And the result was punishment at the hands of foreign armies.

Sad verses:

“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded; I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored? (Jeremiah 8.20 – 22, ESV)

Sounds like the POWs who didn’t make it out of Viet Nam. The highest ranking POW from the Viet Nam war, Admiral Stockdale, when asked, “Who didn’t make it?” said it was the optimists who didn’t survive prison camp. “We’ll be out by Christmas!” But Christmas came, and “we are not saved.”

Why were the Jews not saved? Jeremiah 9 continues the thought:

Who is the man so wise that he can understand this? To whom has the mouth of the LORD spoken, that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined and laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

And the LORD says: “Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, but have stubbornly followed their own hearts and have gone after the Baals, as their fathers taught them. Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will feed this people with bitter food, and give them poisonous water to drink. I will scatter them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.” (Jeremiah 9.12 – 16, ESV)

Why is the land ruined? Because “they have forsaken my law…”

Then this well-known verse:

Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 9.23, 24, ESV)

It is no secret what God delights in: “steadfast love, justice, and righteousness.” That’s why Micah could say,

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6.8, ESV)

“He has told you…”

And it’s never been about mere ritual:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh— Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert…for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.” (Jeremiah 9.25, 26, ESV)

The nations are uncircumcised , BUT Israel is uncircumcised, too. Uncircumcised in heart.

For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God. (Romans 2.28, 29, ESV)

I took June to a Christian bookstore the other day. It’s one I hadn’t known about, and if you looked at it from the outside, you wouldn’t expect much:

Turns out looks can be deceiving; it’s deeper than it is wide, chock full of books and A LOT of Christian art, which is what June was looking for. We want more reminders of Jesus as we walk around our house.

This isn’t Jesus, but I was captivated by this reproduction of a painting by Guido Reni, 1635. The original is in Rome, and it’s 9 1/2 feet x 6 1/2 feet!

The Archangel Michael Defeating Satan

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated,and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. (Revelation 12.7 – 10, ESV)

The accuser of our brothers has been thrown down. And not only did Michael, the Archangel defeat Satan, we defeat Satan, also:

And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. (Revelation 12.11, ESV)

And so did Jesus:

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2.15, NIV)

Several weeks ago I passed on something a friend posted:

Ugly action beats unfinished perfection.

Soon after I scheduled that blog, I read the same thing, written in another way by Sahil Bloom and posted on March 25. It was #4 on his Deathbed Regret List.

4. Not having the courage to take the leap. Nobody tells you this: Talent and intelligence are overrated. Intelligent people are more likely to overthink, overplan, and overanalyze. They hide behind motion that doesn’t create progress. They fear the judgment of others if they’re proven wrong. The truth is that talent and intelligence are abundant. Courage is not. The people you admire are the ones who had the courage to act. They aren’t more talented than you. They aren’t smarter than you. They just took action when you didn’t. I often wonder how many extraordinary people wasted their entire lives waiting for permission that never came. Permission isn’t granted. It’s taken. You get to tap yourself in whenever you want. You can just do things. I will give myself permission to do the thing. – Sahil Bloom, March 25, 2026

It’s the same message. And I try to pay attention when I get the same message twice.

I also wrote on March 19 that I was looking for “What’s Next?” When I read Sahil Bloom’s March 25 post, I wrote in my journal:

#4 is on taking action, same message as “Ugly Action.” I wrote on Isaiah 54, what’s next for me? I don’t know yet, but I need to get on it. But I DON’T need to get on it. What I need to do is listen for God to tell me what the “next thing” is.

The next day after I wrote this, I got an invitation from a friend to join him in a $97 seminar in how to write my memoir. I had to make a decision THAT DAY. So I took that as my word from God for the next project. I “took action” and “gave myself permission” and enrolled. I’ve started to compile notes per instructions.

Why a memoir? The friend, a VERY godly man asked the same question. He wrote:

A few years ago, I was impressed to write my memoirs. I was reluctant to follow through for two reasons: writing is hard work, and it seemed egotistical. The impression persisted, so I asked the Lord for a good reason. He persuaded with the following:

“For our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that I must soon leave this earthly life, so I will work hard to make sure you always remember these things after I am gone”  2 Peter 1:14-15 (NLT).

“You shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years … (Deut 8:2, ESV).

Psalm 145:4, 12: “One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts…. to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds.”

Psalm 44:1, “O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us, what deeds you performed in their days, in the days of old …”

Following his lead…and God’s, it seems like a worthy project. You blog readers have the right to challenge me from time to time to stay on task. I’ll keep you posted.

I’m seeing in Jeremiah 7 an answer to the Jewish lady’s question about which laws should we obey. I had quoted Deuteronomy 29.29 and something from Deuteronomy 30 in connection with contrasting “study” with action. She asked, which of the 613 commands should we obey, and how do Christians choose? My answer was to quote Rabbi Jesus’ greatest commandment and second greatest.

Now I’m looking at Jeremiah 7.

If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. (Jeremiah 7.5 – 7, NIV)

I don’t think any prophet called the people into account for violating things like “don’t mix two types of cloth in a garment” or “don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” The prophets seem to focus on the Big 2. “Deal with each other justly…do not oppress the foreigner…do not shed innocent blood…do not follow other gods….

Jesus said as much:

All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (Matthew 22.40, NIV)

Psalms 15 and 24 focus on these kinds of behaviors as well. Micah 6.8 sums it up:

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6.8, ESV)

A devout Jewish lady stumbled into my blog a few weeks ago and asked what “fire hail” was from an infographic I had posted about the 10 Plagues of Egypt. I answered her:

You’re looking at the picture which summarizes the 10 plagues, and for the one I usually think of as “Hail,” it says, “Fire Hail.” I don’t think it means “fire hail” but fire AND hail. And that’s in EVERY translation of Exodus 9.23, 24, including the Complete Jewish Bible and the Orthodox Jewish Bible.

Here’s the text:

Then Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. And the LORD rained hail upon the land of Egypt. There was hail and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very heavy hail, such as had never been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. (Exodus 9.23, 24, ESV)

This wasn’t enough for the lady, who insisted that “hail” is mentioned many more times than in these two verses which say “fire and hail.” I asked her why she considered this important, that a summary of the plagues said “fire and hail” instead of just “hail.” She went on and on about words (always quoting in Hebrew, of course) and relative frequency, etc., etc.

Seeing her as one of many folks I know who enjoy “discussing” the text, I pointed out that God was more interested in our obeying the text than discussing the text. For example,

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29.29, ESV)

In a subsequent email she challenged me with this question:

I find it very interesting when Christians pick and choose which laws they must obey. According to the rabbis there are 613 commandments in the Torah that we must obey.  The words you quote below are very general… It’s fine if you interpret them as “we must obey”- but what is it that we must obey?  Women must not wear pants? No one may eat cheeseburgers? No working on Saturdays? No humans are to be worshipped as gods?

A good question, and here is my immediate and brief response:

A good set of questions, beyond the scope of a short email! But in the verses I quoted, I was thinking of the general principle that God’s word is meant to be obeyed (acted on, followed, etc.) more than just “studied.” When Rabbi Jesus was asked which commandment was the most important, he cited the Shema from Deuteronomy 6.4, 5. Followed by “Love your neighbor as yourself” from Leviticus 19.18. Admittedly, none of us does either one of those perfectly, but I think we can agree that life would go better for all of us if we aimed in that direction.

I’ve since thought of a better answer…from Jeremiah. I’ll share it tomorrow. In the meantime, as I quoted yesterday:

But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards. (Matthew 7.26, 27, MSG)

I’m in Jeremiah 6, encountering a verse I first heard preached at the baccalaureate service for an Air Force Academy cadet we sponsored. The chaplain quoted:

This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. ” (Jeremiah 6.16, NIV)

It’s a good word, but, unfortunately, the verse continues:

But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

I appointed watchmen over you and said, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ But you said, ‘We will not listen.’” (Jeremiah 6.16, 17, NIV)

Where is the good way? The ancient paths. And it’s not enough to know where the ancient paths are, we must walk in them.

Likewise, the trumpet sounds. People can’t help but hear a trumpet, but we must choose to pay attention.

What happens if we don’t? Jeremiah is clear:

Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it. (Jeremiah 6.19, ESV)

Back to Romans 1…

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1.29 – 32, ESV, emphasis mine)

…and James…

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (James 1.22, NIV)

…and Jesus:

But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards. (Matthew 7.26, 27, MSG)

We wrote last week about The Prophetic Word. Prophecy is not to satisfy our curiosity about the future but change the way we live today. Jeremiah 5 is an example. Israel is in a world of hurt for rejecting God. Without making any theological claim to equating today’s United States with Old Testament Israel, there are still principles to be learned. Just because the US might have been “Christian” at its founding and has been populated by a fair number of God-fearing people, there’s no doubt that our overall trend has been downward, away from God.

Hear then the word of God from Jeremiah 5.

Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look and take note! Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth, that I may pardon her. Though they say, “As the LORD lives,” yet they swear falsely. (Jeremiah 5.1, 2, ESV)

Reminds one of Abraham’s conversation with the Lord about Sodom:

Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” (Genesis 18.32, ESV)

Then this interesting observation. It’s ALL the people, rich and poor:

Then I said, “These are only the poor; they have no sense; for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God. I will go to the great and will speak to them, for they know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.” But they all alike had broken the yoke; they had burst the bonds. (Jeremiah 5.4, 5, ESV)

What was the problem?

“How can I pardon you? Your children have forsaken me and have sworn by those who are no gods. When I fed them to the full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of whores. They were well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing for his neighbor’s wife. Shall I not punish them for these things? declares the LORD; and shall I not avenge myself on a nation such as this? (Jeremiah 5.7 – 9, ESV)

And they deceived themselves, thinking God didn’t care:

For the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly treacherous to me, declares the LORD. They have spoken falsely of the LORD and have said, ‘He will do nothing; no disaster will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine. The prophets will become wind; the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them!’ ” (Jeremiah 5.11 – 13, ESV)

Peter warned:

…you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” …But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. (2 Peter 3.1 – 10, ESV)

God can bring down a nation at the hand of another nation:

Behold, I am bringing against you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, declares the LORD. It is an enduring nation; it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say. Their quiver is like an open tomb; they are all mighty warriors. (Jeremiah 5.15, 16, ESV)

We just had a demonstration of the dedication and competence of the American military, rescuing a downed F-15 Weapons System Officer (WSO). The Lord can bring down the USA if he wants to, dedicated and competent or not.

Back to Jeremiah, what to do with a nation who once knew God and revered him and now doesn’t?

Declare this in the house of Jacob; proclaim it in Judah: “Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but see not, who have ears, but hear not. Do you not fear me? declares the LORD. Do you not tremble before me?” (Jeremiah 5.20 – 23, ESV)

Paul warned:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity… (Romans 1.18 – 24, ESV)

You can be minding your own business at a gas station…

On March 10, 2026, the driver of a Jeep was either just arriving or just leaving a gas station in Littleton, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, when his car was crushed by a huge semi-tractor trailer.

The truck driver said his brakes failed. He lied. The brakes were fine. He was later charged with careless driving resulting in bodily injury. Miraculously, I think, the driver is OK:

The driver of the Jeep was in serious condition at a hospital immediately after the crash, police said, but has gone home and appears on track for a full recovery. – Denver Post, April 3, 2026

Our lives are in God’s hands.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4.13 – 15, ESV)