Intro. Midway between the Damascus gate and Herod's gate in Jerusalem, standing on the wall, you can look across the little valley and see on the face of the cliff, two caves that look like the eye sockets of a scull. Hence the name Calvary. Just to the left of it is a larger cave that traditionally is called Jeremiah's grotto, where it is believed that Jeremiah sat as he wept and wrote the book of Lamentations, as he looked over the charred rubble of the city that had once been known as the perfection of beauty.
I. "The Lord has done that which He has devised."
A. For forty years Jeremiah had been warning the people that if they did not repent and turn to the Lord with their whole hearts that He was going to desert them that they might fall to their enemies.
1. For forty years the liberal press and media along with the governmental body mocked and ridiculed the prophet.
2. The people finally tried to stop the prophet, they sought by intimidation to silence his voice.
3. He was ultimately placed in the dungeon from which he was subsequently placed in prison and put on a diet of bread and water until he was released by the Babylonian troops when they took the city of Jerusalem.
B. The city of Jerusalem now lies in ashes. The walls are torn down, there is an eerie silence that hovers over the once active city, for there are now no inhabitants left.
1. God's warnings unheeded, have now been carried out.
2. "The Lord has done that which He has devised, He has fulfilled His word, that He had commanded the prophet to speak."
3. The city underwent a horrible siege during which time the food supplies were exhausted to the extent that the people began to cannibalize their own babies.
4. Once the Babylonians entered the city the slaughter of the people was without mercy, from the little children to the aged.
5. They had tried to eliminate God from the national life, thinking that they had become so sophisticated that He was no longer necessary.
6. God has said, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." They had sowed the wind and now, they were reaping the whirlwind.
C. In 1963 our Supreme Court deemed it unlawful to pray or read the Bible in our public schools. They said it was unconstitutional. In the explanation of the reason for not allowing the New Testament to be read, they said that it could be psychologically damaging to a child. This decision flew in the face of all preceding precedents that had been established by the Supreme Court up till that time.
1. The prayer that was ruled unconstitutional was a simple little prayer that asked God to bless our school, our family, and our nation.
2. Since the abolishment of that prayer, what has happened to our schools?
a. There was an immediate and dramatic drop in the S.A.T. test scoring that continued till 1983 when it began a gradual rise.
b. What also happened in 1983? Thousands of Christian schools began to be opened in churches all over the U.S.
c. The records show that the testing of the children in the Christian schools is at the level of the 1963 average, where the public school level continues to decline.
d. Congress blithely passes off the reason as money, those that can afford private schools are people of affluence.
e. The facts show, but facts seem to mean nothing to the majority of the congressmen, that the average cost of educating a child in the private school was $1100 dollars a year, whereas in the same year the average cost for a child was $3600. and they were always complaining of not having enough and needing more.
f. Violence has become so prevalent in the public schools that it has become necessary to hire armed guards in many of the schools to protect the teachers from being assaulted by the students.
2. What has happened to our nation?
a. For one thing, the National debt has gone out of control.
b. Drug abuse has risen until it has become a National epidemic, it is so bad that one judge has come up with the insane idea to just legalize drug use to destroy the profit margins. The net effect of that would be that all of the non-Christian children would become drug addicts.
c. What people do not realize that in our present system there is no basis for moral restraints. They were found in the Bible which is unconstitutional for public consumption according to the edicts of our Supreme court. It is not constitutional to teach absolute morality to the children, it has been replaced with value clarification where the child himself determines what is right or wrong. This with the breakdown in family life, where we have many latch key children, whose only moral values at home are being molded by what they see on T.V. we have even greater problems facing us in the future.
d. In our nation crime has increased 500 percent since 1963. We are building prisons as fast as we can, but it is not fast enough, thus the overcrowded conditions.
e. We see the lawlessness in our streets, the random drive by gang shootings and now the latest riots as unprincipled, unmoral people take to the streets to do as they feel is right to do in their perceived values clarification.
f. I believe that we have only seen the beginning.
3. What has happened to the family?
a. Look at the divorce rate percentages since 1963. They are up well over 100%.
b. Sexual abuse of little girls by dads and stepdads has become common place.
c. Children are rebelling against their parents and are becoming uncontrollable.
II. Is there any solution or answer? Can this nation be saved the same fate of Judah?
A. Ex governor Brown nor Bush nor Clinton have offered any real solution to the problems. They have only suggested to give them more money. This is a typical political solution to any problem, throw money at it. This is why we have such a fiscal crisis in government.
B. The only true answer is a return to the Godly principles upon which nation was established.
1. Teach the children what God has said is right and wrong.
2. Encourage them to pray and ask God to bless our nation, our families, and our schools.
3. Get rid of the idiocy from our court system, judges that have even now required the Boy Scouts not to make belief in God a requirement for scouting.
C. Jeremiah called upon the mothers to pray.
1. He said, "Let tears run down your cheeks day and night."
2. "Give thyself no rest, continue night and day in supplications."
3. "Cry out at night, at the beginning of the evening, pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord."
4. Lift up your hands before Him in prayer for the children and their desperate plight.
D. I would like to suggest that you take this week your normal T.V. viewing time and spend it in the Word and in prayer. Is that asking too much?
1. For the most part T.V. is a degrading influence on your mind, it is breaking down your moral standards.
2. It is sowing to the flesh, and it is sure to reap the corruption of the flesh.
3. Sow to the Spirit. Isn't your family worth saving? Isn't our nation worth saving?
4. You men, get involved in the all night prayer vigils here at the church, join with us in the Wed. morning prayer breakfasts or in the Saturday night prayer meetings.
5. Let us not rest until we have turned things around.
6. Don't look to the government to solve our problems, they are a large part of the problem, let us look to God, He only can save.
Verse-Reference
Square — [Jhn 1:1 KJV]
Abbreviate Books
Use SBL Abbrev.
