Samuel D. High
sdhigh@aristotle.net
-----Original Message-----
From: "Smith, Lynn " <lsmith20@Central.UH.EDU>
Sent: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:32:07 -0500
To: "Smith, Lynn " <lsmith20@Central.UH.EDU>
Subject: Morning Manna Aug. 20-BP: Jer. 13; RBTTY: I Cor. 3; Ps. 105-106
August 20 “Briny Rivulets of Prayer”
“Hear you and give ear; be not proud—for the Lord has spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God before He causes darkness and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while you look for light, He turns it into the shadow of death and makes it gross darkness. But, you will not hear it; my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride—and my eye shall weep sore and run down with tears because the Lord’s flock is carried away captive.”
Jeremiah 13:15-17
Be not ashamed or weary of them—for even the hardest of rocks can be worn away by incessant dripping.
Tears.
There’s nothing more agonizing in the Lord’s work (other than our own sinfulness) than trying to woo and warn someone whose eyes are closed and whose ears are willfully deafened to the Voice of their Maker.
You plead with them. You beg them. You get angry at them.
And, then you begin to weep over them.
“Wake up, dear one. Wake up. Can’t you see the house is on fire? Can’t you see your boat, which has drifted quietly along for so long, has now picked up speed and is moving dangerously close to the waterfall ahead?”
But, still they snooze in sinful bliss, ignoring your pleas and tears.
And, then they wonder why they’ve fallen on hard times and, like Jeremiah’s countrymen, they cry, “Why has this happened to me?” (v.22a). How sad, indeed, when “an evil heart of unbelief causes one to depart from the living God and to live their lives in the wilderness, with remembrances of ‘what might have been’” (Heb. 3:12-19).
That’s why we must “exhort one another daily, while it is called Today, lest any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:13). Truly, we must proclaim “Today—right now at this very minute—is the Day of Salvation and now is the accepted time” (II Cor. 6:2b). As it was “in the days of Noah, so shall it also be in the days preceding the coming of the Son of Man” (Mt. 24:37). For 120 years he faithfully preached. . .with nary a single convert (I Pet. 3:20; II Pet. 2:5). . .and then the day come for them to enter the ark and the door was closed. And, no matter of pleading with Noah or repeated beatings on the door could open it. . . “for the Lord had closed it” (Gen. 7:16).
Dear Pilgrim, we cannot change a hardened heart by confrontation; neither can we make a blind man see by command. Thus, we should weep as Jeremiah did “because the Lord’s flock is carried away captive” and the lost are being swept away by the fast-moving currents of sin into a devil’s hell for all eternity.
So weep, dear one, weep. Let the tears of compassion flow freely down your cheeks as you plead as a “dying man to dying men.” But, “do not weep as those who have no hope” (I Thess. 4:13)—for you’re not responsible for their response (Mt. 13:3-9). Just be faithful and the time will come when the prize and crown will be yours (II Tim. 4:8).
Thanks,
Mr. Lynn M. Smith
Department Business Administrator
Department of Economics
204C McElhinney Hall
(713) 743-3802 (office)
(713) 743-3798 (fax)
LSmith20@central.uh.edu (email)
http://www.class.uh.edu/econ/ (department website)
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