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For her wound is incurable; for it is come unto Judah; he is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem. — Micah 1:9 | King James Version (KJV) The King James Version Bible is in the public domain. Cross References: 2 Kings 18:13; Isaiah 3:26; Isaiah 8:7-8; Jeremiah 15:18; Jeremiah 30:12; Jeremiah 30:15

#the ruin of Samaria #impenitence #sin #Judah #Micah 1:9 #Book of Micah #Old Testament #KJV #Holy Bible #King James Version

Darkness

by William Jay

"Give glory to Yahweh your God before he brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the twilight mountains, and while you look for light he turns it into gloom and makes it deep darkness." - Jeremiah 13:16

The removal of the gospel is darkness. The gospel will never be removed from the world but it may be withdrawn from a particular place or people. And this has been done. The Jews are an eminent example. The kingdom of God was taken from them. And when we consider the miracles, the institutions, the privileges by which they were distinguished and see how they were all laid waste, well may the apostle say, "Behold the severity of God; and if he spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not you." Where now are the seven churches in Asia? Where is the famous church of Rome whose faith was spoken of throughout the whole world? At present, you have the inestimable benefit. Be not as the swine who knows not the value of the pearl and therefore tramples it underfoot. What wonder if the manna should be taken away when you despise it as light food? And what if the Lord should send a famine in the land--not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord? Then we shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it. Give glory to the Lord your God before he brings darkness.

Impenitence is darkness. A man may be surrounded with food, yet he dies if he cannot use and digest it. The means of grace may remain, yet we become incapable of deriving benefit from them. It is an awful fact that God punishes one sin by another, and judicially blinds those who provoke him. Because they do not like to retain him in their knowledge, he gives them up to a reprobate mind. Because they receive not the love of the truth in order that they may be saved, he sends them strong delusion to believe a lie. They are joined to idols, and he leaves them alone. They delight in error, and they find it. They seek objections to the faith once delivered to the saints, and they are overcome by them. They trifle with the gospel, and at length they cannot seriously regard it or feel any impression under it. Thus is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says, "By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive." Give glory to the Lord your God before he brings darkness.

Public calamity is darkness. Was not the bondage in Babylon darkness to the Jews when their country--the glory of all lands--was desolated and they were carried away captives and oppressed as slaves, when they were insulted as a proverb and a by-word? And would not national distress be darkness to us? Some effects of this we have experienced, but how inconsiderable have they yet been compared with the sufferings of other countries, or with our own deserts. And is there no danger of greater? If God has a controversy with us, it is in vain to argue; we must submit. If he is provoked and determined to punish, vain is the authority of rulers, the wisdom of statesmen, the courage of warriors. "But he has a people among us," you say. He has; and he will take care of his own. He can secure them and destroy others. But even they themselves may help forward or even occasion the calamity, for no sins offend him like those of his own people. Give glory to the Lord your God before he brings darkness.

The loss of reason is darkness. And how soon may the understanding be eclipsed! How easily may the slender and mysterious basis on which intellect rests be destroyed! See Nebuchadnezzar eating grass like an ox. See the philosopher moping in driveling idiocy. Religion can only operate through the medium of thought; and therefore, while you have your mental powers, employ them lest darkness come upon you.

The loss of health is darkness. Is it nothing to be made to possess months of vanity or to have wearisome nights appointed us? Yet in this season many suspend an attention to the concerns of religion. When thought is broken to pieces and every avenue to the soul is occupied with the anguish of disease and the anxieties of recovery, surely sufficient for that day is the evil thereof. Use your health while you have it, lest darkness come upon you. The same applies to age. Then desire fails, the grasshopper is a burden, sight and hearing, memory and judgment decline. "Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, while the evil days come not nor the years draw nigh when you shall say "I have no pleasure in them."

Death is darkness. Then you must give up your employments however interesting, your possessions however valued, your connections however endeared, your religious advantages however important. Stripped and silent you must retire into the gloom of the grave. This darkness is certain; it cannot be remote, it may be close at hand. There may be but a step between me and death before I go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death.

Hell is darkness - outer darkness - where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. The dreadfulness of this state it is impossible either to describe or imagine. But we know that it is possible to escape it. We also know that the present is the only opportunity. Behold, now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation. Give glory to the Lord your God before he brings darkness.

Blessed be God for his long-suffering goodness and his warning mercy. He might justly have spared his words and come instantly to blows. But he speaks before he strikes, and he threatens that he may not destroy. May the kind alarm awaken our fear, and may our fear produce flight; and may we flee for refuge to the hope set before us, even Jesus, who delivers from the wrath to come.

#Darkness #Jeremiah 13:16 #William Jay #God #longsuffering #goodness #death #silent #grave #The Gospel #glory #The Lord #Impenitence #righteous judgment

Worldly Pollution

by Aiden Wilson Tozer

What, then, is that world against which we are warned by the apostles? That world whose friendship constitutes spiritual adultery, the love of which stands in opposition to the love of God?

It is the familiar world of sinful human society which swells about and beneath us as the waters of the flood once surged and churned around the ark of Noah. No Christian need fail to recognize it, provided he wants to know what it is and where it is located. Here are a few infallible marks of identification:

1. Unbelief. Wherever men refuse to come under the authority of the inspired Scriptures, there is the world. Religion without the Son of God is worldly religion. To have fellowship with those who live in unbelief is to love the world. The Christian's communion should be with Christians.

2. Impenitence. The people of the world will readily admit that they are sinners, but their lack of sorrow for sin distinguishes them from the children of God. The Christian mourns over his sin and is comforted. The worldling shrugs off his sin and continues in it.