the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Our Daily Homily - Volume 3
Jeremiah 27:8—The nation... which will not serve the king of Babylon, will I punish.
It may be that, like the people of Israel, you have grossly sinned and violated the bonds of holy fellowship and relationship with God. The result of this not improbably has been some form of chastisement and disaster, which lies heavily on your life. This is what the invasion of the king of Babylon was to Israel and the surrounding nations. Now learn from these striking words that your best attitude is one of humble and reverent submission. Put your neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon. When Samuel told Eli the inevitable results of his negligence to correct and restrain his son, the old man said, "It is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth Him good." Through the infliction of his troubles he discerned the right-ordering and permissive providence of God.
So let it be with you. Accept the deserved chastisement, remembering that "whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. Look beyond the pride and cruelty of man to the permissive providence of your heavenly Father. Set yourself to learn and take well to heart the lessons of the present discipline. It is for a limited period. Do you feel that men meanwhile are going beyond their rights? Avenge not yourself; give place before their wrath; leave the matter with God; vengeance is his—He will recompense.
"To confess ignorance," says a great preacher, "to confess wrong, to admit incapacity, to decline a reputation to which we have no right—these things, and others of the same kind, are often hard and painful, but they are always of the greatest possible value in bracing the character."
