'My people hath become lost sheep' (2)

‘My people hath been lost sheep’ (2)

6My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place.
7All that found them have devoured them: and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the LORD, the habitation of justice, even the LORD, the hope of their fathers. (Jerm50:6-7)

Last time we considered God’s people as to their Past; in Jeremiah’s day, as at present God’s redeemed people, had turned away from the mountain of God’s holiness and chose themselves the hills of Secularism. They had separated themselves from the foundation of the Word of God and based their lives on a purely Secular foundation; this was to prove to be a disastrous decision.

The Path that they had chosen was to prove very difficult and treacherous; any path that leads away from the fundamental principles and practices of God’s Word is treacherous in the extreme and will lead to loss and ruin. Secularism always leads society in a downward spiral from the standard of Scriptural truth; this is more particularly so when God’s people become ‘lost sheep’ as they slip away from the ‘Good Shepherd.’

On the path of Secularism, God’s people that have become ‘lost sheep’ are without protection; they quickly become a prey to the lion of compromise and the bear of backsliding. Their testimonies become stained by worldly opinion and soiled by self righteous hypocrisy; they no longer exhibit a Christ likeness, rather they take on the appearance of the unsaved. Of a truth God’s people quickly become ‘lost sheep’ on the barren and ungodly hills of Secularism.

‘All that found them have devoured them:’ the Path that leads from fellowship with God is the same one that leads to defeat and loss. In Jeremiah’s day God’s people were devoured by the enemy; the Assyrians and the Babylonians showed the ‘lost sheep of the house of Israel’ no mercy or compassion; they were swallowed up by the enemy. So today, God’s people that are on the Secular path are having their testimonies and heritage swallowed up by Secular Humanism; what is more alarming, is that they have no power to withstand the present day enemies of the cross of Christ. The reason being, is that they have been discredited and therefore cannot advance an argument based on God’s Word.

‘and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the LORD, the habitation of justice, even the LORD, the hope of their fathers.’ What an awful Path for the ‘lost sheep’ to tread; a Path where their enemies can justify themselves in the sins of God’s people; this is reproach beyond measure, where God’s name is reproached.

Rev Mervyn Cotton (Heb13:6)