Click above to watch video.
OR
Click below to play audio and read along.
Hello, my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends on this second day of 2025.
While some people will make these first few days of January a long holiday week in starting their new year, for many parts of our world life will try to get back to some degree of normalcy today. How about for you, my friend? Do you get the sense that 2025 will bring in a very different, ‘new normal’ for our world and especially America? I wonder what you anticipate 2025 will be like in your city, your extended family, your part of the world? If you had to list 5 major events which will shape our world in 2025, I wonder what those five events would be?
You know that I look to God’s Word the Bible to help us find our guidance in life, and so I invite you to join me again in a place that is in our modern news almost every day… Israel, specifically Jerusalem. I was there only one month before the October 7th, 2023, attack by Hamas. So, let’s go to Jerusalem today in the Bible, about 2600 years ago.
Believe it or not, life would be quite similar in Jerusalem then as it is now, because then as now Jerusalem lived with great anxiety about surrounding enemy nations. Then as now, those enemies of the Jewish people wanted Jews dead or captured and schemes for the elimination of Israel were constantly bringing danger. The Bible books of Kings & Chronicles trace the story of Israel from the days of King Saul, Israel’s first king through the division of Israel into two kingdoms, (1 Kings 12) with the northern kingdom retaining the name Israel and its capital city Samria, and the southern kingdom Judah with its capital city Jerusalem.
Many times, God defended His people Israel against the attacks of enemy nations (2 Chronicles 20), but God also sent prophets to warn the Jewish nation that they should remain faithful to God alone and not allow their hearts to be drawn away from God either into secularism (eliminating God from society) or adopting the wicked idol worship of nations around them.
2600 years ago, God was speaking to His Jewish people primarily through the prophet Jeremiah. King Josiah and 30 years of God’s blessing had ceased with Josiah’s death and the final, tumultuous years of the nation of Israel were beginning with widespread spiritual and moral darkness over Jerusalem and the Jewish people.
Hope was dissipating, replaced with great anxiety, fear and near despair. Corruption was spreading in Jerusalem leadership. In God’s view, the sin of Jerusalem was overshadowing great days of the past. Let’s return there as Jeremiah proclaims words to Jerusalem 2600 years ago, which are also for our day today, no matter where you live in the world.
Jeremiah 5:1,2 God said to His people: “Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her city squares. If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city. Although the people say ‘As surely as the LORD lives, still they swear falsely…”
Does that sound familiar? Do you remember when God sent angels to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham engaged in negotiations with God for the cities, eventually arriving at God making this statement: “for the sake of 10 righteous people I will not destroy the city…” (Gen. 18:32) Alas, wicked Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for even with Lot and all his family there were not 10 honorable people in Sodom!
Now, what if God walked with you around your city, stopping in businesses and schools, the police department and government offices, how many people would God view as honest, truthful people in your town? What if God did that in Washington DC or Moscow or Beijing or Mexico City or Tokyo or Toronto or Paris or Berlin or Oslo or your town? What, therefore, are the implications for you and me?
Listen to one of my favorite statements God made through Isaiah the prophet which predicted a day when people saved by the Lord Jesus Christ would impact their cities: “They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of His splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.” (Is. 61:3,4) So what is God predicting should be the impact and influence of His people in cities all around the world? Do you see this reality in your city? Will you, in 2025, live for the display of God’s splendor?
Let’s pause right here and ponder the very powerful truth of Jeremiah 5:1,2 and consider what God sees in your city, your nation and what God is expecting from those who claim to be HIS people in those cities?
Would you be courageous enough to ask God to show you what HE sees as HE surveys your city and the moral and spiritual condition of your city? And what does God see as HE looks at every church in your city? What does God foresee for 2025 in your city and your role in your city? Here’s a worship song to help us consider this staggering word from God to us through Jeremiah:
Today’s Scripture: Jeremiah 5:1-2.
Choose below to read or listen.
 |  |
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
Archived back issues of “Walking with Jesus” and other resources are available by clicking here to open our ‘home page’ (or go to HOME at upper right of this page).
Share with friends. Subscribe below for daily “Walking with Jesus”.