Month: August 2023

Date: August 30, 2023|Series: Youth for Jesus|Number: Vol. 6, No. 1

“Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came to him, but he gave him trouble instead of help. Ahaz took some of the things from the temple of the LORD and from the royal palace and from the princes and presented them to the king of Assyria, but that did not help him.” (2Chron 28:20-21NIV)

One of the things made abundantly clear to us in Scriptures is that no one can help anyone that God does not help. So, if you want true help about any matter of life, the one you should turn to is God. Otherwise, anyone or anything you turn to for help apart from God may end up making an already bad situation worse for you.

As we see in our opening bible text, there was a time that King Ahaz of Judah turned to the king of the Assyrians, Tiglath-Pileser, for help. Why? He was being attacked by his neighbouring nations from different angles. So, he was losing his people and his territory at a very alarming rate. (Cf. 2Chro 28:5-15)

But why was he losing his people and land in that manner? That was the first question he ought to have asked himself. His father, Jotham, did not lose his people or land at all. Instead, he made them stronger and richer. Also, his grandfather, Uzziah, did not lose his people or land at all. Instead, he made them stronger and richer. (Cf. 2Chro 26-27)

What, then, was his own problem? Why could he not keep what was passed on to him? He could not because he did not take God seriously as did his grandfather and father. Instead of worshiping God, he gave himself to the worship of idols and the practice of divination. Therefore, God withdrew His protection from him and from the land. That, of course, was the reason for his trouble. (Cf. 2Chro 28:1-8)

So, even though Ahaz needed help in order to be saved from his enemies, there was something he needed more than help. And that was repentance. If he had repented and turned back to God, the God of the nation that he was king over, he would have had all the help he needed to defeat his enemies and win his land and people back.

Ahaz, however, was too arrogant to humble himself before God and seek His face. Therefore, he turned to the king of the Assyrians for help. Unfortunately, as we are told in our opening bible text, instead of getting help from this man, all he got from him was trouble. And even though he gave him some of the treasures laid up by his ancestors in the temple of God and in his palace, all he still got from him was trouble.

Eventually, he gave himself to more idolatry and messed up the entire nation even more before his meaningless reign ended.In like manner, there are many like Ahaz today who are going from place to place and people to people for all kinds of assistance or support. But what they need may not just be help but to take God seriously in their lives and stop living according to their own ways. And as long as they do not realise this and act accordingly, any help they find may soon enough prove to be no help at all but trouble.

Then, like Ahaz, there are many all around the world who keep looking for help and solutions to the problems of their lives outside God. And will they get helped? No! Instead, like Ahaz, what they will keep finding are people like Tiglath-Pileser, who will keep taking from them but never giving them anything but trouble.

Now perhaps you already have such people in your life. They keep asking you to give them all kinds of things and taking you to all kinds of places, all in the name of wanting to help you. Yet their help is not forthcoming. If you are not careful, such people will be the ones that will run you dry. Then you will wake up one day and realise that your home, possessions, savings, health and everything else you care for are gone. Yet you have not been helped.

So, stop seeking help where it does not exist. Your help is with only one person. And that person is God. You just need to humble yourself, put your trust in Him and stop relying on your understanding. And He will see to it that you get the right kind of help you need without having to lose your head, sleep, relationships or resources.

Date: August 23, 2023|Series: Youth for Jesus|Number: Vol. 6, No. 15

“The LORD said, “Jeremiah, if you get tired racing against people, how can you race against horses? If you can’t even stand up in open country, how will you manage in the jungle by the Jordan?”” (Jer 12:5GNT)

Those were God’s words to Jeremiah, when he began to question Him about His commitment to giving justice. In Jeremiah’s estimation, the wicked and the faithless in his land were becoming more and more prosperous. And that was happening at the expense of the righteous and godly people in the land.Yet he could not see God doing anything about it. He could not see Him punishing the wicked for their wickedness, dragging them off to be killed or destroyed. So, he got upset and began to take God to task about His justice.

Now when people begin to question God and find fault with Him about His devotion to giving justice here on earth, they may soon enough become part of the wickedness they have been complaining about. This is why Solomon says, “When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong.” (Eccl 8:11NIV)

In other words, when people do not immediately receive due punishments for their wickedness or wrong acts, they will most likely encourage themselves in the practice of wickedness.But then, it is not only those who have been given to wickedness that this may affect. It may also affect those who have been given to righteousness and are looking forward to seeing justice prevail where they are. If they cannot obviously see the wicked being punished by the leadership of where they are, they will expect God to step in and punish them.

And if they wait for a while and can’t also see God punishing them in ways that are obvious to them, they may give up on righteous living and become a part of the problem they used to complain about.Perhaps this is addressing you. Perhaps you too have given up on doing what is right or are about to give up on it because of the injustice you are witnessing everyday where you are.

And that is because you have a feeling that God is helpless or slow or unconcerned, as far as matters concerning justice are concerned. Well, if that is the case, then, you are like Jeremiah of bible days. He too, as I pointed out earlier, at some point felt that God was not showing enough concern, if any at all, about the injustice in his country.

Otherwise, He would have stepped in and begun to judge all those involved. But when God was going to answer him, the response he expected was not what he got. He probably was expecting God to comfort him and tell him to be patient with Him and that He was soon going to do something about the injustice in the land. But God did not say that at all. Instead, as we see in our opening text, He told him to stop being childish and grow up.

According to God, if Jeremiah could not cope in a race with men like himself, how would he cope, if he were to be in a race with horses? Or if he could not cope with life in an open country, how was he going to cope if he were to be dropped off in a jungle? And what did God mean by saying these things? It was that Jeremiah should not use the unjudged injustice in his land as an excuse for misbehaving or abandoning righteous living.

Why? It was because whatever form of unjudged injustice he could see in the land was nothing to compare to what was in existent in some other places. And if he could not cope with it, how would he be able to cope, if he were to find himself in a more wicked place?Now did God say these things to give Jeremiah the feeling that He had no interest in giving justice on earth? No!

Rather, He said it to let him know that whatever form of unjudged wickedness or injustice he saw in the land should not be used by him as an excuse for not doing what was right or for grumbling. As we see in Scriptures, God dispenses justice here on earth every day (Zeph 3:5).

And that it is not obvious to us does not mean that it is not happening. So, we should not use the fact that we have not seen certain acts of wickedness or injustice dealt with as our excuse for giving up on righteous living or for living a life of grumbling.

Instead, we should learn to concentrate on doing the will of God with hearts filled with thanksgiving. That is because regardless of how terrible the injustice or wickedness we see where we are may be, God will have us know that there are places where things are worse. And if we will not learn to take advantage of His grace to deal with whatever evil we are confronted with where we are now, how are we going to survive, if things should get worse there or if we should find ourselves in a worse place?