My
desire to bring Thee honour
Is
as wide and deep as the river;
My
wish to be holy,
As
the waves of the sea.
My
longing for Thy presence
Is
like the thorn of a bloody rose;
Aching,
I yearn
To
be gathered home to Thee.
My
quest for righteous deeds to be
As
the shore’s innumerable sand;
To
see Thee holding the affections of my heart
In
the hollow of Thy hand.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
No
other book of scripture highlights the mercy of Christ as does the Old
Testament. Most people will challenge this thought saying that honour belongs
to the New Testament due to the account of the Saviour’s Atonement.
The
Old Testament is my book. It is the root of the covenant of God with His
people. A covenant He has sworn He will never break (see Deuteronomy 4:31;
Leviticus 26:44,46; Isaiah 49:15,16; 2 Kings 13:23). Over and over Jehovah
worked with His prophets to preserve His people, to declare His undying love,
and to make promises of restitution no matter how far they stray.
And
stray they did and earned themselves the name of ‘backsliding Israel’ (Jeremiah
3:6,8,11,12,14,22; 31:22; 49:4; Hosea 4:16; 11:7; 14:4). Using the imagery of
marriage, Israel became a ‘harlot’ who had betrayed her love for her husband,
‘upon every high mountain and under every green tree’….. (Jeremiah 3:6). For
this unfaithfulness Israel paid a high price of bondage but even then only the
promised mercy of her God will bring her back to His fold:
“For
I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee: though I make a full end of all
nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee:
but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether
unpunished.” ( Jeremiah 30:11).
And
herein lies the lesson of futile idolatry for which Israel rejected the Holy
One: “All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have
[caused thee to be wounded] with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement
of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity…..” (Jeremiah 30:14b)
And
then the sting of payment for their sin with a hope of healing : “…thy bruise
is not incurable, although thy wounds are grievous. Is there none to plead thy
cause, that thou mayest be bound up? Hast thou no healing medicine?.... Is thy
sorrow incurable?” (JST Jeremiah 30:12,13,15)
“….because thy sins were increased, I have
done these things unto thee….but all they that devour thee shall be devoured;
and all thine adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity…For I
WILL restore health unto thee, and I WILL heal thee of thy wounds…the whirlwind
of the Lord shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked…..And ye shall be
my people, and I will be your God” (Jeremiah 30:16,17,22,23)
When
will this healing and restoration happen? Over two millennia after the promise….when
the lessons have been learnt, the price for disobedience paid and a willingness
to repent born…’when He has performed the intents of his heart….in the latter
days when they shall fully understand this’ (v 23,24; see also 2 Nephi 25:8-11).
And
this is the lesson that they need to understand….every disobedience carries
with it consequences. Yes the mercy and deliverance will come but after many
wars, captivity and sorrow…..the experience of consequences crucial towards
repentance, a broken heart and a contrite spirit for the restorative power of mercy
is only offered to the penitent (Alma 42:24,25). It’s something all of us need
to remember.
There
is a prevalent belief in Christendom today that Christ is all about love and
mercy and that is true but this love and mercy is not freely given because no
man can be saved in his sins. He can only be saved from them. If he was saved
prematurely in them, without repentance, he would continue to sin and the mercy
would be of no benefit.
The
Kingdom of Judah proved that they were not ready for the Saviour’s mercy to
deliver them from the dominance of their enemies. When he manifested himself to
them in the flesh, they rejected him “because of their iniquities, and the
hardness of their hearts, and the stiffness of their necks” and they crucified
Him instead (2 Nephi 25:12,13). The salvation was offered but the repentance was
still in embryo, unborn…the lesson of bondage and the loss of freedom not yet fully
learnt and so it continues to this day with the price of hatred, killing and
wars.
Because
they despised the Holy One of Israel they have wandered in the flesh and perished,
and become a hiss and a byword and been hated among all nations…but He will
remember His covenants which he made to their fathers when they no more turn
their hearts against him (1 Nephi 19:14,15)
As Israel, we have trodden worldly paths
That have left us battered, scarred,
And parched in search of love.
Our lovers were many but
Our hearts were empty.
At long last
We embrace the love that lasts,
We prepare for the wedding feast
And abandon our treacherous past.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
As I awoke this morning, a
question came into my awareness: what would I like to wake up to every morning?
Immediately a barrage of rosy answers came to mind: a body without pain, no difficulties
that need to be addressed, something nice to eat without guilt, something
pleasant to look forward to, no retrospection, no self-judgment, no regrets, in
short, a much better life than what I have. I knew deep down, what I wanted was
peace and that peace could be obtained in a much shorter way – compliance to
this world of opposites.
And this world of opposites is
what I battle with each day. I have done so for most of my life. The tragedy
lies in the difference of time. When I was in my young adult years, I could
balance the down moments with single pleasures like the pages of the latest
book I adored or an uplifting movie within my sights or a visit with a friend.
I was full of idealism then. I knew that one day I would ride off into the
sunset on a white steed with a man of my dreams. Today I re-assess my life a
lot and wonder why I made the choices I made which have brought me to the
difficulties I face each day. The idealism has evaporated into realism I struggle
with.
A glimmer of delight amidst the
gloom: when I awoke this morning, I was greeted with “Good morning” in the
recesses of my mind. You will think I am crazy but I know that God spoke to me
this morning. A simple hullo to greet the day I know is going to be far from
perfection I would like. This hullo, however, is a reminder to me that I have earned
the attention of Him who understands me like no one else does. I often feel
judged and misunderstood by my peers. It’s part of my personality. It has made
me recede into myself in this last part of my journey. My greatest critic is myself….but God deems me
worthy of a ‘good morning’ so today I am grateful for that…..
As
the sun bursts through the morning light
It
reveals You in the depths of my heart.
Gratitude
overwhelms me
For
Thy enduring patience
Of
my inconsistent delight;
My
erratic trust,
My
feeble faith in Thy might.
I
marvel You wait
In
the shadow of my stubborn heart
And
reach out to me in mercy
to
fulfil Thy part.
Perhaps equal to Jeremiah’s personal suffering at the hands of his enemies and tormentors was his burden of living amongst continual wickedness which was indescribable but people prospered and there was peace, until Jehovah saw fit to send Babylon....and the kingdom of Judah was devoured before Jeremiah’s eyes in 587 B.C.
What caught my eye one day as I was studying Jeremiah was this: Jeremiah became so oppressed by wickedness around him that he complained to the Lord and asked how much longer will he allow this wickedness to persist and the unrighteous to prosper (Jeremiah 12:1-4). It reminded me of Jonah who attempted to escape his calling to preach to wicked Nineveh. So incensed was he at their wickedness which surpassed any of the ancient world, that he felt they did not deserve a second chance, which he knew God’s mercy would afford them should they repent (Jonah 4:2).
In short, the wicked Nineveh did repent and was given almost 100 years more to prove their repentance. That repentance didn’t last. What it proved instead is that God is a God of long-suffering but long-suffering does not mean ‘never’. The destruction of Nineveh was colossal. We will visit that chapter when we study the book of Nahum. Nineveh and the destruction of the Assyrian empire is also a lesson in God’s justice. A huge lesson…..
Our world is getting insanely wicked. Many of us have wondered how much worse it has to get before the Saviour comes and puts an end to the madness. Like to Jeremiah, to some of us our present world seems unbearable. And here is where the similarity between Jeremiah's world and ours lies....the Lord replied to Jeremiah's impatience by asking him if he can't bear it whilst there was relative peace, how will he ever survive when things got worse (Jeremiah 12:1-4)? Like Jeremiah's world, our world will get worse....until He comes. And when He comes, it will not be pretty:
1. Mountains will flow
down at His presence (D&C 133:40; Micah 1:4)
2. The waters on the
earth will boil (D&C 133:41)
3. All nations will
tremble at His presence (D&C 133:42)
4. The sun will hide,
the moon will withhold its light, and the stars will be hurled from their
places (D&C 133:49)
5. The wicked will be burned by the brightness of fire of the glory of the Lord (Malachi 4:1-3; 2 Thessalonians 2:8)
It is now time to become people of valour so that we can endure whatever more is to come....and more will come until the Saviour deems we are ripe for destruction. Now more than ever we need to strengthen our faith in God to be able to endure the oppression, the persecution, the lack of freedoms, increased wickedness and injustice, all of which is coming our way.
In answer to Jeremiah's lament about
the situation of his day, the Lord clearly shows how long-suffering He is in
the midst of human corruption. It would seem He allows us to get to the utmost
worst until the day of reckoning to give as many as possible the chance to
repent and turn to Him. May we recognise and acknowledge His mercy, His
patience, His love, His tolerance, His long-suffering and most importantly, His
saving power trailing from the cross of Calvary, sealed with His hour of agony….
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
My
life is a bag of choices I dare to make,
A
dream of perfection eluding me still.
I
grope in darkness
Hoping
my choices are pleasing to Thee;
And
when I leave this weak and mortal shell
And
kneel on hallowed ground at Thy feet,
I will cry to Thee, my Lord and my God,
Forgive
my reckless sins a thousand tears deep.
-
Cathryne Allen
The
tragic dispersion of the House of Israel is also a message of love. It stands
as a monument of God's infinite mercy towards His children and his undying love
for even the vilest sinner who He longs to see return to Him. Even though the
Kingdom of Judah got what it deserved, they are not forever abandoned for the
Lord made them a promise through Jeremiah that He will visit them after seventy
years of bondage and cause them to return to Jerusalem (Jeremiah 29:11-13)
This
promise was fulfilled by Cyrus, the Great….the King of
Persia, who conquered Babylon in 539 B.C., and inherited the exiled Jews. He
was raised for such a purpose by Jehovah himself, who called him ‘my shepherd’
and ‘my anointed’ (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1-4).
The God of
Israel worked with this man to ensure he fulfilled his purpose and this was
it….not to free the captive Israel for the sake of freedom but to send them
back to Jerusalem to build His temple (Isaiah 44:28). Jehovah was calling His people to return to
Him….it is in the temple that they would once again raise their right hand to
the covenant they had forsaken and would receive a second chance (Isaiah
44:20).
That second
chance didn’t last. The second temple was built and lasted until 70 A.D. when
Titus, the Roman Emperor, sacked Jerusalem and dispersed Judah into all the
nations of the earth. But before that tragedy, the Messiah himself appeared and
prophesied of this fall in his Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:1-2; Mark 13:1-2;
Luke 21:20-21). Yet another chance for salvation in vain. But Messiah’s mercy
endures forever….
On 22
February 1879, Elder Wilford Woodruff, issued an epistle to the world and
addressed himself to the dispersed of Judah in this dispensation:
“For the
fulness of the Gentiles has come in, and the Lord has decreed that the Jews
should be gathered from all the Gentile nations where they have been driven,
into their own land, in fulfilment of the words of Moses their lawgiver. And
this is the will of our great Eloheim, O house of Judah, and whenever you shall
be called upon to perform this work, the God of Israel will help you.
“You have a
great future and destiny before you and you cannot avoid fulfilling it; you are
the royal chosen seed, and the God of your father’s house has kept you distinct
as a nation for eighteen hundred years, under all the oppression of the whole
Gentile world. You may not wait until you believe on Jesus of Nazareth, but
when you meet with Shiloh your king, you will know him; your destiny is marked
out, you cannot avoid it.
“It is true
that after you return and gather your nation home, and rebuild your City and
Temple, that the Gentiles may gather together their armies to go against you to
battle, to take you a prey and to take you as a spoil, which they will do, for
the words of your prophets must be fulfilled, but when this affliction comes,
the living God, that led Moses through the wilderness, will deliver you, and
your Shiloh will come and stand in your midst and will fight your battles; and
you will know him, and the afflictions of the Jews will be at an end…..and all
will be fulfilled, according to the sayings of Ezekiel, Zechariah, and other
prophets. Though the heavens and the earth pass away, not one jot or tittle
will fall unfulfilled.” (in Matthias F.
Cowley, Wilford Woodruff, pp 509-10)
The
gathering of Israel has begun in earnest and the mighty promise by Ezekiel is
being fulfilled. The fulfilment of this promise began when the Saviour saw His
people with compassion ‘because they were as sheep not having a shepherd’ and
He fed them with loaves and fishes in symbolism of their return to the
mountains of Israel where they will be fed forevermore:
“For thus
saith the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep and seek them
out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep
that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep and will deliver them out of
all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.
“And I will
bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will
bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the
rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country.
“I will
feel them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their
fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they
feed upon the mountains of Israel…..I will seek that which was lost and bring
again that which was driven away….” (Ezekiel 34:11-16)
Compassion rent His godly heart
When He saw His scattered sheep,
Upon the high mountains of Israel
Running to His shelter,
His promise for Him to keep.
A promise He would honour
That His lost sheep He would find,
Upon the high mountains of Israel
That heartless shepherds left behind.
So His promise He valiantly fulfilled
As His sheep sat hungry on Bethsaida’s
hill,
And fed upon the loaves and fishes
That multiplied upon His will.
(Mark 6:33-44)
-
CATHRYNE ALLEN
My heart overflows with gratitude
For my darkest nights
Because they bring You to me
Flowing like a river with its strongest might.
I bask in Your presence,
I surrender my soul,
I am grounded in Your strength
I am strong enough to carry on.
- Cathryne Allen
