Running with the Horses

For the last few years, I have asked the Lord, at the beginning of each year to give me a scripture for the year ahead. This year He gave me Jeremiah 12:5. Jeremiah had been told by the Lord to go and proclaim to the people of Jerusalem and Judah that they had broken the covenant that He had made with them when He had brought them out of the land of Egypt (Jeremiah 11:6-8). So, because of their disobedience, He was now going to bring His judgment against them (verse 11).

The outcome of the message that Jeremiah gave was that the people turned against him and started plotting to kill him (verses 18-19). Although the Lord promised to protect Jeremiah, and deal with the plotters, we find that Jeremiah was still unhappy that these evil men were prospering (Chapter 12). This is when the Lord spoke the above verse to Jeremiah, “If racing against mere men makes you tired, how will you race against horses? If you stumble and fall on open ground, what will you do in the thickets of the Jordan?” The Lord was saying to Jeremiah that, if what he had been through had wearied him, how was he going to manage when things got more difficult?

Here in the UK, I see that, over the past fifty years, there has been a turning away from the Lord and a slow erosion of God’s laws. Quite understandably, like Jeremiah’s reaction to the situation in his time, many believers today are becoming wearied by what is happening. But I think that things are going to become even more ungodly. The Lord is warning us now, ahead of time, that we need to prepare ourselves for what lies ahead. I beleive it won’t be long before we will have to choose between obeying the Lord or the government.

After the healing of a lame man, Peter and John were put into prison by the religious leaders, interrogated, and commanded not to speak or teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, ‘“Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak about the things which we have seen and heard”’ (Acts 4:18-20).

We need to press into the Lord now, and remember what the Lord said, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).