My God and My Country

Word of God

Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God
Matthew 4:4

 The Book of Daniel 9:13

13 All this plague is come upon us, as it is written in the Law of Moses (See  Deuteronomy 28): yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand thy truth.

Brethren:

Following upon yesterday’s post of meditation we have before us today’s scripture reinforcing it. First, let us understand that God’s word is truth, and wisdom, therefore departure from it leads to all divers of troubles, misfortunes and if continued to a point wherein God looks not with providence and blessings upon us, but instead withdraws His hand and allows us to wallow in our own doings and iniquities.

Penitents should again and again accuse and reproach themselves till they find their hearts thoroughly broken. All Israel have transgressed thy law. It is Israel, God’s professing people, who have known better, and from whom better is expected—Israel, God’s peculiar people, whom he has surrounded with his favours; not here and there one, but it is all Israel, the generality of them, the body of the people, that have transgressed by departing and getting out of the way, that they might not hear, and so might not obey, thy voice. This disobedience is that which all true penitents do most sensibly charge upon themselves: We obeyed not his voice, and we have sinned, we have done wickedly. Those that would find mercy must thus confess their sins (See 1 John 1:9).  Here is a self-abasing acknowledgment of the righteousness of God in all the judgments that were brought upon them; and it is evermore the way of true penitents thus to justify God, that he may be clear when he judges, and the sinner may bear all the blame.

As such we read of Daniel in this chapter praying and admitting:

1. That he acknowledges that it was sin that plunged them in all these troubles. Israel is dispersed through all the countries about, and so weakened, impoverished, and exposed. God’s hand has driven them hither and thither, some near, where they are known and therefore the more ashamed, others afar off, where they are not known and therefore the more abandoned, and it is because of their trespass that they have trespassed; they mingled themselves with the nations that they might be debauched by them, and now God mingles them with the nations that they might be stripped by them.

 2. He owns the righteousness of God in it, that he had done them no wrong in all he had brought upon them, but had dealt with them as they deserved: "O Lord! righteousness belongs to thee; we have no fault to find with thy providence, no exceptions to make against thy judgments, for the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he does, even in the sore calamities we are now under, for we obeyed not the words of his mouth, and therefore justly feel the weight of his hand.” (See Lamentations 1:18). He takes notice of the fulfilling of the scripture in what was brought upon them. In very faithfulness he afflicted them; for it was according to the word which he had spoken. The curse is poured upon us and the oath, that is, the curse that was ratified by an oath in the law of Moses.

3. Likewise this further justifies God in their troubles, that he did but inflict the penalty of the law, which he had given them fair notice of. It was necessary for the preserving of the honour of God’s veracity, and saving his government from contempt, that the threatenings of his word should be accomplished, otherwise they look but as bugbears, nay, they seem not at all frightful. Therefore he has confirmed his words which spoke against us because we broke his laws, and against our judges that judged us because they did not according to the duty of their place punish the breach of God’s laws. He told them many a time that if they did not execute justice, as terrors to evil-workers, he must and would take the work into his own hands; and now he has confirmed what he said by bringing upon us a great evil, in which the princes and judges themselves deeply shared. Note, It contributes very much to our profiting by the judgments of God’s hand to observe how exactly they agree with the judgments of his mouth.

4. He aggravates the calamities they were in, lest they should seem, having been long used to them, to make light of them, and so to lose the benefit of the chastening of the Lord by despising it. "It is not some of the common troubles of life that we are complaining of, but that which has in it some special marks of divine displeasure; for under the whole heaven has not been done as has been done upon Jerusalem,’’ It is in Jeremiah’s lamentation in the name of the church, Was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow? which must suppose another similar question, that is to say was ever sin like unto my sin?

5. Finally in the end he puts shame upon the whole nation, from the highest to the lowest; and if they will say Amen to his prayer, as it was fit they should if they would come in for a share in the benefit of it, they must all put their hand upon their mouth, and their mouth in the dust: "To us belongs confusion of faces as at this day  we lie under the shame of the punishment of our iniquity, for shame is our due.’’ If Israel had retained their character, and had continued a holy people, they would have been high above all nations in praise, and mane, and honour (See Deuteronomy 26:19 ); but now that they have sinned and done wickedly confusion and disgrace belong to them, to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the inhabitants both of the country and of the city, for they have been all alike guilty before God; it belongs to all Israel, both to the two tribes, that are near, by the rivers of Babylon, and to the ten tribes, that are afar off, in the land of Assyria. "Confusion belongs not only to the common people of our land, but to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, who should have set a better example, and have used their authority and influence for the checking of the threatening torrent of vice profaneness

Yet here is the good news; the errand upon which afflictions are sent is to bring men to turn from their iniquities and to understand God’s truth; so Elihu had explained them,(See Job. 36:10) . God by them opens men’s ears to discipline and commands that they return from iniquity. And if men were brought rightly to understand God’s truth, and to submit to the power and authority of it, they would turn from the error of their ways. Now the first step towards this is to make our prayer before the Lord our God, that the affliction may be sanctified before it is removed, and that the grace of God may go along with the providence of God, to make it answer the end. Those who in their affliction make not their prayer to God, who cry not when he binds them, are not likely to turn from iniquity or to understand his truth.