Sometimes we just want to hide under a rock, as the saying goes, in order to escape the problems of life. The prophet Jeremiah got to that point in his life. Living in this generation, one can get weary as a Christian. The prophet Jeremiah was sick of the sin of his day and time. His own people, God’s people, had turned against him and the ways of Jehovah.  They had turned into a bunch of adulterous thieves. The church is a place that should be a lodging place for God’s people and wayfaring men and women in this wicked world. We need to make sure it is always there for them.

We live in the midst of a wicked and perverse nation that is no longer seeking the God it once knew. We have turned from him in our homes, our schools, and our government. We used to be a Christian nation and now we are a heathen nation. As God’s people, is our head water and our eyes fountains of tears as we weep for America and the Christian nation it once used to be? We can hardly have a civil discourse any more among our leaders. Many of our churches no longer support what is right, but rather, are only concerned with keeping people happy and never offending them. We need to be the rock people seek when they want to get away and hide from the wickedness of this world.

The house of God needs to be the one place that people can run to when they are in trouble. We need to keep the fires hot, in our preaching and love for one another, so that when sinners show up, they can find comfort and peace in the lodging place God intended for them. The church should be a shelter and a refuge. That is kind of hard to accomplish if God’s people are always fighting and bickering with one another. God wants his people to dwell together in unity. Sometimes that means overlooking one another’s faults and problems, and loving them anyway.  The same could apply to the lodging place of the Christian home. It needs to be a place of shelter and comfort. Husbands and wives should dwell together and love one another. Christ expects a husband to love his wife just like Christ loves his own church. That is an unconditional love without strings attached.

There are not many people that value the truth anymore. It is a lot easier to tell a lie and try to please people with what they want to hear. The problem with this is that it always ends in disaster. People often go from one lie to the next. The issue with lying is you can never just tell one. You need to keep covering for the last lie and that always requires another lie to string a story together. It is better to just tell the truth and move forward. Our churches have become a place of lies, as well. They may not lie in what they say. They may still preach the gospel. What they don’t do is tell the truth and the whole truth. They only preach the parts of the Bible that don’t offend and make their offerings go down. It is a hard thing for a preacher to get up, week after week, and preach the whole counsel of God and have people giving him dirty looks because people don’t read their Bibles. If they did, they would agree with the man of God more. Instead, they shoot the messenger. We, as Christians, need to encourage our Pastor when he puts himself on the line and bears his heart, even when it hurts. It is the only way we are going to stay right with God in these last days. Let’s be valiant for the truth as we move forward; let the church and Christian home be a place of refuge and a hiding place for God’s people in the midst of this wicked and perverse generation.