Be Hopeful!

Times were tough in Judah, very tough, when the prophet Jeremiah lived. The nation’s moral and spiritual condition offended God, and her enemy was poised to strike and destroy her. Appalled by what he saw around him and alarmed by the disaster that lay ahead, Jeremiah told it like it was. Understandably, his heart ached, but he preached through his tears and acquired the nickname, “the weeping prophet.”

Political and religious leaders despised Jeremiah’s messages. They would have preferred feel-good, lighthearted messages. They certainly didn’t want to hear the nation had offended God and would soon suffer the heavy consequences of her sinning. Is history repeating itself? How popular are the few truth-sayers who contradict today’s smooth-sayers?

Let’s face it, our nation needs a moral and spiritual revival, and those of us who are willing to admit this fact may need an infusion of hope—not the Washington brand of hope but the biblical kind. We need the kind of hope that Jeremiah maintained in the bleakest period of Judah’s history. He announced to his countrymen: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is in the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when the heat comes, but his leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit” (Jeremiah 17:7, 8).

Down with despair! Up with hope!