WEEPING HEARTS
“Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and because you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I Myself have heard you . . . “ (2 Kings 22:19). We read this Scripture in our Family Devotions this morning. It’s the story of when they found the “book of the law” and read it to king Josiah. When the king heard God’s Word and His judgments upon the sin in the land, he wept and tore his clothes.
I feel very convicted about the state of my own heart. We face the same evils in our land today that were happening in Israel. What is our response? Do we just carry on as usual? Or do we have soft, tender, and broken hearts about the sin in the land? I am horrified about the same sex marriage law. I get on my knees and cry out to God. But I have to admit I haven’t torn my clothes. Do I really see sin like God sees it?
It seems that God is getting at me. I also read these Scriptures over the weekend:
Psalm 119:53: “HORROR has taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law.”
Psalm 119: 136: “RIVERS OF WATER run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law.”
Psalm 119:158: “I beheld the transgressors, and was GREIEVED; because they kept not thy word.”
Romans 12:9: “ABHOR that which is evil.” (“Abhor” in the Greek means to ‘SHUDDER WITH HORROR.”
I know this is not a nice, comforting post, but we must get down to reality. If we as God’s people are not mightily affected by the sin in the land, if our hearts are not grieved to tears, if we don’t shudder with horror at evil, and if we are not concerned enough to cry out to God repentance, we not much different from the world (Jeremiah 10:25).
Are our hearts hardened because we are so used to the sin and worldliness all around us? Or do we have soft, tender hearts. My continual cry is that God will keep me walking in the fear of the Lord with a weeping heart over sin (in my own life, in my family, in the church, and in the nation).
My prayer for you and me,
Nancy Campbell
A few more Scriptures to ponder: 2 Chronicles 7:14; Ezra 9:1-3; Isaiah 66:2; Jeremiah 9:17-21; Ezekiel 9:4; Amos 5:15; Joel 2:16-18; James 4:8-10; and 1 Peter 1:17.
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