I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Jeremiah 4-6.

    The passage begins with Jeremiah predicting the coming destruction of Jerusalem. He writes of people who, rather than mourn and turn to God, attempt to act as if all is well as disaster overtakes them. Then he goes into the cause of the coming destruction. God sought honest people among the people of Jerusalem and did not find them. The same warning applies to us today. Honesty is no longer practiced. When you look among the poor and downtrodden you do not find it, but perhaps that can be understood because they have so little. The poor see themselves as having nothing to gain from honesty and do not understand the connection between it and success. So, you look among the wealthy and the leaders, but there we do not find honesty either. They believe that they can lie and cheat because no one can hold them to account.

    How did it come to this state? Jeremiah provides the answer to that as well. People became obsessed with sex. They have turned away from God and rejected His decrees because they did not like what God said. Look at our society, you can no longer tell people that God’s commands about how we exercise our sexuality are for our benefit. God does not tell us to refrain from adultery and homosexuality in order to limit our pleasure. He does so in order to enhance our joy. God does not tell us to be upright and honest to limit our opportunities for advancement. He does so because an upright and honest life is more fulfilling than any other kind. More importantly, a society which values and honors the upright and honest, where the majority follow that lifestyle, is more prosperous and powerful than one where everyone seeks to deceive others for their personal benefit.

    If you look around the evidence is everywhere that those who live by God’s commands are better off than those who do not. If you listen to people talk you can hear that most of their troubles in life come from not following God’s guidelines. Yet despite this, people do not see it and they do not hear it. Time and again people come to the crossroads where they must choose their way.
“Choose the old way, the godly way,” they are told.
“No,” they reply, “we want something new and different.”
People keep telling us that we need to change with the times, but they fail to recognize that change for change’s sake is not a good thing. All too often, I see people refuse to change sinful behaviors, but reject godliness because it is old-fashioned. The godly way may be old-fashioned, but it is proven to lead to happiness.