Lamentations & Ezekiel

Lamentations & Ezekiel is what I'm reading today.  I have my coffee beside me and I'm ready to blog a little.  Lamentations means weeping and it is a short book of Jeremiah's weeping over Israel.  Ezekiel is not my favorite book, but it has all throughout it verses that speak to you.  The general theme is judgment on the nations, but there are rays of blessing scattered throughout.  Let me show you some: 1) SOLITARY CITY-  Lam. 1:1- "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!"  Jeremiah weeps for his city that has been taken into captivity and few are now left in the city.  It sets solitary!  2) THE WEEPING PROPHET- Jeremiah is the weeping prophet, and Lamentations is where he shows his tears: 1:16 "For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water,"; 2:11 "Mine eyes do fail with tears,"; 3:48 "Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water"; 3:49 "Mine eye trickleth down and ceaseth not."  He wept for His city.  Perhaps it would do us well to weep for our nation sometime.  Just maybe. 3) TURN BACK TO GOD- This is the message of Lamentations as Jeremiah weeps for them.  In Lam. 3:40, it says: "Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD."  What a good message for our nation, and for us today as well.  Let us search our ways, and then decide to turn to the LORD!!  4) SOUL WARNING!  We go soul-winning when we tell people about Christ in hopes of seeing them trust the Savior, but in reality, we are only responsible to warn them or to share the Gospel.  The response is between them and God.  Ezekiel 3:17-19 tells us that.  It also tells us that if we fail to warn them, their blood is upon our hands!! 5) GOD KNOWS HIS OWN!  Ezekiel 9:4 says he will set "a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof."  vs. 4  God knows who we are and where we are, and even in times of judgment, He will be with His own!   Hope you have a blessed day!  May God bless.  Pastor Mike Mutchler