February 17, 2017 (Friday)
A recycling worker in Canada recently discovered a cash box in an old TV scheduled for recycling. He opened the box and found stacks of $50 bills amounting to $100,000.00! The owner of the T.V. said he had owned the TV set for 30 years. It had been given to him by another man, now 68 years old, who said he forgot about the money.
There is a verse of scripture that asks, “Does a young woman forget her jewelry, a bride her wedding ornaments?” (Jeremiah 2:32a NIV). The implication of the question is that such a situation is virtually impossible. She would never forget. But the verse goes on:
“Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number” (Jeremiah 2:32b NIV). Such was Israel’s sad estate in Jeremiah’s day. A people whose one claim to greatness and fame was their faith, had forgotten about God.
Jeremiah was not the only prophet who grieved over the sins of his nation. I think of Hosea, who spoke of God as a father, who was saddened and appalled by the behavior of his people, and said of them: “I myself taught Israel how to walk, leading him along by the hand. But he doesn’t know or even care that it was I who took care of him” (Hosea 11:3 NLT).
George Washington, first president and “Father of our Country,” said, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.” And he said, “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.”
It makes no sense to forget $100,000 in a box. It makes less sense for a nation to forget God.