Some of us are aware of the slavery to a digital/AI control that is slowly being implemented. This is part of the idolatry of our day. People are listening to false prophets telling them not to worry about it... that it's normal and that life is actually better with these idols.
Talk to Siri.
Talk to Alexa.
"Hey, Google."
Stare at your phone to pass the time and answer your questions.
These are NOT better.
Today's idolatries are sins that are being added to other sins our culture adopts as it removes God.
The church, as a whole, refuses to separate themselves from dependencies on godless media in general. They don't know that they are led by what they hear and see. They don't know that what they daily do IS worship. What they daily do affects what they talk about and what they believe.
Other masters are looming on the horizon to take over America. The first assault has already swept through our nation. The majority of the population has been pierced and their babies slain through abortion, miscarriages caused by poisons hidden in many and varied ways, and by vaccines. Still, God calls for His people to stop and look to HIM. And YET, people want their 'normal'. And, as in Jeremiah's day and even Paul's day, it's the women who are most adamant. The men cave to comfort. People think it has been the vaccines and medicine and science that has kept America a first-world civilization. But it wasn't. These things have all turned us away from God to the gods that regulate them and yet God's people follow them religiously. There is now only a remnant left who haven't compromised with the gods of our age.
Some of us talk about fleeing America. But where would we go?
The thing to do is to pray for mercy and obey God from NOW... even if we wake up to realize we have already become slaves.
"Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. (But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.)...
You were bought with a price...
So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God."
(1 Corinthians 7:20-21, 23-24 ESV)
God's people need to set all their 'normal' aside and make God GOD of their lives.
To the remnant of God's people left in Israel in Jeremiah's day after the first wave of consequences for the nation's disobedience, Jeremiah's told the people...
“Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your plea for mercy before Him: 'If you will remain in this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plant you, and not pluck you up...
Do not fear the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid. Do not fear him,' declares the Lord, 'for I am with you, to save you and to deliver you from his hand. I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you and let you remain in your own land. But if you say, "We will not remain in this land," disobeying the voice of the Lord your God and saying, "No, we will go to the land of Egypt, where we shall not see war or hear the sound of the trumpet or be hungry for bread, and we will dwell there," then hear the word of the Lord, O remnant of Judah.' Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: 'If you set your faces to enter Egypt and go to live there, then the sword that you fear shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine of which you are afraid shall follow close after you to Egypt, and there you shall die... by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. They shall have no remnant or survivor from the disaster that I will bring upon them."
(Jeremiah 42:9-17 ESV)
Running or hiding should be done according to God's directive. If God hasn't given direction, then we should serve Him faithfully where we are... COURAGEOUSLY.
But, just as in Jeremiah's day, many of God's people want to run here and there for SELF-sufficiency and some people just want to maintain their 'normal'.
The king Jeremiah warned knew what was right. He even secretly called on Jeremiah for prayer and counsel. However, the king gave more deference to those influencing him than to the word of God to HIM and said, "...the king can do nothing against...”, and then he surrendered to the opinions of those he allowed to influence him.
(Jeremiah 38:5 ESV)
"...King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to make a proclamation of liberty to them, that everyone should set free his Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should enslave a Jew, his brother. And they obeyed, all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant that everyone would set free his slave, male or female, so that they would not be enslaved again. They obeyed and set them free. But afterward they turned around and took back the male and female slaves they had set free, and brought them into subjection as slaves.
The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I myself made a covenant with your fathers ...saying, "At the end of seven years each of you must set free the fellow Hebrew who has been sold to you and has served you six years..."
But your fathers did not listen to me or incline their ears to me. You recently repented and did what was right in my eyes by proclaiming liberty... but then you turned around and profaned my name when each of you took back his male and female slaves, whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them into subjection to be your slaves.'
Therefore, thus says the Lord: 'You have not obeyed... behold, I proclaim to you liberty to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine,' declares the Lord. 'I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make them like the calf that they cut in two and passed between its parts... And I will give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives..."
(Jeremiah 34:8-20 ESV)
Even when God's people disobeyed and fled to Egypt, God called them to live right there and put away their idolatry. But the women were convinced superstitiously that what they had been doing when life was 'good' was the very reason life was good. They didn't recognize that God didn't punish immediately but sent Jeremiah to rebuke them AND gave them time to repent.
God used the Rechabites as an example of obedience, even when offered free wine...
"The command that Jonadab the son of Rechab gave to his sons, to drink no wine, has been kept, and they drink none to this day, for they have obeyed their father’s command. I have spoken to you persistently, but you have not listened to me. I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, sending them persistently, saying, "Turn now every one of you from his evil way, and amend your deeds, and do not go after other gods..." But you did not incline your ear or listen to me. The sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have kept the command that their father gave them, but this people has not obeyed me...
Because you have obeyed the command of Jonadab your father and kept all his precepts and done all that he commanded you, therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "Jonadab the son of Rechab shall never lack a man to stand before me.”'"
(Jeremiah 35:14-16, 18-19 ESV)
Are there possibly things in this modern life that we do as 'normal' and 'routine'— things we have always done from when life was good or things we simply don't think we need to give up?
God is calling. He has withheld disaster to give time for repentance. Even in the so-called COVID tyranny of the last few years, God has given people a chance to stop idolizing the media and science and the medical system and stop obeying them and get serious about the Bible and obedience to HIM.
God rewards those who live according to His way of right, even if they are afraid...
To the Ethiopian who comforted Jeremiah when he was thrown in the pit God said,
"I will deliver you on that day... and you shall not be given into the hand of the men of whom you are afraid. For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have put your trust in me, declares the Lord."
(Jeremiah 39:17-18 ESV)
To Baruch, the scribe of Jeremiah God said,
“...O Baruch: You said, ‘Woe is me! For the Lord has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.’ ...Behold, what I have built I am breaking down, and what I have planted I am plucking up—that is, the whole land. And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the Lord. But I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go.”
(Jeremiah 45:2-5 ESV)
"And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be hidden anymore, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers; and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, 'This is the way, walk ye in it; when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.'"
(Isaiah 30:20-21 ASV)
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