No Hope in Man
Last week Americans voted for change, if you saw the news, as I’m sure many of you did. The Republicans routed the Democrats in the midterm elections gaining a majority in the House by picking up more than 60 seats, and they added at least six seats to their Senate total, as well. And not since 1938 have the Republicans won that many seats, so it was a huge and historic changeover of power in Washington. And yet if you look at the last few election cycles, it seems like that’s all we’ve had is these huge and historic changes in power in governance. And generally this is powered by disgruntled voters who are dissatisfied with the way things are working in Washington, and they’re out there searching for answers, searching for leaders who might provide solutions to our ever-increasing problems.
In 2006, if you remember, Americans were dissatisfied with how things were going in the war against terror—the war in Iraq in particular—and so they ended up punishing President Bush during the midterm elections, and that ushered in a new Democratic majority in Congress. And leading the anti-war charge was the new Speaker of the House from San Francisco. Her name was Nancy Pelosi, and she came riding in talking about how incompetent the Bush administration was, how immoral their policies were. She came in claiming to have the solution to the bloated budget in Washington. She made this incredible statement just at the start of her position as Speaker. She said: “After years of historic deficits this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard—pay as you go. No new deficit spending,” she said.
That was in January of 2007, and since that time the Democrats have added $5 trillion to the national debt. Five trillion dollars! All of these lofty promises, all of these promises of progress and change, but it seems like the more Washington changes, the more that things just stay the same as they’ve always been.
Who can forget 2008 and all of the excitement and the enthusiasm of—at the time—a little-known senator from Illinois named Barack Obama, and he, too, rode this tidal wave of anti-war sentiment all the way into the White House, promising along the way hope and change for America. And it generated quite a spirit of hopefulness and enthusiasm in this nation. He promised to abandon Iraq and to focus more on Afghanistan, to crush Al Qaida in Afghanistan, he vowed to reach out to American allies—he felt like they had been alienated because of the Bush administration’s unilateral policies. He, of course, was intent on extending an olive branch out to American enemies like Iran and others. And here at home, as far as domestic issues goes, he, of course, was left with a very troubled economy right at the outset of his administration, and he promised to overhaul the U.S. economy which had just been rocked by the financial crisis of 2008. He guaranteed health care for everyone in the United States. He promised to eliminate wasteful spending, just like Speaker Pelosi did. And, in addition to all those promises he said he’d reduce taxes, expand the government, and lessen the cost for Americans—promises that obviously couldn’t have been kept by anyone. And over the past two years we have seen here in America how this overhaul has resulted in trillion-dollar spending packages, record-setting debt, rising unemployment, and government-run banks and car companies, insurance firms, and soon-to-be, of course, universal health care.
And so now we’ve lurched back to the other side of the aisle to see if Republicans can clean up this mess that we’re in.
Look at Jeremiah 17. Jeremiah 17. Many are saying that the results of the midterm elections indicate that Americans have given Republicans a mandate to repeal some of the President’s policies. And really, if you look a little deeper into what’s been happening these last few elections like—while that may be true to some extent, the recent elections certainly aren’t a whole-hearted endorsement of Republicans as having the answers. In fact, what these last few cycles reveal is that there’s a crisis in leadership in the United States, and even exit polls have indicated that, how that voters feel like they’re out of touch with all politicians—whether Democrat or Republican.
Seventy percent of Americans now believe America is on the wrong track. Seventy percent! I mean, that’s an overwhelming majority. And almost as many as seventy percent believe that we’re facing a crisis in leadership, in leadership today. Disapproval ratings for Congress are at near record lows, and some surveys even indicate that Americans are more unhappy with Republicans than they are with Democrats, and I think the Tea Party movement even reflects this thinking. Obviously the people in that movement are upset about the policies that the new administration has been putting in place, but they’re also, I mean they’re also feeling alienated from the Republicans. They feel like the Republican Party has abandoned them, which is why they’ve started this new movement.
Even John Boehner, the soon-to-be House Speaker who will replace Pelosi in January, he said last week: “We’re witnessing a repudiation of Washington, a repudiation of big government, and a repudiation of politicians who refuse to listen to the American people.”
So there’s lots of turmoil and dissatisfaction out there, as we well know, and so many leaders on both sides of the aisle who just don’t have the solutions. What is the problem?
Well, Jeremiah 17 gets to the heart of the problem that we’re seeing today. My father, in the Jeremiah booklet, he mentions that this chapter is the core, really, of the whole Bible message, this message here in Jeremiah 17. And it reveals that man is living under a curse, and he doesn’t even know it.
Jeremiah 17 and verse 1 says: “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars;”
That’s the way sin works. I mean, it becomes deeply etched into our mind. If we don’t get rid of it, it becomes habitual, and then written upon our hearts, as it says there, like with a pen of iron or the point of a diamond—just carved into our thinking. It’s ingrained into our thinking. It becomes part of us. It becomes natural to just go according to this way.
Notice what that way is, verse 5, it says: “Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, [or his strength] and whose heart departeth from the LORD.”
See, you’re under a curse if you place your faith or your trust in a MAN instead of placing that faith and that trust in God, our Creator. Trust in man—I mean, this is the fundamental lesson that man hasn’t learned for 6,000 years, to put their faith and their trust in God INSTEAD of men!
I mentioned the 2008 example just a bit ago. I mean that was just two years ago! Two years ago when all of that excitement was in the air, when the new president came in with 70% approval ratings, when there was so much hope and optimism. Two years, and all of that is gone! Those approval ratings have plummeted! People are concerned, people are scared, people are unhappy, people are unemployed, people are frustrated. It just took two years for that to wear off.
The Trumpet wrote back in January of 2009 (this was right as President Obama was coming into office). We wrote: “Soon it will be this new government grappling with international security concerns that exceed the military’s capabilities, being mistreated by foreign governments, trying desperately to keep the economy from tanking, sinking deeper into debt and so on. It will be this government letting people down.”
That’s what we said right at the START of the administration. I mean, how could we know that? How could the Trumpet know that? How could God know that? It’s because of this curse spoken of in Jeremiah 17. “Soon it will be this government letting the people down.”
Look at Jeremiah 10, just a few pages back. Why is it that men’s solutions continue to disappoint? Jeremiah 10:23. It says: “O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.”
Man’s not even able to direct his own steps.
“O LORD,” verse 24, “correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing.”
See, unless we put our lives in God’s hands, unless we let God take the lead, we’ll end up being deceived, led astray.
Now, recently I gave a forum on just how advanced the human mind is compared to animals, and that’s true, but the great paradox of our time is that for all of this advancement we haven’t been able to solve the PROBLEMS, the EVILS of this world. We haven’t been able to work out differences between people in families, in marriages, between nations. For all of this BRILLIANCE that there is in the human mind, man is HELPLESS in his relationships with fellow man and in his relationship with God, unless we have God’s help, unless God is leading us.
Jeremiah 17 and verse 6, continuing on in the same passage it says: “For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.”
If you trust in men, you see, you won’t even notice when good comes along.
Verse 7, it says: “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. (8) For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.”
See, if you want to be blessed, if you want to be fruitful, if you want to multiply and grow, then put your faith and your trust in God. Look to God! Look to God! Now, that doesn’t mean God doesn’t work through men. Of course, He works through individuals, human beings, teachers, apostles, ministers, but it’s God behind the man, it’s God who performs the work, it’s God who brings forth the fruit.
Verse 9. Jeremiah 17:9 says: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
See, as our Jeremiah booklet brings out, that meaning there is that the heart is sick, it’s dangerously sick, sick unto death! We must see the evil in human nature and know where it comes from, and with God’s help uproot that influence, uproot that evil.
You can hold your place in Jeremiah 17 and look at Matthew 9 quickly. Matthew chapter 9, beginning in verse 10. It says: “And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. (11) And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?”
And notice Jesus’s response, verse 12: “But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.”
See, the sick are those who need to be healed, and as Jeremiah brings out, I mean if the human mind is sick because of Satan’s broadcast and his influence as the god of this world, then we have to have God in our lives and the power of God to bring about real, lasting healing in our minds, and to stop from making the same mistakes over and over and over again, to keep just shifting from one side of the aisle to the next to see if there’s a solution over there, and if not, well, let’s go back to the other side.
I mean, just look at the state of America’s economy, to take one example. Last week on the same day many Republicans were vowing to shrink the size of government and to reduce the debt. The Federal Reserve unveiled a plan to buy $900 billion of U.S. debt. And do you know how the U.S. buys the debt from the U.S.? They print dollars! They print money! $900 billion over the next eight months! These dollars will be flooded into the circulation.
According to The Financial Post, “The amount of dollars either in circulation or being held by the Fed has soared from $800 billion to a dizzying $2.2 trillion since 2008.”
Just in the last three years. Just in the last three years we’ve seen the number of dollars in circulation triple, and it’s no wonder that the dollar’s losing so much value. It’s no wonder that the price for gold is at a record high.
Bill Gross, who manages the world’s largest mutual fund, he said: “The Fed’s action put the dollar in danger of losing 20% of value over the next few years.”
Twenty percent!
Representative Mike Pentz from Indiana said last week: “Deluding the value of the dollar by continually increasing the supply of money poses an incalculable risk.”
And of course, more than just runaway inflation and losing the value of our currency, the more dangerous risk to pumping dollars into the economy is that it will soon trigger a trade war—and that’s what’s coming.
And you heard last week China talking about the huge risk that America’s taking. They’re upset! They own much of the U.S. debt. Europe’s concerned. Brazil’s already planning some form of retaliation against the United States. And when this world abandons the dollar as its reserve currency—and that’s coming—where will that leave the U.S. economy? Where will that leave the almighty dollar?
Senator Judd Gregg on CNBC last week, he said that: “If the U.S. didn’t reduce deficit spending and pay down its debt, that we’re going to end up like Greece in a few years,” he said.
A few years! And if you don’t know what’s happening in Greece, turn on the news and see what’s happened over there. Of course, America’s economy is bigger and there’s more nations dependent on it than there are on Greece, so we may float for a little bit longer. But this runaway debt, this runaway inflation, these same tired policies, same-old, same-old, it’s not solving ANYTHING! In fact, it’s making it worse! And it’s PROVING what Jeremiah said in chapter 17—how sick the human mind is, how INCAPABLE the human mind is of solving the problems of this world without God’s lead, without God’s help.
Back to Jeremiah. Jeremiah 17. What a paradox that the human mind can be so capable of producing excellence in some respects, of creating things, of thinking and reasoning, and yet so utterly incapable of learning the fundamental lesson that God wants for us to learn. Jeremiah 17 and verse 9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
We read earlier. And then verse 14, it says: “Heal me, O LORD, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.”
See, healing—healing and salvation—come by repentance toward God, by turning from sin and following God.
Verse 10, just skip back a few verses again. It says: “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
See, that’s the lesson of true education—cause and effect. It does matter what you do today. I mean what you do today will impact what happens tomorrow! The seeds you plant in a garden in early spring, they do have a bearing on what comes out of the ground later! It’s a law, as Mr. Armstrong taught us.
Let’s conclude in Jeremiah 31. The many curses that we see coming upon this world—and our society in particular—it’s just man receiving according to his ways. We’ve been going according to the WAYS of GREED and SELFISHNESS, VANITY, LUST, and look at the problems! Look at the problems there are in society because of that! You see it in Washington, you see it everywhere, not just in Washington, D.C.
Jeremiah 31, verse 21, it says: “Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps: set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities.”
The waymarks and the high heaps, as is explained in the Jeremiah booklet are guideposts, and the meaning here is that God wants for us to look to certain signs and guideposts along the way, and to follow traditions and teachings that are based in the Word of God, to follow and to live by God’s truth, those signposts and waymarks that He leaves for us.
David said in the Psalms that the Word of God is like a LAMP unto his path. It shows him the way to go.
Look at verse 31, a little further down, it says: “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: (32) Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband unto them,”
There is a new covenant, a new MARRIAGE. Christ was a husband! It plainly is revealed in the Bible! A husband to ancient Israel! And they broke that marriage covenant! But He’s about to marry spiritual Israel, the Church, and that royal marriage will begin the process of changing what we see in our society.
Verse 33: “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
What a difference, to give mankind the opportunity to repent of his ways and to get rid of sin that used to be CARVED into our thinking as Jeremiah 17:1 says—just ENGRAVED into us, like from a point of a diamond, and to have that pulled out through the process of repentance and conversion, and God’s laws, God’s love WRITTEN in our hearts!
