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WOE UNTO US!

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 17, 1876

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 48, No. 8.

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WOE UNTO US!

By I. L. G.

When the prophet Jeremiah says, “Woe unto us, that we have sinned,” he but speaks the conviction of every intelligent mind. Although his words were in a measure personal, and limited to the people of God, yet every person, whether professor or non-professor, must acknowledge their truthfulness. Many hundreds of years have passed since they were spoken, yet have they lost none of their force. As we look about ourselves we see that wickedness and violence reign. Iniquity abounds. Selfishness, pride and folly control the mind. Crime, apostasy and ruin prevail to such an extent that the world has long since ceased to be surprised by any new development of evil. Intemperance floods the land, destroying the morals and licensing the passions. The majority of the youth are growing up the embodiment of evil, nourished and strengthened by the fostering hand of indulgent parents, until they seem the culmination of wickedness. The whole earth is corrupted beneath the baneful influence of sin. That which was prophesied many years ago is now fulfilled. “The earth is also defiled under the inhabitants thereof.” We see the fields wasted. The land mourneth. We hear the beasts of the field cry, for the rivers of water are dried up and the fire devoureth the pastures. “The showers have been withholden.” We see curse after curse resting upon the earth, and the hearts of men growing hardened and implacable to the truth. As the sad picture comes up before us we cry out in anguish, “Woe unto us, that we have sinned.”
Undoubtedly no one of the prophets was better prepared to speak of sin and its demoralizing effects than Jeremiah, his life being one of trial and persecution among the children of Israel. But he steadfastly maintained the cause of God against a rebellious people, faithfully advising and reproving. Being burdened on account of their backslidings, he gave utterance to the most plaintive and pathetic sentiments. In speaking of their calamities he says, “Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people.” He here uses language similar to that used by our Saviour when weeping over the fated city, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.”
It is said of the few remaining Jews who inhabit Jerusalem that in a small area near some huge and ancient stones in the base of the western wall of Moriah, they gather, especially on sacred days, to sit weeping and wailing on the ground, taking up the heart-breaking lamentations of Jeremiah. They are thus living witnesses of the truth of God’s word and the fulfillment of this prophecy uttered by Jeremiah: “Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee; know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God.”
He further adds: For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim; “our necks are under persecution; we labor, and have no rest.” “Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.” Every cause has its effects, and if we were to search the divine record we could easily find the cause of so much misery and suffering.
When God gave his statutes to the people he said, “If ye shall despise my statutes, or if ye abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant; I will do this unto you: I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart; and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.”
Notwithstanding these denunciations, they were like those at the present time who cry peace and safety, and desire smooth things preached to them. They listened to the false prophets, and the true prophets were driven to the humiliating confession that they got their bread by the peril of their lives, “because of the sword of the wilderness.”
As we trace the sad record that sin has made from the fall of man to the present time, and realize, though but imperfectly, its degenerating influence upon our lives, we involuntarily exclaim, “Woe unto us!” Imagine what must have been the feelings of Adam as he looked down through the dim vista of years that was to succeed him, and saw the misery, sorrow, and ruin he had brought upon the race. How keenly must he have felt the sin of disobedience when he saw his devoted and righteous son dead, stricken down by the hand of a brother! Did he not cry out, “Woe unto us, that we have sinned?” And Cain, the relentless murderer, who answered the Lord in his cool audacity, after receiving his penalty cried out, “Mine iniquity is greater than can be forgiven.”
David, in brokenness of spirit and contrition of heart, pleads with God to have mercy, to wash him thoroughly from his iniquity; for his sin was ever before him. Sin is a tormentor, a constant reprover. It is a voluntary humiliation on our part. Every deviation from right-doing leaves its impress upon our characters. The penalty of sin is no less severe in a physical than in a moral sense. We are often made to feel that the iniquities of the fathers are visited through successive generations; and that weakness and imbecility have become an inheritance.
Our hearts inquire, Is this sad state of things always to continue? and we are glad to be assured from the word of God that it is not, that there is a land “where the inhabitants shall not say, I am sick! the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquities.”
“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”
I. L. G.