THE OLD PATHS: What America Needs!

“Thus saith Jehovah, stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way; and walk therein, and ye shall find rest

 unto your souls: but they said, We will not walk therein (Jeremiah 6:16).

The prophet Jeremiah had one of the more difficult tasks in the history of Israel. His divine task was to give a warning to the citizens of ancient Judah to return to the Lord, from whom they had wandered. The nation was decaying under the danger of coming punishment (the Babylonian captivity), and repentance was its only hope. The Old Testament is filled with many lessons for God’s people. It was written for us to learn from. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope (Romans 15:4). It was written to warn us. Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. (1 Corinthians 10:5) One such lesson is found in the days of Jeremiah time. There was religious and social turmoil, unrest, and disorder. The nation of Israel was being pulled in many directions. Sin was everywhere.
The Lord wanted to offer them rest for their souls. The Lord tells the nation of Israel to seek the old paths, the tried and true way, but they would not. It is the same way today, we fail to seek and ask for the old paths when we know from history that it is the tried and true way. America is following in the same path that the Jews in Jeremiah time took. The words of Jesus are pretty "old" by today's standards or that what people think. But are they?  What happened to Israel appears to be the case of America today. America needs to wake up. Just as Israel forgot God, America has done the same thing. The Lord created a highway of holiness for His people to travel on and they decided to go by the wayside.
Jesus established a "highway" for us to follow, so what happen? We went from being a holy people, ones that went to church on Sundays, Bible study, and prayer meetings, to being a people who does not go to church, a people who does not seek God, and sin abounds in the lives of the people. For us as a nation to survive we must turn to the Lord and travel that highway of holiness, we must seek and cry out for the old paths, and walk in them, because they are good.

How strange this seems to those of our present “pluralistic” society who have so much contempt  for the concept of a 

solitary “way” of truth in which all members of the human family are required to walk. The path to such rest is an old path                                                                                                                               Found only in Him who lived and died for our sins nearly 2000 years ago. Whose doctrine has been faithfully preserved in the Holy Bible. There will ever be the need to speak to disobedient and rebellious brethren, urging them to come back and reunite with their God. There are numerous passages in the New Testament that stress this concept and belief. Some of us who are older can remember our own history in the church. In those days, controversies in the church were mostly matters of disagreement as to what the Scriptures teach, all parties equally reverencing the Bible as a divine production. Now, numerous professing disciples could not care less about scriptural authority. There was a by-gone era when one could travel the country and have little concern about when he would stop for worship; nowadays he is likely to encounter anything in the church. Many of our preachers know little, if anything, about restoration history. Those who ignore history are destined to repeat its mistakes.

A second reason for returning to the “old paths” is the end result of not doing so. Jeremiah warned: “Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts”. The term “evil” has to do with a judgment from the Lord, not moral evil.
Jeremiah thus turns from the past to the future. In a word: “If you don’t reflect upon the lessons of the past, you can, in the future, reap the reward of trusting your own thoughts.” This reference obviously is to the impending captivity. This horror was to come because the people said: “We will not walk therein” This is the same words that America is saying today, We will not walk there in.
Time is running out fast for most people in America and the judgment will soon be on us. There will be no turning back then. I can tell you this, when the call goes out: WHO IS ON THE LORD”S SIDE how many will answer the call? It is time for every American to say, AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE WE WILL SERVE THE LORD!