Journey Through Jeremiah & Lamentationsنموونە

Jeremiah: Idolatry & Anguish: In Front of the Text

One way to deal with the threatening world powers was to find a third for refuge. The choice of that country was ironic in light of biblical history. But we’re not so different when it comes to finding safety under threat. One modern day prophet points out a similar trend today.

The Allure of Egypt

Jeremiah & Solzhenitsyn

The Soviet historian and writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is a modern parallel to Israel’s suffering prophet Jeremiah. A vocal critic of the crimes and immorality of the USSR, he was viewed as unpatriotic and even treasonous. Imprisoned under Joseph Stalin, he was sent to Siberia with a life sentence. After later being freed and exonerated, he came to the United States and delivered similarly harsh critiques of Western capitalist society.

Solzhenitsyn traced the current and impending failures of two superpowers, the United States and USSR, to their diminishing sense of responsibility to God. This modern prophet critiqued the increasing idolization of materialism and nationalism. The heart of his diagnosis was essentially the same as Jeremiah’s—“Men have forgotten God.” The following selection is an example of Solzhenitsyn’s critique of the Soviet regime:

Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.” (Ericson*)

Wrap up

Nicole wraps up this lesson about how bad things got in ancient Judah—and about how seriously God wants exclusive worship.

*Source: Edward E. Ericson, Jr. "Solzhenitsyn—Voice from the Gulag," Eternity (October 1985), pp. 23-24.