THE ULTIMATE BAD IDEA

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“Therefore I bring charges against you again,” declares the Lord. “And I will bring charges against your children’s children.”

“Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar and observe closely; see if there has ever been anything like this”:

“Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But My people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols.”

“Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 2:9-12

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

It would go down in history as one of the ultimate bad ideas.

First, some background.

Go back to the Book of Genesis, Chapter 1, the place where everything started. You may recall that there was nothing when God got started and in just six days, there was creation in its entirety with the heavens and the earth populated with all living things.

Let that sink in for a moment as you consider the only God in existence, the God we are supposed to serve exclusively. He told us so in Exodus 20:

“You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, , punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments.” Exodus 20:3-6

Do you see any gray area there?

I don’t. God said to serve and follow Him and Him alone. Period. His people were not to worship any other gods or idols. If they did, they would severely tick off the jealous God of creation who would not tolerate unfaithfulness from anyone.

Did I mention that the Israelites came up with what had to go down in history as one of the ultimate bad ideas?

Look at today’s scripture passage as we continue to study from Jeremiah, Chapter 2:

“Therefore I bring charges against you again,” declares the Lord. “And I will bring charges against your children’s children.”

“Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar and observe closely; see if there has ever been anything like this”:

“Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But My people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols.”

“Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the Lord.  Jeremiah 2:9-12

It doesn’t take long to see that the people of Israel were in big trouble. For anytime, the Lord opens up by saying He has charges against anyone, what follows us not going to be pleasant.

So what was the problem? (I did mention it was the ultimate bad idea, right?)

Well, the Israelites for some unknown reason thought it would be acceptable if they just traded God in for some worthless gods and idols.

What were they thinking? Maybe they weren’t and that was the problem.

Nonetheless, they did it, an act that was as unbelievable as it was appalling in God’s sight. Bad things were going to come to Israel for their actions for they had willingly chose to disrespect and be disloyal to the very God who made them and commanded them to never forsake Him.

I did mention it was a bad idea, didn’t I?

Now I could end the devotion here but let’s be honest for a moment. For when we look at the way we are living today, can we really say we haven’t traded God in to worship worthless things of this world?

It’s happening everywhere. If you don’t believe it, you’re walking through your life with blinders on.

Friends, we had better wake up and see that we are repeating the mistakes of the past, placing ourselves squarely in the crosshairs of God’s judgment. For He is still the jealous God who commands and demands that He be the only One worshipped in our lives. It’s time for all of us to assess what we’re doing and if there is anywhere that we’re placing God second, we need to fix that situation immediately, repenting for forsaking Him in the first place.

To not do so and continue to live in sinful disobedience, stirring up God’s wrath, would be simply replicating the ultimate bad idea of more than 2,000 years ago.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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