DOOMED TO PERISH

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In Christ, Mark

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

“Why are we sitting here? Gather together! Let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there! For the Lord our God has doomed us to perish and given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against him. We hoped for peace but no good has come, for a time of healing but there is only terror. The snorting of the enemy’s horses is heard from Dan; at the neighing of their stallions the whole land trembles. They have come to devour the land and everything in it, the city and all who live there.”

“See, I will send venomous snakes among you, vipers that cannot be charmed, and they will bite you,”
declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 8:14-17

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

It couldn’t have been a good feeling.

The people of God in Israel were staring down His judgment and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Unpleasant times were ahead, times that would see their lives turned upside down as their homeland was overrun and ransacked by the marauding army of the Babylonians who would then carry off all of the people into exile for seventy years.

The Israelites were doomed to perish and we get a sense of their state of mind as we look at our scripture passage for today from Jeremiah 8:

“Why are we sitting here? Gather together! Let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there! For the Lord our God has doomed us to perish and given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against him. We hoped for peace but no good has come, for a time of healing but there is only terror. The snorting of the enemy’s horses is heard from Dan; at the neighing of their stallions the whole land trembles. They have come to devour the land and everything in it, the city and all who live there.”

“See, I will send venomous snakes among you, vipers that cannot be charmed, and they will bite you,” declares the Lord.  Jeremiah 8:14-17

Did you note the sense of surrender in their voices?

I mean, who wouldn’t feel that way knowing that you were up against God Himself, the only One who possessed infinite power, power that no man or woman could withstand if it were leveraged against them. It was this threat that completely defeated the Israelites emotionally as they felt the weight of disaster looming before them.

“Let us flee to the fortified cities and perish there.” The words of the people of God reflected their realization that no matter where they went, there would be no safety or shelter. They had hoped that they might get another chance but they had used up all their chances. No peace or good was in their future, only terror and the ensuing hardship that would come from the coming attack.

Of course, no one should feel too sorry for the Israelites. They had only themselves to blame really. Even they acknowledged that.

You see, it could have been so much different. The people of God could have avoided experiencing His wrath if they had really showed themselves as His people. Instead, they revealed themselves as more devoted to false gods and idols than the God who commanded them not to have any gods or idols before Him. By their own admission, the Israelites sinned against God and played with fire. It was now their time to feel the burn.

We might want to turn away from these passages of scripture because they aren’t easy to receive. God’s judgment never is pleasant whether it is falling on us personally or on others. But to refrain from taking on these words of God, we would be setting ourselves up for failures that could rival or even exceed those of the Israelites. We need to always be reminded that willing sinful behavior will always put us in opposition with a God who hates it and will punish it. It’s the one true deterrent that should keep us in check and away from failing and falling out of the righteousness that the Lord expects.

In the end translation, we have a choice.

We can either experience the fullest measure of God’s abundant blessings, blessings He wants to give us to overflow or we can choose sin instead and doom ourselves to perishing.

Weighing the two, only a fool would opt to sin. I pray you aren’t counted in that number.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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