FOOLISH STUBBORNNESS

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In Christ, Mark

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

You struck them, but they felt no pain; You crushed them, but they refused correction. They made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent. I thought, “These are only the poor; they are foolish, for they do not know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God. So I will go to the leaders and speak to them; surely they know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God.”

“But with one accord they too had broken off the yoke and torn off the bonds. Therefore a lion from the forest will attack them, a wolf from the desert will ravage them, a leopard will lie in wait near their towns to tear to pieces any who venture out, for their rebellion is great and their backslidings many.”

Jeremiah 5:3b-6

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

I want you to go back to the days of your youth, particularly your teenage years. For some of you, it may not have been that long ago. For people like myself, it may have been quite awhile ago. In either case, I think we all can recall how stubborn and hard headed we were.

You know what I’m talking about.

A lot of times when our parents tried to teach us and impart their wisdom, we closed our ears and shot them out. We were convinced they were crazy and didn’t know what they were talking about.

Can I get a witness?

And then there were those times when they corrected us for our wrongs but we had no interest in changing our ways because, you know, they were crazy and they were only disciplining us because they were crazy and had some superiority complex or something. And so we repeated the same acts over and over and over again because we were sure we knew what was best for us, better than our parents that was for sure.

Does that ring a bell?

We were rebellious back then, that’s for sure. Stubborn, hard-headed, and resistant to authority.

But here’s the thing.

We still are.

Yes, it’s true. We haven’t changed much in the way we carry ourselves. We are still rebellious, stubborn, hard-headed, and resistant to authority. We still want to do our own thing and think that no one else knows better as to what we should do than ourselves.

There’s only one big difference between who we are today as adults and who we were as teenagers. Instead of violating our parents as kids, we’re exhibiting foolish stubbornness in violating God as adults.

Do you ever think about that?

Unfortunately, I believe we have become so numb to our sinfulness in life that we rebel against God without even thinking twice about what we are doing and the ramifications our actions could bring. For in being disobedient and more inclined to sin than what is right, we are doing more than dishonoring our parents (which is a sinful violation of God’s fifth commandment in Exodus 20 by the way). Rather, we are disrespecting and disregarding the Lord God Almighty, the Maker and Creator of all things, the Master of creation and everything within it, the God who has immeasurable power to do all things to include wipe any of us off the face of the world with just a thought of doing it.

No one would do that except a fool and now you know why this devotion bears the title that it does.

What further makes our foolish stubbornness so amazing is that we have biblical evidence that shows how things didn’t work out so well for people who adopted this life attitude in the past. Read these words again as the people of Israel come center stage in Jeremiah, Chapter 5:

You struck them, but they felt no pain; You crushed them, but they refused correction. They made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent. I thought, “These are only the poor; they are foolish, for they do not know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God. So I will go to the leaders and speak to them; surely they know the way of the Lord, the requirements of their God.”

“But with one accord they too had broken off the yoke and torn off the bonds. Therefore a lion from the forest will attack them, a wolf from the desert will ravage them, a leopard will lie in wait near their towns to tear to pieces any who venture out, for their rebellion is great and their backslidings many.”  Jeremiah 5:3b-6

God was trying to correct His people so they would turn from their wicked ways but His attempts were having no impact. He struck them but they felt no pain. He crushed them under the weight of His penalties but they refused to receive His correction. Instead of repenting and seeking God’s forgiveness and pardon, the people hardened their hearts and closed their minds.

You see, they did not truly know the ways of the Lord or His requirements. Not even the leaders were aware. For if they did, they would not have acted in the way they did. No one would if they truly knew what they were doing and who they were doing it against.

The Israelites gave God no other choice than to up the ante regarding His judgment and the end result was destruction and annihilation and isolation as Israel was attacked by first the Assyrians and then the Babylonians, the nation left in ruins and the people hauled away to be oppressed in foreign lands.  

Friends, the word of God is speaking to us with power today, warning us to step back and examine our life attitude, especially as it relates to our relationship with our Master and Maker.

We had better listen because God will not be ignored and forsaken by His people. He will not tolerate disloyalty and unfaithfulness. He will not put up with disobedience and rebellion. He is a patient God but don’t test that patience or our fate will be no different than the Old Testament Israelites.

Only a foolishly stubborn person would put themselves in a position like that today and repeat the mistakes of the past.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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