BEWARE THE COMING DAYS

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In Christ, Mark

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

This is what the Lord says:

“Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take along some of the elders of the people and of the priests and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. There proclaim the words I tell you, and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Listen! I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. For they have forsaken Me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned incense in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.”

“So beware, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. In this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who want to kill them, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds and the wild animals. I will devastate this city and make it an object of horror and scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff because of all its wounds. I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh because their enemies will press the siege so hard against them to destroy them.”

Jeremiah 19:1-9

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

As Jeremiah 19 opens, the message from the Lord is an ominous one as He addresses His people:

“Beware, the days are coming.”

Without knowing anything else, we know that something bad lies ahead for the people of Israel. The word “beware” gives it away before anything else is said.

God had made it crystal clear to the Israelites that He hated sin and would not sit back and tolerate them committing it in His sight. There was prior history to what would happen if God’s people did not repent and turn from their ways. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah was well known in Jewish culture, serving as a perfect example of how God would apply His judgment to a wicked people. Both cities and all their inhabitants were utterly destroyed by a rainstorm of burning sulfur from the heavens (Genesis 19:24).

Still with this knowledge in hand, the Israelites decided to test God by sinning in the most detestable way imaginable before Him, a way that God Himself described as a “most horrible thing” (see the devotion that bears this title based on Jeremiah 18:13). Their choice to place other gods before Him and worship them first would be a fatal and foolish one for the days were coming when God would once again send His punishment upon His people.

So what were the Israelites to beware?

Look at today’s scripture passage to see:

The people of God had opted to forsake Him and make His land a land where foreign gods were adored and revered. The Israelites had burned incense to those false gods and idols. They even went as far a burning their own children as sacrifice to the god Baal.

As a result of their actions, the Lord promised to bring disaster on them, a disaster so harsh that people would refer to their place as the “Valley of Slaughter”, an appalling place that would be an “object of horror and scorn”. He was going to “ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem” and “make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who want to kill them”. After being executed by the attacking Babylonian forces, the carcasses of God’s people would be left as food to the birds and the wild animals. They did not deserve a proper burial in God’s eyes because their actions were evil and so they could face an end as horrific as the sins they committed. Those who were fortunate enough to survive would be left in the midst of a famine that would lead them toward cannibalism. Such would be the level of oppression and hardship they would endure while they were besieged.

It doesn’t paint a pretty picture, does it?

No prettier than the fate of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. And hindsight being twenty-twenty, I am sure the Israelites would have wished they would have learned from the mistakes of the past instead of reliving them and the consequences that came along with it.

Question: Have we learned anything from the mistakes the Israelites made, not just once, but twice?

We had better take the question seriously because God has already told us that we should beware the coming days because Jesus is going to return, this time to judge the earth rather than save it. The scriptures are clear that earth and heaven as we know it are going to be destroyed along with everyone there who did not place their faith and trust in Jesus as Savior. It’s going to happen.

So are you going to perish or be saved that day?

It’s going to be one way or the other and God’s word is giving us all plenty of advance notice so we can make sure we don’t perish on the day the world ends.

Do yourself a favor. Accept Jesus as your personal Savior. Receive the salvation He offers. Take away the peril that comes with the coming days when Jesus returns and turn it into the peace and joy that comes with the eternal hope Christ brings.

Trust me when I say you will never regret that decision.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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