Can I pray for you in any
way? Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.
In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian
Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend
requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of
The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“When you tell these people all
this and they ask you, ‘Why has the Lord decreed such a great disaster against
us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against the Lord our
God?’ then say to them, ‘It is because your ancestors forsook me,’ declares the
Lord, ‘and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook me
and did not keep my law. But you have behaved more wickedly than your
ancestors. See how all of you are following the stubbornness of your evil
hearts instead of obeying Me. So I will throw you out of this land into a land
neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you will serve other gods
day and night, for I will show you no favor.’”
Jeremiah 16:10-13
This ends today’s reading from God's holy
word. Thanks be to God.
I want you to remember back to the days when you were
growing up and just learning the difference between right and wrong.
You can recall those days, right?
The days when it seemed we got into trouble far more than
we were good.
Our parents would tell us over and over again what they
didn’t want us to do and we would continue to do it anyways. Then, when they
had finally had enough of our insubordination and disobedience, they would levy
consequences on us and, of course, our response would usually be, as we were
crying, “Why?”
We knew we had done wrong but had this complete dislike for
the discipline that accompanied our repeated stubborn resistances to comply
with what our fathers and mothers wanted us to do, particularly in the way of
behavior.
The reality of things is that we deserved the consequences
doled out. In fact, we asked for it and so perhaps the proper question we
should have been asking was, “Why not?” instead of “Why?”
As we look at today’s scriptures from our continued study
of Jeremiah, chapter 16, we find the Israelites acting as if they couldn’t
understand why God was sending judgment upon them, acting as if they had done
nothing wrong to deserve His correction. Look at these words again here:
“When you tell these people all this and they ask you, ‘Why has the
Lord decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What
sin have we committed against the Lord our God?’ then say to them, ‘It is
because your ancestors forsook me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and followed other gods
and served and worshiped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law. But you
have behaved more wickedly than your ancestors. See how all of you are
following the stubbornness of your evil hearts instead of obeying Me. So I will
throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your ancestors have
known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you
no favor.’” Jeremiah 16:10-13
You’ll recall that Jeremiah was God’s messenger and the
message he was told to give the Israelites was one which would not be received
well. Bad news never is.
But instead of taking accountability for their sins, which
we know included following, serving, and worshipping other gods, we find the
Israelites asking the following questions to Jeremiah:
“Why has the Lord decreed such a great
disaster against us?”
“What wrong have we done?”
“What sin have we committed against the
Lord our God?”
The questions were ridiculous in sight of the obvious
violation of God’s command to have no other gods before Him and as we see, God
told Jeremiah to tell His people that they were even more wicked than their
ancestors who had committed the same atrocities in God’s sight. They knew that
God had flashed His judgment before in the past for the wrongs they were committing
and yet they did them anyways, following their evil hearts in plain view of God’s
sight.
The people of God asked “Why?”
God simply posed the following through His prophet, “Why
not? You are getting what you deserve.” And then He sent them out of the holy
land He had given them to dwell in a land not known to them or their ancestors
where they could serve other gods all they wanted because God was abandoning
them just as they had abandoned Him.
The separation would last seventy years.
That brings us to today where I am afraid we are still
conscientiously violating God’s will, word, and way, just as the Israelites did
more than 2,000 years ago. Further, I believe we are no more spiritually
accountable unto ourselves than they were.
In other words, if God would bring judgment upon us for our
sins against Him, I believe we would revert back to our childhood days when we
would wonder why we were in trouble when we knew well that we had done wrong.
We seemingly are no more accountable today for our actions but one thing is
certain: God is still God and He still expects out full devotion and compliance
with His expectations, expectations grounded in righteousness.
We know that and yet we choose sin so when God brings His
correction, and trust me when I say He will, we had better not ask, “Why?”
because we asked for His discipline to come upon us and God will simply answer
our “Why?” question with another, “Why not?”
Amen.
In
Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment