Have you ever got caught with your hand in the cookie jar? It happens that you can’t get out of trouble because the chocolate from the chocolate chips is melted on your hand in several spots. Yes, I speak from experience. The cookies were calling my name.
In Jeremiah 2, Judah did the same thing. They didn’t do anything wrong. Everybody is doing it.
One problem with that excuse. Not everyone was leaving their god and following a different god. Only Judah. They were called to serve God and Him alone. Remember the Ten Commandments? Exodus 20:3-5 ESV;
“You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,
Instead of being a light to the other nations that He had wanted them to be, they fell into the muck and mire the other nations were in. God refused to help them out this time. They were going to have to go through a tough love session with God.
We even see this in 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul wrote the church there to remove a person from the church because of sexual sin. To sum up Paul’s writing sin spreads. It doesn’t just go away you have to remove it before it spreads to others. It is by discipline not punishment that brings about change. Like Hebrews 12:6 ESV, says;
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives
God starts out with small corrections and if we don’t correct our actions to His gentle guidance the discipline becomes stronger. It is better to obey than to go through discipline.
(Photo by Fabian Centeno on Unsplash)
Bonnie Sue Writes 