February 18, Jeremiah 17
”Your wealth and all your treasures I will give for spoil as the price of your high places for sin throughout all your territory. You shall loosen your hand from your heritage that I gave to you, and I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you do not know, for in my anger a fire is kindled that shall burn forever." - Jeremiah 17:3-4
Do you care what something costs? Do you look at the price tag before making a purchase? Most of us common folks need to know and want to know what an item will cost before we choose to buy it.
From Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden down to you and me wherever we are today, we all face a basic choice. Will we listen to God, trust God and obey God? Or will we refuse to listen, trust and obey God? We are free to choose but when we make our decision, we must accept the consequences of the choice we make.
The nation of Israel and the people of Judah in Jeremiah's time made bad choices when they chose to serve and worship idols instead of God. The Lord told them through Jeremiah's faithful preaching that the price of their disloyalty and disobedience would be high. He showed them the high price of the high place where they chose to worship their idols. It would cost them everything they had. They lost their land, their wealth, their treasures and their freedom when they forsook God.
They compounded their foolishness by seeking an alliance with other nations to avoid the judgment God promised. God told them they were choosing to be like a thirsty little shrub, barely clinging to life in a parched desert, with no prospect of anything good coming to them. But those who trusted God were choosing to be tall, well-watered, flourishing and fruitful trees. Trust and obedience is to humans what water is to plants — essential to life and health.
The price went higher when they ignored God's warnings and persecuted God's messenger. Jeremiah faithfully delivered God's word of impending doom to the nation, and they hated him for it. He asked God to heal the wounds they had inflicted on him and save him. He asked God to put his persecutors to shame, but not him. He prayed to be spared the dismay and disaster that was on its way to the disobedient people of Judah.
The people's everyday behavior showed their disregard for God. Jeremiah used Sabbath observance to stand for the whole law as a practical test of whether or not they would listen to God. If they would honor God's sabbath, they would be blessed with prosperity. But if they would not listen to God and did what they pleased without regard for the sabbath, they would suffer and lose everything in a fiery destruction from the Lord they failed to honor.
Now you and I are probably not tempted to worship the ancient Canaanite fertility gods that captured the hearts of the Israelites. (It's sad but true that our own culture makes essentially the same choice to pursue pleasure without regard for God's will.) But let's not stop with shaking our heads at the ungodly culture around us. Let's examine our own choices and their consequences. Do I want what I want, regardless of what it costs? Do I get angry and hate someone who tells me what my choice is going to cost me? Do I refuse to listen to, trust and obey God? I hope and pray that you and I would not be so foolish as to choose without regard for what our choice will cost us.
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—February 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
Comments