#DailyDevotion The Most Horrifying Scripture Passage

November 7

Jer 11:1–23

Jer 11:13-15  For your gods have become as many as your cities, O Judah, and as many as the streets of Jerusalem are the altars you have set up to shame, altars to make offerings to Baal.  (14)  “Therefore do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their trouble.  (15)  What right has my beloved in my house, when she has done many vile deeds? Can even sacrificial flesh avert your doom? Can you then exult?

 

This is no doubt the most horrifying passage in Scripture. Why you may ask? There is no second chanced here with the Lord. There is no possibility for repentance. There is no possibility for intercession. Here there is only judgment, condemnation and ruin.

 

Why would the Lord make such a pronouncement against his people whom he had chosen? They had been worshipping other gods. They had been sacrificing and giving to the false gods all that belonged rightly to the Lord. Out of this false worship they had gone from one sin against the neighbor to the next with impunity. Israel and Judah had done this all along throughout their history.

 

The Lord had also sent them one prophet after another to call them to repentance. At different times throughout their history multiple prophets at the same time warning Israel and Judah about the coming wrath of God. Sometimes they listened but most of the time they did not or the slipped back into their idolatrous ways, spurning the mercy and kindness of the Lord their God.

 

Well there was a day of reckoning coming and was now upon them. No more shall prophet or priest intercede for Judah. No more shall the Lord hear their cries for mercy in time of trouble. Their hearts were never in it in the first place. It had always been more of wishful thinking than repentance and faith in the Lord. Doom was in their future and nothing could avert it.

 

There is another day of reckoning upon the whole earth. On that day there will not be time for repenting and trusting in God’s word either. We ourselves, as individuals, are we being watchful in our own lives? Do we not fear, like the people of Judah, when we hear God’s word calling us to repent that we will not believe and do it? Do we continue in sins thinking we can always repent of them later? Do we trash God’s mercy and love in Christ Jesus by spurning the forgiveness won for us by his death believing we will be able to cry for help from our sins at a later time? The Lord has hardened other mens’ hearts before after men have hardened themselves against Jesus’ mercy and intercession. Why do you think you are so much better than they?

 

So today, as long as it is today, you should hate your sin, confess it before the Lord, turn from it and turn to the mercies of God in Christ Jesus. Never tire of bringing your sin before the Lord and trusting in mercies won for you by Jesus’ innocent suffering and death. As long at it is still today, do not become weary and think it is no use serving the Lord and turn to other things in creation, ideas, philosophies or gods. Don’t harden your hearts like the Israelites but always and every day admit your faults, trust in Christ and do your best to repair the damage you have done and turn away from your old behavior. A broken heart, a contrite spirit, a person who is humble before the Lord Jesus Christ, our Father will never turn away.

 

Heavenly Father, ever grant us such repentance and faith, that we may live a life of repentance, hating sin, and living in the mercies Christ Jesus has won for us by the shedding of his innocent and precious blood. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.