“Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD your God and have no awe of me,”’ declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.”
~ Jeremiah 2:19
Hi James and Ellen,
What do you think that God wants you to do with your lives? What do you think that God wanted His specially chosen guys and gals to do with their lives? Why do you think that God when He – before He created planet Earth, conceived an all-embracing, inclusive plan – that He would unfold on planet Earth, that had you be born wicked? Why do you think that God when He – before He created planet Earth, designed an all-embracing, comprehensive plan – that He would unfold on planet Earth, that had Him specifically choose the Israelite people group’s guys, gals and kids to be the guys, gals and kids who He would have worship only Him but then He allowed them to act out wickedly? Why do you think that God when He – before He created planet Earth, after crafting an all-embracing, across-the-board plan – that He would unfold on planet Earth, would often get really upset with His specially chosen guys and gals when they acted out wickedly when He has the capability to put in place an ordained plan for His specially chosen guys and gals that would have had them always living their lives in ways that would please Him? About 600 years before Jesus was born, a prophet by the name of Jeremiah was passing on God’s words to God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in the land of Judah and in the city of Jerusalem. Judah’s sister country – Israel, was overrun over 100 years earlier by the Assyrian army. Over 300 years before Jeremiah was asked by God to let the guys and gals who were living in Judah and Jerusalem know how He really felt about their not being obedient to His mandated will, Israel and Judah were a single country under the name of Israel. When Jeremiah spoke to His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in Judah and Jerusalem, God was speaking through Jeremiah. Jeremiah began doing what he did as a prophet during the time when Josiah was Judah’s king. Jeremiah encouraged Josiah to do reforms and to bring about a revival in Judah and Jerusalem. Jeremiah during his lifespan lived under five different kings. Jeremiah was still living when God had some of His specially chosen guys and gals who were living in Judah and Jerusalem carried away by Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army.
Have you ever heard your dad and/or ma say ‘why did you do that’ when you did something that you should not have done? Jeremiah 2 begins with Jeremiah seemingly asking this question ‘why did you do that’ to God’s specially chosen guys and gals. Jeremiah begins what he wants to say by making sure that God’s specially chosen guys and gals know that God is speaking through Him and that he is not speaking for himself. Jeremiah wants to know from God’s specially chosen guys and gals who were living in Judah and Jerusalem how in the world they could have gone from being guys and gals who God had loved so much, who had loved God so much, who had let God lead them through a desert to a land that He had promised them that they would always have to live in as their very own land if . . . and who God had blessed with the best fruit and animals to serving inanimate wood, stone and metal gods. God over and over again will ask this same question of ‘why did you do that’ to His specially chosen guys and gals through prophets like Jeremiah. Why do you think that God kept on asking the question ‘why did you do that’ to his specially chosen guys and gals when He could have – through the absolute power that He has and through the fact that He is sovereign – meaning that God is controlling all that He has created, simply impressed on the hearts and minds of His specially chosen guys and gals a sincere, genuine desire to worship only Him?
Do you think of God sitting only on His heavenly throne – looking down on you, versus being wherever you are? Do you think that a guy, gal or kid can do something that is outside the box of the schematic that God – before He created planet Earth, made for each guy, gal and kid? Your grandpaa is convinced that God did not just know before your grandpaa was born exactly what your grandpaa would do after your grandpaa was born but that God had planned out every detail exactly how your grandpaa would live out his tenure on planet Earth. Your grandpaa does not believe that God made him ‘robotlike’ but . . . your grandpaa still would like an answer to the question of ‘why did you do that’ that God often asked His specially chosen guys and gals through prophets like Jeremiah. God gave an answer in verse 19 about how He really felt about all the wicked things that His specially chosen guys and gals were doing when He said through Jeremiah, “Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD your God and have no awe of me,”’ declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.” God really wanted His specially chosen guys and gals to know Him as being the Lord Almighty. God being the Lord Almighty means that He can do anything at any time. God wanted His specially chosen guys and gals to know that being the Lord Almighty means that He was allowing them to act out wickedly. God was allowing His specially chosen guys and gals – as they acted out wickedly, to experience what it is like to not have Him in their lives. Not having God in your lives is to experience an emptiness in the pit of your stomachs – or in your hearts, telling you that you are missing something absolutely vital that you need to have. God wants every guy, gal and kid who He has specially elected to know what it is like to experience hope. Experiencing hope takes place in God’s perfect plan at the moment when He leads a guy, gal or kid to make a decision of faith to believe in what His Son Jesus did for him or her on a cross after experiencing what it was like living a life that did not have hope. For you to know what it is like having God’s hope, God has you first live lives without having hope.
Jeremiah 2 (248)