Jeremiah 5:1-3, 12-19
Perhaps you have heard that expression—“Be careful what you wish for--you just might get it!” It is spoken of one or to one who longs for something desirable but that might actually be unknowingly harmful to him. He sees only the short-term benefit (if there is one) and not the long-term consequences.
Sin is most often that way—showing us the glamor but not the not the gutter, teasing us with the fame but not the fallout, pushing the pride but neglecting to mention the subsequent fall. Satan is the master of the bait-and-switch tactic, advertising pleasure but selling pain.
In Jeremiah, Judah is so wicked that even one righteous man cannot be found. (Does that sound familiar? Yes, it does. It sounds a Lot familiar. It was Lot who was challenged to find a few good men in order to spare Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction and he couldn’t even find one. (The rest is history.)
See what God says of Judah in the intervening verses, 4-11: “their transgressions are many; their backslidings have increased”…”Your children have forsaken Me”…”they committed adultery…in harlots’ houses.” That’s quite a blotter full of offenses.
The kicker comes in verse 19, which would be kind of funny if it wasn’t so tragic: “And it will be when you say, ‘Why does the Lord our God do all these things to us?’ then you shall answer them, ‘Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so you shall serve aliens in a land that is not yours.’”
In essence, God says, “You want to worship the false gods of other nations? Hey, that’s great. Have I got a surprise for you! You’re taking a trip. You will get to visit the lands of the people whose gods you worship! ‘Visit’ is maybe not the right word for captivity but you get the idea. You just keep doing what you do--I’ll make all the arrangements.”
God was not being cantankerous or capricious in dispatching Judah; it was a classic example of cause-and-effect. When Judah repeatedly chose to reject God, He merely gave them enough leash to continue following their own path, which led them into captivity.
Likewise, when we embrace our ways instead of God’s, unpleasant consequences are likely to follow eventually. I say “eventually” because they are not always immediate, which provides a bit of false security itself. In our drive-by need-it-yesterday mentality, we expect God’s crushing blow to occur right away and when it doesn’t, we wrongly assume that we have “gotten over” on Him.
God’s patience should not be misinterpreted as neglect. Looking back, we can likely see many instances when we might have taken one of the many exit ramps from Our Will to His Will but sped ahead recklessly toward our own preferred destination.
The challenge is to realize that we’ve missed a turn and be looking ahead for an exit to get back on His road as soon as possible before our disobedience leads to a fiery wreck in which we may not be the only ones to get burned.
