Love and War

Thoughts from the daily Bible reading:  Jeremiah 21-24

God is serious about His Justice.  You can see it over and over again....especially in the book of Jeremiah.  In the first 20 chapters of Jeremiah, God is telling the people through His prophet that He was going to punish them because they have followed their own evil hearts and forsaken Him.  God told them He would punish them by allowing the Babylonians to destroy them because they had forsaken God and had followed their own evil hearts.  Yet, in chapter 21, when war finally comes to the people, King Zedekiah sent word to Jeremiah asking him to go to the Lord. In the king's message to Jeremiah, he even said, “Perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all his wonderful deeds and will make him withdraw from us.”  Amazing!  Time and time again, the people ignored the Lord’s words of judgement.  Yet, it the time of disaster, they thought God would simply overlook their sin and answer with “his wonderful deeds.”   God did answer according to his wonderful deeds, but they were not the people's desired deeds.  They were deeds of justice.  My human heart wants God to relent of  his anger towards them.  I want God to allow them to live.  But that would not be just.  Even in His Righteous anger and judgement, God told them that if the people would surrender to the Chaldeans, they would live….yet many did not surrender.  Even among a time of great judgement and unrelenting anger, God provided a way for the faithful who would trust in Him.  This is soooo relevant for our culture today!   God has told us that Judgement is coming.   He will not allow sin to go unpunished.  Yet, so many think that God will just let their sin go unpunished because, after all, “God is love,” right?  Yes, He is love.  He is the truest Love of all.  But He is also Good and Just.  Therefore, He cannot and will not leave sin unpunished.  So, in His perfect love and justice, He has provided a way for us to go unpunished….That way is through His Son Jesus Christ who paid the penalty for sin so that we could be reconciled to God.  He is the only way to be free from sin and brought near to God forever.  See the comparison:  Judah could be “free” from the Babylonians if they would just surrender.  They would be rescued by God.  We also see that when they didn’t turn to God, He did punish them.  In the same manner, God will punish your sin and my sin.  He has shown us through His Word that He will do this.  He has made a Way for us, the only way, Jesus Christ.   Let it soak in:  God will punish sin.  Trust in Christ.  Don’t delay.