Jeremiah 22:6-9: Let Britain take note!(please click here for todays Bible passage)

‘’Travellers from all over will come through here and say to one another, ‘Why would GOD do such a thing to this wonderful city?’ They’ll be told, ‘Because they walked out on the covenant of their GOD, took up with other gods and worshipped them.’’ (8, 9) The Message.

I read the above verses and think, ‘Let Great Britain take note; let every European nation take note; indeed, every country on the face of the earth. Let me take note.’ Here is a significant object lesson. Let us look and learn. There are consequences to rejecting God (see Deuteronomy 29:24-26; Jeremiah 16:10-11). ‘’God never forsakes His people unless they have first forsaken Him.’’ Tom Hale: ‘The Applied Old Testament Commentary, p.1106. God regularly works in such a way as to raise questions in people’s minds, and if they heed the answer given they can be saved (Acts 2:5ff.)

In (6, 7) you get a sense of what it costs God to judge His people. He doesn’t do it lightly.

‘’I number you among my favourite places – like the lovely hills of Gilead, like the soaring peaks of Lebanon. Yet I swear I’ll turn you into a wasteland, as empty as a ghost town. I’ll hire a demolition crew, well-equipped with sledgehammers and wrecking bars, Pound the country to a pulp and burn it all up.’’ The Message

It hurt Him to hurt them. His love wanted to spare them; but His justice demanded their judgment, because they would not repent. Just as it hurts a loving parent to discipline a wayward child, so this chastisement pierced God’s own heart. We don’t always think about the price paid by God in judgment – a price which is seen most clearly in the death of Jesus, for us all, at Calvary. He judged His Son, for our sin, in order to set us free, if we are willing to be free.

Prayer: Lord have mercy on our land, and bring us back to you.