You Cannot Live in Sin

Contrary to popular adages, God doesn't strike sinners with lightning bolts. He lets their own choices reveal their missteps and lets them feel the pain. 

Jeremiah 2:19 (ESV) Your evil will chastise you, and your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the LORD your God; the fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord GOD of hosts.

God indicts the evil of Israel by stating something we often neglect to mention in the Christian faith. Our own evil will cost us great pains. When we turn from the Lord, we are the ones who suffer. That was Israel's condition and it is so often the condition of our own lives as well.

Jeremiah 2:21 (ESV) Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine?

God did everything necessary to make Israel a wonderfully fruitful land. But now they are unrecognizable. This too warns us against letting sin in our life. It deteriorates us inwardly. 

Then Jeremiah details the result of their hearts from constant rebellion. 

Jeremiah 2:23–25 (ESV) How can you say, ‘I am not unclean, I have not gone after the Baals’? Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done— a restless young camel running here and there, 24 a wild donkey used to the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind! Who can restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves; in her month they will find her. 25 Keep your feet from going unshod and your throat from thirst. But you said, ‘It is hopeless, for I have loved foreigners, and after them I will go.’

The years of desiring and partaking in the baals have led Israel to believe there is no way out of their destructive desires. Like Samson, she wandered and wandered after the women of the Philistines until they were hopelessly devoted to their own destruction. This is a warning to us. We cannot play the fool with sin and think it has no effect on our hearts. It will blind us and make us slaves if we indulge. The best move is to run from sin and hate anything that leads to it. 

Jeremiah 2:26–27 (ESV) “As a thief is shamed when caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed: they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, 27 who say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ For they have turned their back to me, and not their face. But in the time of their trouble they say, ‘Arise and save us!’

Further description of Israel's spiritual life is pictured as "fire escape" religion. Only when there was trouble, Isreal turned to God. Otherwise, they foolishly ran after trees and stone images.

Perhaps most troubling of all was Israel's abandonment of God to chase after Eygyt. The very nation He saved them from they left Him for. 

Jeremiah 2:36–37 (ESV) How much you go about, changing your way! You shall be put to shame by Egypt as you were put to shame by Assyria. 37 From it too you will come away with your hands on your head, for the LORD has rejected those in whom you trust, and you will not prosper by them.

Yet here we find a glimmer of hope even if the process is painful. God will not let His people flourish where they do not belong. They will come away from these nations in disgrace for they are not the path of grace. 

Can you feel your heart slipping away from the Lord? Or perhaps you feel the pain of your own sinful rebellions. The bad news is that it hurts. The good news is that it hurts and reminds you where you do not belong.