Jeremiah 44 is God’s explanation of what has been going wrong. Disaster has come and it was “all because they took up with evil ways”. There is that darn choice thing again. The devil didn’t make them do it, they chose to disobey. God tells them “morning after morning and long into the night I kept after you….begging you”. God’s judgment was not fast – He pursued and wanted to give the people a chance to get their lives in order. He waited for them to really come back to Him. But no one paid attention and then “a firestorm of wrath” is let loose and bad things happen. To top it off there was “not a trace of remorse, not a sign of reverence, nobody caring about…following my instructions”. Blatent, self centered sin. Nobody cared to listen or get right with God. Jeremiah tries to set them straight but they will have nothing to do with God’s message or messenger. They kept on living in disobedience and did not believe there would be a price to pay.
Jeremiah makes it real plain what the problem is here. He tells them God “got fed up” with their evil behavior. Things became a wasteland, doom had set in. Why? “Because you sinned against God”. How’s that for straight talk. You reap what you sow. You sin – bad things happen. Jeremiah makes it really plain for them. And scripture says “Jeremiah kept going”. He didn’t stop with the obvious. He lets them know it is going to get worse if they don’t clean up their act. God is not done. He says God has “targeted each one”. We are responsible for our sin. We can’t pass the blame to our wife or husband, our parents, the neighbor or the preacher. Sin belongs to the one who disobeys and that person will have to address it with God. It is pretty simple actually. If I CHOOSE to disobey God’s commands, I will have to answer for that disobedience. Jeremiah makes it clear. There is a price to pay for sin. A big price. We need to consider how we live. Life matters – so live it God’s way.
