Unfaithfulness & Consequences

Transcript

GR 445
05/23/1982
Unfaithfulness and its Consequences
Jeremiah 2:20-37
Gil Rugh

We are now in the middle of Jeremiah's first message to Israel. Our previous study concluded with Jeremiah 2:19 as Jeremiah pointed out, 'Your own wickedness will correct you, and your apostasies will reprove you; know therefore and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God, and the dread of Me is not in you.' This continues to show the seriousness of the sin of Israel.

There is a great danger for the people of God who profess His name to wander from Him and to ultimately degenerate to a people who do not know Him and who worship other gods. Jeremiah is going to drive home the point in this section with a series of seven metaphors which picture the degeneracy of Israel in their unbridled lust for other gods. The picture of unfaithfulness in marriage is paralleled by Israel's unfaithfulness to God. God is viewed as the husband, Israel as the wife. For Israel to seek after other gods is like being unfaithful to the husband. Such unfaithfulness was associated with the immoral practices of cult prostitution. Both elements of whoredom are present and are strongly emphasized.

'For long ago I broke your yoke and tore off your bonds; but you said, 'I will not serve!'' Jeremiah 2:20. This could also read, 'For long ago you broke your yoke and tore off your bonds.' The former emphasizes the fact that God had provided their deliverance from Egypt. He is the One who miraculously broke the bondage of servitude after over 400 years in Egypt. But Israel's response has been a refusal to serve Jehovah and to follow Him. The latter emphasizes that Israel has been unwilling to adhere to the covenant that God made with them.

The latter seems to fit the context better. Most translations read, 'For long ago you broke your yoke and tore off your bonds.' Israel is pictured as a working animal that refused to walk in that yoke, the same analogy Jesus used in Matthew 11, 'Take My yoke upon you.'

Israel had torn asunder the covenant that God had made with her which is pictured in the marriage covenant. They were unwilling to be joined to Jehovah and to serve Him as a loving and faithful wife. But rather, 'For on every high hill and under every green tree you have lain down as a harlot' (v. 20). The prophets employ very graphic and direct statements regarding the condition of the people of God. God pointedly compares Israel's spiritual condition to harlotry, whoredom and prostitution. God is driving home how repulsive and awful spiritual unfaithfulness is in His eyes. The picture is that on every high hill, under every green tree, Israel has lain down as a harlot. In all these places of worship they are worshiping other gods. They are playing the role of the prostitute in unfaithfulness to God.

This helps us to see how serious the issue of true worship of God really is. Improper worship is not merely a matter of people worshiping God in their own way out of the sincerity of their hearts. It is a matter of people practicing spiritual prostitution. Every time they carry on their worship contrary to the instructions of the Word of God, He views it as practicing spiritual prostitution. Thus we conclude that it is better to have no religion and no form of worship than to practice religion and worship which is contrary to the instructions of the Word of God.

Remember that twofold sin of Israel? They have not only forsaken God, their first sin, but they have also constructed other gods, a second sin. They are multiplying sin to sin. This pictures very directly the spiritual condition of the nation Israel.

In verse 21 God describes Israel as a degenerate vine. 'I planted you a choice vine, a completely faithful seed.' God says He has done what should have been done. He planted with the proper seed. God never takes responsibility for sin. Christians sometimes slide to the point of saying, 'Well, God is sovereign. He could have kept me from that sin if He had wanted to.' But God said, 'How then have you turned yourself before Me into the degenerate shoots of a foreign vine?' v. 21. God planted good seed for a choice vine, but now He has a degenerate vine that does not produce worthwhile grapes. What has happened? 'You turned yourself,' v. 21 God said. The responsibility for apostasy and backsliding is always placed upon the sinning people. We bear personal responsibility before God for our conduct and actions.

God gives a more detailed description of the vine in Isaiah 5. Jesus picked up this picture of the vine and the vineyard in John 15 when He said, 'I am the vine, you are the branches.' His comments have their background in this and similar Old Testament passages.

Isaiah wrote, 'Let me sing now for my well-beloved a song of my beloved concerning His vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. And He dug it all around, removed its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. And He built a tower in the middle of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; then He expected it to produce good grapes, but it produced only worthless ones. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between Me and My vineyard. What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones? So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard: I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed; I will break down its wall and it will become trampled ground. And I will lay it waste; it will not be pruned or hoed, but briars and thorns will come up. I will also charge the clouds to rain no rain on it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress' Isaiah 5:1-7.

God had done everything that could be done to develop Israel into a nation that glorified and magnified His name. How do you account for the worthless results? You cannot blame the keeper of the vineyard. The vine itself has turned. Naturally, the analogy breaks down somewhat. I do not know much about vineyards or gardening, but we have two trees of the same kind in our yard. The one in the front came out great. The one in the back yard is a mess. They are the same kind of tree, and they looked about the same when I planted them; but one became very unattractive and Marilyn keeps asking me when am I going to cut it down.

It is the same with Israel. Israel is a worthless plant. We can see from this what God expects His people to be--producing and manifesting the character, justice and righteousness of God.

God next describes Israel as people with a stain that cannot be washed away. This shows the character of sin that has marred them. ''Although you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your iniquity is before Me,' declares the Lord God' Jeremiah 2:22. These people have been marred by sin, and sin cannot be removed by external washings and activity. There is nothing you can do to take away your own sin. By sinning, the Israelites have defiled themselves. There is nothing they can do to take away their sin. They will not turn to God who is the One who can remove sin. They are defiled and cannot remove the stain of sin, but they will not allow God to remove it. In Isaiah 1:18 sin is pictured as being scarlet, but God offers to make it like snow. But the people of God are unwilling to have God cleanse their sin, unwilling to deal with it in God's way. That does not mean they do not recognize that something is wrong. But they will not face that wrong from God's perspective.

The situation is unchanged from Israel's day to our day. One of the most difficult things is to get people to admit to sin from God's perspective. People are religious. Israel was very religious at this stage, but they were unwilling to face reality from God's perspective. People today will admit that nobody is perfect. They will admit that they sin, but it is another thing to get them to confront sin from God's perspective. Man is in a state of rebellion against God, guilty, under condemnation, destined for eternity in hell because of his sin. Unless you come to believe in Jesus Christ, God's Savior, you can have no forgiveness and no cleansing for all eternity. That is a different picture.

People today say, 'I believe in sin; I have my religion.' That is what Israel was saying. God asks them rhetorically, 'How can you say, 'I am not defiled, I have not gone after the Baals'? Look at your way in the valley! Know what you have done!' (v. 23). Israel denies her guilt. But they are ignorant of the Word of God. We saw this earlier. 'Those who handle the law did not know Me' (Jeremiah 2:8). They have lost their measuring stick or standard. So they deny the reality of their guilt. But they are pursuing religion.

'Look at your way in the valley!' v. 23. The valley of Hinnom was a place where human sacrifice was practiced. They offered their children on the altar and consumed them as a burning sacrifice to God.

Second Chronicles 28 gives a picture of this very repulsive practice. King Ahaz of Israel practiced this sin in the valley of Hinnom. 'Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem . . . . Moreover, he burned incense in the valley of Ben-hinnom, and burned his sons in fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the sons of Israel.' (2 Chronicles 28:1,3). In other words, he had adopted the religion of the Canaanites. I want you to pick up a point here. This is not a religion that did not require extreme dedication and commitment. Imagine the commitment of an unbeliever taking one of his sons and burning him as a sacrifice. There is a commitment to this religion and a zeal in its pursuit.

We have another example in 2 Chronicles 33:1. 'Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.' The wickedness he accomplished, as we alluded to earlier, was irreparable, although he himself was saved toward the end of his life. Verse 6 says, 'And he made his sons pass through the fire in the valley of Ben-hinnom.' This is the same practice, offering his sons as human sacrifices in the valley where this Canaanite practice is carried out.

Jeremiah 7:31 mentions the same practice. 'And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, and it did not come into My mind.' In other words, this religious practice did not find its source in Jehovah, but Israel was practicing it. Jeremiah 19:5 says they 'have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter My mind.' It was never even a possibility that this would be a means to worship God.

Look at one other example in Jeremiah 32:35. 'And they built the high places of Baal that are in the valley of Ben-hinnom to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I had not commanded them nor had it entered My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.' To pass through the fire does not mean that they simply walked down through the fire, but rather they were sacrificed in the fire. Thus they pass through this fire to the god that is being worshipped.

The worship that Israel is carrying out with their uttermost devotion and commitment, even to the point of offering their children as sacrifices, is said to be an abomination to God, causing people to sin. We have lost something of God's perspective on false worship today. The sincerity of the person and the totality of his commitment are not the issues in worship. The issue is the worship of the true and living God according to His Word. We are sometimes impressed by commitment and sincerity in worship. You cannot be much more sincere than to take one of your children, place him on an altar and consume him with fire in worshiping a god. That is total commitment to that god and that worship system. But it is an abomination to God. It is something He hates and says He will bring into judgment. The problem is that Israel has moved away from the Word of God, from God's guideline and directive for worshiping Him.

Note God's instructions in Deuteronomy 28:14. 'Do not turn aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.' There is to be no deviation from God's instructions. When Jesus confronted the Samaritan woman in John 4, He told her that those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. There is no exception or tolerance for variation allowed. In Romans 10:2 Paul says concerning Israel, 'I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God but not in accordance with knowledge.' They are ignorant worshipers, and thus they are not worshiping the true God.

I am going to belabor this point because it becomes crucial to the whole development of Jeremiah's prophecy. It is crucial for us in developing God's perspective of worshiping Him. We are not saying that everybody has to do it the way we do it at Indian Hills Community Church. We are saying that Indian Hills Community Church and everybody else who is going to worship the true God must do it according to the Word of God, or it is unacceptable. Proverbs 28:9 declares, 'He who turns away his ear from listening to the law, even his prayer is an abomination.' What about the prayer of the unbeliever? Does he listen to the Word of God? Has he submitted himself to the Word of God? No, but what about his prayer? Very concisely God says that it is an abomination to Him. Even though these people may be praying sincerely, it is an abomination if it is not according to the Word of God.

God never said as long as you are sincere, it is okay. He says it must be His way. We do not like that. Do you see what happens? We want another God. We think, That is all right, God. You have Your ideas and I have mine. I will accept Your ideas and You accept mine, and we will blend them. Do you see how we construct our own gods? Someone may ask, 'Who are you to attack someone else's religion?' God says that if a person does not submit himself to the Word of God, his prayer is an abomination.

Proverbs 15 shows a similar attitude toward sacrifice. 'The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord' Proverbs 15:8. In the next verse, 'The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord.' v. 9 God hates everything about the wicked, and in particular, their worship.

What about all these people attending religious services? It is not a matter of externals: coming to a certain building, sitting a certain way. We can have people sitting in this auditorium whose worship is an abomination to God because in their hearts they have rejected Him. They are unwilling to believe in Him and what He has revealed concerning His Son, Jesus Christ. You cannot change that by sitting a certain way in a certain place for a certain amount of time. True worship is a matter of a right relationship with God through faith in the revelation He has given of Himself.

What has He revealed? That His Son, Jesus Christ, has died to pay the penalty for my sin. That is the crucial issue. Have I believed in Jesus Christ as my Savior, relying upon Him as the One who cleanses from sin? If so, my worship is acceptable to God. If not, it is not acceptable to Him no matter what external activities and routines I may pursue.

Jeremiah continues by showing that there is an aimlessness that characterizes a person who has turned from the Word of God. He has no guideline regarding what is acceptable to God. Israel is pictured as 'a swift young camel entangling her ways' Jeremiah 2:23. This young camel is going back and forth, crisscrossing paths, aimless, with no direction or guidance. That is the way Israel is in her worship, going back and forth, crisscrossing, up and down, going nowhere, in a state of confusion, lacking a sense of direction without the Word of God.

In verse 24 the analogy gets even more direct. 'A wild donkey accustomed to the wilderness, that sniffs the wind in her passion. In the time of her heat who can turn her away? All who seek her will not become weary; in her month they will find her.' Israel is like a wild donkey in heat, and the male donkeys do not have any problem getting near her. They just attach themselves to her indiscriminately. And Israel is ripe for these kinds of relationships with other gods. Why? They have left the Word of God. Yet they do not lose their desire. They still have a desire for something. Do you ever wonder why people do not just abandon religion altogether when they do not adhere to the Word of the living God? It is because of that desire for something which drives them on in that pursuit even though they are unwilling to have the truth. Israel has that desire and is driven on in these spiritually immoral relationships.

God continues in verse 25, 'Keep your feet from being unshod and your throat from thirst; but you said, 'It is hopeless! No! For I have loved strangers, and after them I will walk.'' In other words, do not wear out your sandals pursuing other gods. Do not be running after them until your throats are parched. But Israel's response is, 'No, it is hopeless. I have given myself to strangers; after them I walk.' There is a mind-set here. Israel is not open to worship the true God. If you go out to eat Sunday after church, look around for people coming out of their churches. Go over and sit down with them and say, 'You were at church today, you must be interested in worshiping the true and living God. Let me tell you about how you can worship Him.' Find out if they are really interested in worshiping the true and living God, or if they have determined to love strangers and walk after other gods.

In verse 26 Israel has been discovered and revealed as a thief. They have been revealed to be unfaithful and immoral. A thief does not have regret and remorse over thievery but over being caught and revealed to as a thief. 'As the thief is shamed when he is discovered, so the house of Israel is shamed. They, their kings, their princes, and their priests, and their prophets, 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 will say, 'Arise and save us'' vv. 26-27. This is spiritual immorality. They are worshiping idols. They are saying that a tree or a stone is the god who created them.

We have done the same thing. The vast majority of people in this country believe in a doctrine called evolution. We do not say this stone made me or this tree created me, but when we trace our creation back to the animals, to this or that form of life, we are saying the same thing. This teaching says that the God that the Bible speaks of as creating everything did not create me, but I am a result of what was already here. We are no different than Israel, then. It all comes back to a basic unwillingness to acknowledge the creating God of the Bible. So we offer our alternative. For Israel, it was a stone or a tree. For us, it goes all the way back to a happenstance explosion, or whatever, that started it all. Anything to take the true and living God out of the picture.

'They have turned their back to Me, not their face' v. 27. What a picture of rudeness. It is amazing how patient God is and that we are even here today. What can you say except that it is the grace of God. When you say you are going to correct your children and they turn their back to you and walk out, what do you do? If you did not have a heart seizure when you got hold of them, there would be some severe judgment. It is amazing how patient God is. He is talking to Israel about it, reasoning about their sin.

But note what comes at the end of verse 27: 'But in the time of their trouble they will say, 'Arise and save us.'' God is supposed to jump in and rescue them. What will Israel say when the Assyrians come? Oh, where is God? Why did He let this happen to us? What will Judah say when the Babylonians come? Oh, God, rescue us; You will not let anything happen to Your people. It is the same way with us. God is supposed to be there. We ignore Him and turn our backs on Him, but anytime there is trouble, we just reach out and He is supposed to rescue us. And if He does not, the bitterness grows. Where was God when I needed Him, when this happened to me? So He is supposed to be there at our beck and call. Do you know who is God in that situation? I am. Why does not God do what I tell Him? So you see, we are no different than Israel. We have constructed other gods and ignored the One and true living God except when we think He ought to intervene on our behalf.

'Where are your gods which you made for yourself?' v. 28. That is really sarcastic. If I made my gods, what good are they? 'Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble.' I cannot read this without thinking of Elijah when he was with the prophets of Baal. I Kings 18:27. They were building the altar and were to call down fire from heaven. Do you know what Elijah said? 'You had better call louder, maybe he is on a trip! Or maybe he is going to the bathroom!' Now that is sarcastic! But it drives the point home, does it not? There is nobody there. It is ridiculous.

According to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah' v. 28. They did not lack for gods because they had gods in every city. God said let them save you. Let them rescue you from the Babylonians. See how they do. You want to devote yourself to them, to run around with those lovers. Let us see how they care for you in the time of your need. The analogy is so perfect with the picture in the immoral relationship. The immoral person is always functioning selfishly with nothing to offer. These gods have nothing to offer either. God asks them, 'Why do you contend with Me? You have all transgressed against Me' v. 29. Why are they contending with Him as though He had done something wrong? God keeps coming back to the fact that they are sinners! And Israel is unwilling to bow the knee and acknowledge that to God. If a person in arrogance and stubbornness is unwilling to bow the knee and acknowledge his sinfulness to God, there is no hope for his salvation. The Israelites are contending with God, but they are the ones who have transgressed. It is as though they felt God owed them something, that He was responsible for this situation.

In verse 30 God charges, 'In vain I have struck your sons; they accepted no chastening.' God has chastened, but they would not heed. Israel could look at what happened to the Northern Kingdom. Did they pay heed? No, they did not learn. What did they do with those who brought the Word of God? 'Your sword has devoured your prophets like a destroying lion' v. 30. That picture of the sword devouring animals was often used. Some swords have been found that have the handle in the shape of an animal's head with the sword being the tongue coming out of the mouth. The sword is pictured here as devouring like an animal devours.

What happened to the prophets who came to tell them the Word of God? Did Israel want to listen to them? Do you remember what Stephen asked as he was being stoned to death? 'Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?' Acts 7:52. Are they going to listen to Jeremiah? No. Has it changed today? Go and talk to people about what the Bible says about their sin and their need for salvation and see if they are any more open to what God says today than they were in Jeremiah's time. The pattern has not changed.

The grace of God is amazing. In the midst of this harsh, hard judgment as God speaks, He breaks in, 'O generation, heed the word of the Lord' Jeremiah 2:31. You get the idea that there is no hope, but God still reaches out in mercy and grace. He continues to reason with them in verse 31, 'Have I been a wilderness to Israel? Or a land of thick darkness?' Has God been barrenness to Israel? We have already established earlier that God is the One who is the source of their blessing. Did He not provide for Israel in all their needs? 'Why do My people say, 'We are free to roam; we will come no more to Thee'?' v. 31. What rational, logical explanation can they give?

We have two questions here. One, has God failed Israel? Obviously not. Two, why has Israel roamed? We believers ought to think on this. Has God ever failed us? Has He ever let us down? Why do we move toward sin? Why do we find ourselves indulging in and pursuing sin? What rationale is there in sin that we should turn from the One who loves us, who provides and sustains us? Yet we think we are free to roam. Let me say something about grace. It is not license to sin. It does not mean I have liberty to do anything I want. It means I have liberty to do everything that God wants me to do as His child.

'Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet My people have forgotten My days without number' v. 32. There is pathos here in God's approach. Can a bride forget her attire, the sash that marked her off as a married woman? Or can a virgin forget her ornaments? No. But God's people have forgotten Him days without number. God is Israel's adornment. He ought to be Israel's most precious possession, but Israel has forgotten Him. Can you imagine that? We have little treasures we like to keep that have meaning to us, like the bride's attire. We treasure the little things we have gotten from our mother and our grandmother, something that is special to us. These things are our treasures, things we do not forget. But the people of God have forgotten about Him. It is amazing, overwhelming. And that is the point that God wants to drive home.

The sin of Israel is in forgetting what God has done for them. This is a recurring theme. I fear that happens to us, especially after we have been believers for some time. We begin to lapse into the allurements of the gods of this world, and we forget what God has done for us, and thus we wander and roam. Moses warned Israel centuries before, 'Beware lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today' Deuteronomy 8:11. The very concept is almost unbelievable. Oh, I remember who the Lord is. Yes, I remember Him. What am I doing indulging over here? If I think that way, I am indicating that I have forgotten God.

Moses continued in verse 19 of Deuteronomy 8, 'And it shall come about if you ever forget the Lord your God, and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you shall surely perish.' God's warnings through Jeremiah are not new. A thousand years earlier through Moses, God had spoken to the subject and warned them. But the people had forgotten.

Later Jeremiah will pick up an idea Moses wrote about in Deuteronomy 32. Moses said that the more God blessed His people and the more they prospered, the more they forgot God. 'But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked--you are grown fat, thick, and sleek--then he forsook God who made him, and scorned the Rock of his salvation. They made Him jealous with strange gods; with abominations they provoked Him to anger. They sacrificed to demons who were not God, to gods whom they have not known, new gods who came lately, whom your fathers did not dread. You neglected the Rock who begot you, and forgot the God who gave you birth' Deuteronomy 32:15-18.

There are other passages through the Psalms and the prophets that emphasize Israel forgetting God. Have you ever sat down to dwell upon all that God has done and is doing for you, to remind yourself of the God who loves you and cares for you? As you do that, it will encourage you to stay on the path in submission to the Word and the Spirit who uses the Word.

Jeremiah continues his emphasis on Israel forgetting God. 'How well you prepare your way to seek love!' Jeremiah 2:33. Israel forgets what God has done and makes preparation to pursue other gods. The two go together. When you begin to forget what God has done in your life, you are beginning to subtly make preparation to pursue other loves. The pattern is the same in the marriage relationship. You begin to forget the commitments you have made to your partner. You begin to forget that God brought you together; you forget what God has given you together. Soon your mind wanders toward other loves. You begin to forget, and you have begun to prepare the way for other loves. 'How well you prepare your way to seek love!' v. 33. Is it not amazing? Israel has no time for God, but all kinds of time to plan her pursuit of other loves. The Israelites are not so different from us today who have minimum time for God, but absorb ourselves in the pursuit of pleasure, the acquisition of things, rising in the power structure, or whatever. How well we prepare ourselves to seek love, then pursue our other gods because we forget.

'Therefore even the wicked women you have taught your ways' v. 33. Israel has become so adept at sin that even the prostitutes can learn something from her about procuring lovers. See how wretched God sees spiritual unfaithfulness? Verse 34 continues, 'Also on your skirts is found the lifeblood of the innocent poor; you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things, yet you said, 'I am innocent.'' v. 35. Sin compounds itself. They forgot God, they pursued sin, and the innocent suffered. That is a pattern for us too. In the marriage relationship if I forget my commitment to my mate, I begin to pursue other loves. And the children, the innocent ones, suffer. Those who should have been cared for are run over. The instructions of God are ignored because they do not seem to matter.

Note the stubbornness of the people. 'But in spite of all these things, yet you said, 'I am innocent; surely His anger is turned away from me'' vv. 34,35. You have heard this preached if you have come out of a liberal church. God is a God of love. He could never send anyone to hell. He is understanding. He knows you are not perfect. You just do the best you can, and that is all right with Him. That is what Israel was saying. 'Surely His anger is turned away from me. What would God have against me? I have not done anything so bad.' Sometimes we read about Israel and feel that Israel is so wretched they deserve it, but we think we are not like that. Israel did not think they were like that either. Remember, God is not only looking at the externals, He is looking at the internals as well. 'For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries' Mark 7:21. So here is Israel saying, 'Me? I did not do anything so bad. I am not perfect, but I am not that bad. Surely His anger is turned away from me.'

But God has a different idea. 'Behold, I will enter into judgment with you because you say, 'I have not sinned'' Jeremiah 2:35. You ought to mark that down. Reality has not changed. God says that because you say you have not sinned, He has to judge you. The beginning point for salvation is a recognition and acknowledgment of your own sinfulness. If you will not acknowledge that you are sinful and guilty before God, there is no hope for your eternal salvation. God says He will enter into judgment with you because you will not acknowledge your sinfulness.

You must put that in the context we are talking about. If you acknowledge your sinfulness from God's perspective, that will be tied to a recognition of your guilt and need for His salvation. That is crucial. Have you ever recognized and acknowledged your sinfulness before God? Have you admitted that you are guilty as a sinner before God and, with that awareness, cast yourself upon Him for salvation? Have you placed your faith in Him and what He has done for you in giving His Son to die in your place on a cross, and in raising Him from the dead? Have you come to believe in God's revelation to deal with your sinfulness? That is the measure. It is not a question of where you go to church. The question is your personal relationship with God through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

God continues in verse 36, 'Why do you go around so much changing your way? Also, you shall be put to shame by Egypt as you were put to shame by Assyria.' Israel thought they were masters of their own course. They had not learned. They turn to Egypt for deliverance, not to God. The same thing is going to happen to them when they turn to Egypt as when they turned to Assyria--destruction.

Shame and grief are the result of Israel's unfaithfulness. The consequences continue. 'From this place also you shall go out with your hands on your head; for the Lord has rejected those in whom you trust, and you shall not prosper with them' (v. 37). Going out with hands on your head is a picture of grief and mourning, not as we would think of as a prisoner. That will happen too, but here it is a picture of grief. This description is used in 2 Samuel 13:19 after Tamar has been violated by her brother. She puts her hands on her head in grief and mourning.

What happens to Israel? As a result of unfaithfulness to God, grief and shame are the results. Keep in mind that in the midst of this there has been the plea, 'O generation, heed the word of the Lord' v. 31. It sounds so harsh. Some people say the God of the Old Testament is a hard, bloodthirsty God. Yet He is the same God of the New Testament. He just wants us to know what the result of sin really is.

What is your perspective on false religions? Do you really see them as God sees them? Do you see those people going in the door of those religious places, those churches where the Word of God is not believed and taught, as committing spiritual whoredom and adultery? Do you see them as those who must hear the message of God regarding judgment and salvation, or there is no hope? We need to have God's perspective on these matters.