I feel like the proverbial frog in the kettle as I’m reading the Book of Jeremiah. Slowly being boiled to death and yet feeling comfortable and drowsy. All are well, comfortable, healthy, and peaceful, and yet I can’t shake the feeling that it might be because, like Lot, we have made our home Sodom and Gomorrah that is about to be destroyed.

During Jeremiah’s time, the people of Judah were going about life as they have always done. Since they had the temple of God with them, they thought God would protect them from all harm. But their lives were full of idolatry and “compromises” (lies, adultery, murder, stealing, etc).

To this, God said: “Because they have forsaken my law that I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in accord with it, but have stubbornly followed their own hearts… I will feed this people with bitter food, and give them poisonous water to drink. I will scatter them among the nations…. I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.” Jeremiah 9:13-16

Will God really be that cruel to His people? Six million Jews were killed during WWII. And that was only 70 years ago! My parents were alive when it happened! Have you ever seen the footage? Naked, emaciated bodies piled up like tree branches being bulldozed into a mass grave to be buried? In one concentration camp, 5,000 were being incinerated per day! God’s judgment is fearsome!

If God did that to the natural branch (Jews) who got detached from the vine, how much more to the unnatural branches (non-Jews) that failed to be grafted in! Being boiled to death is fine as long as we will die and that’s the end of it but what I fear is the eternal torment for those who walk on the wide path!

Lord, we have sinned gravely against You.
We have sought after our own comfort and compromised in so many ways.
Rather than following Your will and Your way, we’ve gone our own way.
Forgive us. Spare us.
Be merciful to us according to your love.
Look to Your Son and not us.
We have no hope apart from Jesus our Savior and Master.

Amen.

PH