The wages of sin is indeed death! We don't understand how much God hates sin until we read something like Lamentations and see what God was willing to cause to happen to His people. How much worse must hell be!?!?
Lamentations 2:14 says that part of the reason that Israel was punished was because their prophets (preachers?) didn't show them their sinfulness, but instead led them down the path to destruction. 2:14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.
Its scary to see the same kind of pattern in the church today.
What should our response be to sin in our lives especially when God has revealed to us the reason for our punishment? 2:19 Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.
Its truly amazing that even through the midst of exile, famine, plague, and sword; through the destruction that the writer has witnessed at God's hands that he can still say 3:22 [It is of] the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
3:23 [They are] new every morning: great [is] thy faithfulness.
3:24 The LORD [is] my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
Wow!!! Think about the circumstances that surround this passage and read the book of Lamentations so that you can put these verses into context. God was merciful in the judgement of His people. They deserved much more than what they got and they got a whole lot. This whole chapter is just amazing. There is so much to be learned from this passage that I can hardly even begin to give it the treatment it deserves. Please read it and if you like...add what you would like in a comment.
5:21 Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.
The book of Ezekiel, in my opinion, is a little weird. It is also a book of God's judgement. In chapter 3 Ezekiel is told to eat a scroll described at the end of chapter 2. 2:10 And he spread it before me; and it [was] written within and without: and [there was] written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe.
and that pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the book.
In chapter 5 we see that the 4600 taken captive in Jeremiah are really about all that is left of Israel.
5:2 Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, [and] smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them.
5:3 Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts. These are the few that are left alive after God's judgement is carried out. Again there is vivid imagery of what will happen when God brings His judgement
5:9 And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like,
because of all thine abominations. 5:10 Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds.
God always saves for Himself a remnant.
6:9 And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and
they shall lothe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations. 6:10 And they shall know that I [am] the LORD, [and that]
I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them. God is punishing them to bring them to repentance!
Chapter 9 is a vision of God marking the people whom He will save and destroying the rest. The most interesting thing about this passage is that the Judgement begins with the religious leaders and spreads outward from there.
9:6 Slay utterly old [and] young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom [is] the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which [were] before the house.
The NASB says "so they started with the elders who were before the temple." It is scary to think that judgement begins at the "House of God" and spreads out from there. Do you think we will see something like this in the American church?
5:21 Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.
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