When you do something wrong, you can respond in different ways. You can try to cover up your mistakes and act as if nothing happened. Or you swallow your pride, admit that you were wrong, and learn from it.

How about learning from other people’s mistakes? This is even better, if it prevents you from repeating their mistakes.

Downhill⤒🔗

This is what God was teaching the people of Judah: what happened to Israel (the ten tribes) should be a lesson for them.

God calls Israel by a nickname: Faithless. If you know the history of the ten tribes, you will not find this too harsh. The Northern tribes rapidly went downhill on the path of idolatry under Jeroboam, who introduced the golden calves, and Ahab, whose wife Jezebel introduced the worship of Baal and Asherah. Their sins continued to grow during many centuries.

They had been like an unknown girl who suddenly became a celebrity because she married a king. However, by their idolatry, the people of Israel had committed spiritual adultery and threw away the glorious position they had received. Therefore God put a stop to it and sent the Northern tribes into exile in 722 B.C.

No Worries←⤒🔗

When Jeremiah spoke these words, it was almost 100 years after the deportation of the Northern tribes. Judah should have learned from this and stopped with their sins.

Maybe you think Judah was not as bad as Israel. A short excursion to their history is enough to remove this wrong impression. The book of 2 Chronicles describes how the downslide began under Solomon, the greatest of the kings of Judah. Under Rehoboam, having been brought up under the influence of the foreign wives of his father, the downslide continued. During his reign, the idol worship was in full swing and sacred stones and high places were strewn across Judah’s landscape. Of all the kings from Rehoboam to Josiah, half of them actively promoted this evil. In addition, during the reign of five of the eight faithful kings the high places were not removed. Only three kings really tried to reverse the process and destroyed the places and objects of idol worship. This was Judah’s track record!

They committed the same sins, yet they did not even blink when Israel was deported. Idolatry reached a new height under the reign of King Manasseh, who led Israel on the path of faithlessness towards God like never before. She is Faithlessness herself, and that is what God calls her.

They should have thought: “If this is the punishment on idolatry, we better remove our high places and tear down those altars immediately!”

Instead of learning from Israel’s example, they said to themselves: “Hey, they went into exile, but we are still here! God loves us, He is on our side. Isn’t his temple in our midst?”

The extra time God gave them (more than 100 years) led them to think they had done nothing wrong. They rocked each other to sleep with a false sense of security.

Wake Up!←⤒🔗

When we read these words, God is teaching us the same lesson. We may not like the book of Jeremiah because it is full of judgment and it describes the downfall of Judah. It seems hard to regard the whole book as gospel: good news.

However, we can learn a lot about how God deals with his people in the covenant. It becomes clear that God is serious about the obedience of his people. When judgment does not come right away, people get careless and think that God does not punish their sins. When wars, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters rock the world, people are concerned about preventing the next event and don’t even think that these may be the warning signs of the coming judgment.

This thinking may influence Christians, as well. When sin does not seem to have any consequences, but looks attractive instead, we may get sloppy in our Christian lifestyle.

However, God not only sent Israel into exile, but Judah as well. They did not learn from the example God set before them. They rejected all the opportunities for repentance. Jeremiah was rejected, scorned, even threatened with death because they hated his message.

God’s Word continues to shake us out of our complacency. We can remind ourselves and teach unbelievers how God has shown that his words will happen. No doubt about it: God has added Judah to the list of examples.

The New Testament is no less solemn in its warnings against sin. The light of the gospel shines clearly since Jesus has come and paid for the sins of the world. But this also brings more urgency in the gospel message: repent now, do not cherish sin any more. The door of God’s kingdom is wide open, but remember that the final hour of world history has begun. Time is almost up. Any minute now, and the doors of the kingdom will be closed. Now is the time to repent from your sins and receive God’s grace.