What Happens When God Loses Patience?

Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them;
They have no delight in it.
Therefore I am full of the fury of the Lord.
I am weary of holding it in.
Jeremiah 6:10-11

Note: This is a re-post from a blog I wrote in 2016. I had no idea then how soon God would act. So now I have to ask the question - is COVID19 a warning shot to the church? It is apparent many church leaders and many Christians have not passed this test from God. Instead, they have been demanding their "rights" over the welfare of others. Jeremiah was a prophet sent to the priests and religious leaders of his day to warn them of God's impending judgement. He urged them to repent. It is alarming to me how quickly God acted after I wrote this (just four years). 

Today I am in chapter six of Jeremiah. I have found this study fascinating because even though it is about the Jewish people and a warning from God to them that judgement was coming, I can see acute similarities between our world and theirs.

For the last five chapters, God has been voicing His displeasure over the wickedness of His people. He has, through Jeremiah, given them fair warning about their impending doom. This is a precedent God has set throughout history. When judgement is coming, He sends a prophet to warn the people.

But who are our prophets today? How do we receive warnings from God? We get them from scripture verses like today all throughout the Bible. Our final warning being the Revelation of John. We don't have to look far to see that we are living in a world similar to Jeremiah's. Jeremiah's world was filled with the following, and sadly, our world is the same:

• Oppression (the list is far too long to name the oppressed in the world today)
• Violence
• Wickedness
• Plundering (the Hebrew word for this is shod, and it means havoc, violence, destruction, devastation and ruin).
• Grief (the Hebrew word for this is choliy, and  it means sickness ). But God is not punishing people because they are physically sick. He is punishing them because they are sick in the sense that they are evil-minded.
• Wounds (the Hebrew word for this is makkah, it is from the root word nakah, which means to strike, smite, hit, beat, slay, kill). Our world has become so familiar with murder that one policeman on the news said recently that his county had only had 94 murders in two years. And then went on to claim he lived in a peaceful, law-abiding community! Clearly, people have become immune to violence because we are constantly subjected to it from T.V., movies and the news.
• The word of the Lord is a reproach to them (today, the Bible is mocked by unbelievers and neglected by those who claim to be believers).
• Everyone is given to covetousness (if any generation was a "mine, mine, mine" generation, it is this one).
• Everyone deals falsely, from the prophet to the priest. Instead, false teachers give the people good news and tickle their ears with what they want to hear. They are shouting, "Revival is coming! Revival is coming!" all while refusing to acknowledge that judgement is what is really coming. They are following Jeremiah 6:13-14 to a tee. They are not sharing the news that God is returning, and it will be a dreadful thing).
• People are stubborn
• People are rebellious
• They are corrupt

Is there a way we can escape judgement?

The same way that was offered to Jeremiah's people is offered to this world today.

REPENT!

Stand in the ways and see,
And ask for the old paths, where the good way is,
And walk in it;
Then you will find rest for your souls.
Jeremiah 6:16

This world is in danger because, like Jeremiah's people, the people of today refuse to heed the warnings. They refuse to repent, and instead, they continue to mock God and promote immorality. There are Christians who claim to follow God, but they have so closely aligned themselves with the world it is hard to distinguish them from unbelievers. Sexual promiscuity, divorce and adultery are rampant in the church. Should we be shocked that judgement is coming?

But unlike Jeremiah's day, we have a Redeemer who came to earth to stand in the gap for us. To save us from eternal punishment. All we have to do is confess our sins and sincerely repent. Jesus is waiting for all to come to Him to be saved.

But how much longer will God
​ contend with man?

The signs are all there. Our world is the same as Jeremiah's. Jesus said in Matthew 24:37, "But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be."

The book of Jeremiah has shown me the conditions that led to God's judgement in his era. These same conditions are now present in ours. If people think God is not going to act - and soon - they are fooling themselves. We need to sound the trumpet and raise the alarm and if we look foolish in doing so, then so be it. I'd rather look a fool in warning people of their impending doom than stand before God ashamed that I did nothing.

Jesus' is coming soon.
What are you going to do about it?