“The LORD said to me, ‘Have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She goes up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and plays the harlot there. And I said, after she did all these things, “Come back to me,” but she did not come back, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. And I saw that, when for all the times that backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid, and she also went and played the harlot.’ ”
Jeremiah 3:6–8
It is surprising how often, despite the evidence, God’s people do not take to heart His judgments on the unfaithful. One sister, some years back, watched a string of others fall away from Jesus and then said, “I never even considered the possibility that it would happen to me.” Now, she is completely backslidden and living a morally wretched lifestyle.
We live only by the continued mercies of God. Those who survive and are saved in the end will be those who know, when they see God’s judgment, that God is no respecter of persons and that the same judgment could happen to them. We would be wise to heed Paul’s warning, that the Old Testament events which tell of what happened to Israel “happened to them as examples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have met. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1Cor. 10:11–12).
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