God used base language to describe His people’s behavior, so that these passages are embarrassing to read. Do you get the idea that God was deeply disgusted with His people’s behavior and characters? As I have said previously, His people likely were surprised to hear His viewpoint of them; after all, they were practicing worship. Further, the prophets were whitewashing their deeds with false prophecies, so that they were confirmed in their belief that they weren’t doing anything wrong. God simply couldn’t get through to them any other way how He felt about what they were doing and what it revealed about their characters. Do God’s New Testament people disgust Him the way His Old Testament people did? How would we know, if the example we’re given in today’s reading suggests that perhaps we could be deceiving ourselves and whitewashing our own and each other’s disgusting sin?
God promised they would suffer the consequences of their forgetting Him, and of all the behaviors and indulged desires that had led up to their forgetting Him. Those consequences were going to reduce, humiliate and destroy them completely. In the face of those consequences, they would have no courage to stand and would lose their strength. These words on the page represent great suffering for those human beings, people just like us who felt the same feelings we feel. Can you get a sense of the agony they suffered? I will remind you again, the awfulness of the punishment demonstrates the awfulness of the sin.
But in those consequences they would know God as sovereign Lord. It’s not clear whether the knowing would be a delight or fearsome prospect to them. The Bible teaches that one day every knee will bow in submission to God’s sovereign lordship over us. Whether we face that prospect with delight or dismay depends on whether we know God as He intends us to know Him. In that day all deception, whitewashing and falsehood will be swept aside.
The example given us in today’s reading reminds us that we are prone to forgetting God, while refusing to believe that we have done so. This is a sobering reminder, given that Jesus equated eternal life with knowing God intimately. We don’t dare treat this reminder lightly; we need to use it as an opportunity to talk to God about where we stand in our relationships with Him. He will tell us if we ask in humility, ready to accept the truth He reveals and respond accordingly. If we don’t ask, or if we are not prepared to respond, He probably won’t reveal the truth to us. How will you treat this reminder?