Saturday, March 29 || DO NOT TREAT THE LORD’S WORD WITH CONTEMPT

Read : Jeremiah 36: 1-3; 22-32

“... There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.” - Hosea 4:1

Biblical history records the consequences of dishonoring God. During the times of Josiah's son Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, the Lord wanted the people to turn to Him from their wayward ways. But, what happened was quite to the contrary. In Jeremiah 36:2, we read that the Lord asked Jeremiah to take a scroll and write on it all the words that He had spoken concerning Israel, Judah and other nations right from the period of Josiah's reign till then. When Jehudi read three or four pages of the scroll, the king got annoyed so much that he took a knife and cut the scroll in which the message of God was written into pieces, and threw them into fire. How arrogant was he in his response to God who wanted to show His love to him and the people!

As a result, the wrath of God burned against them. At the end of the chapter, we read that the Lord added ‘much more’ to the punishment earlier declared because of the disrespectful act of the king. The Lord said through the prophet that King Jehoiakim will have no one to sit on the throne of David, his body will be thrown out and exposed to the heat by day and the frost by night, because he did not listen to His Word. What a terrible punishment. Dear friends, how are we responding to God’s message today? Do we rend our hearts and turn to the Lord or show Him total disrespect and incur His wrath? Let us be careful and respond in the right way. Let us not be unfaithful, unloving and irreverent people!