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Daily Devotions

Jeremiah

Jeremiah 
Day 
Day 226

"Because My people have forgotten Me"

Text: Jeremiah 18:15

SINS THAT HAD NEVER BEEN DEALT WITH

The sins of the LORD’s people were not common or casual sins. They were sins that had been addressed numerous times by the prophets of God. But these problems had never been attended to or dealt with!

“Because My people have forgotten Me,
They have burned incense to worthless idols.
And they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways,
From the ancient paths,
To walk in pathways and not on a highway,
To make their land desolate and a perpetual hissing;
Everyone who passes by it will be astonished
And shake his head.
I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy;
I will show them the back and not the face
In the day of their calamity.”
Jeremiah 18:15-17

1. “Because My people have forgotten Me, they have burned incense to worthless idols”

a) Forgetting God
i) This was not because of age.
ii) This was a deliberate forgetting of God.
b) Worthless idols
i) The people had chosen idols over the LORD.
ii) They burned costly incense to idols but not to God.

2. “And they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways, from the ancient paths, to walk in pathways and not on a highway”

a) The ways that God had taught them were “ancient paths”.
b) God had given them “a highway” (to heaven).
c) Instead, they chose to walk in idolatrous and wicked “pathways”.

3. Severe consequences

a) Their homeland
i) It would become desolate.
ii) It would be a place of “perpetual hissing” (despised).
iii) People would shake their heads as they pass by, in astonishment.
That a wealthy nation had become so devastated.
b) The people
They will be scattered by their enemies (like the fierce East wind).
c) The LORD in their hour of calamity
i) God will show them His back (Disfavour).
ii) He will not show them His face (Favour).