The Roots of Disobedience

 

“As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you! But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble. But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” – Jeremiah 44:16-18

 

Disobedience is not just a rebel act.  Disobedience to God comes from a lack of belief in God.  If we all believed in His love and Almighty Power, and as well believed in his chastisement, we would fear and respect Him.  Instead, we become more evil as time goes by.  We’ve stopped believing God and stopped believing His word.

The same thing took down the cities of Judah and Jerusalem in the day of Jeremiah the Prophet.  After 39 years of speaking God’s words to the people, begging them to turn back to God and away from Idols, they would not relent.  So, God gave the punishment He had foretold. The inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah were taken captive.  Most were in the land of Babylon, yet some were in Egypt. 

Jeremiah was sent to Egypt to tell the people one more time of His anger at them for worshipping false gods.  Yet, they kept worshipping, burning incense, and sacrificing to their gods. But when they answered Jeremiah, they denied all of God’s past blessings upon them and proclaimed the “queen of heaven” was responsible for the good in their lives before captivity. 

They no longer believed in God. And because they no longer believed, they no longer obeyed.  The root of disobedience is unbelief in the punishment and the punisher. 

We all have evil in our hearts. Without punishment, our lives would be filled with evil and turmoil.  But God corrects those He loves (Hebrews 12:6).  Why? Because He does love us, and evil is not good for us!  It’s a simple as that.  But to accept His correction, we must believe it was from Him. We must acknowledge that it is God correcting us, and it was because of our own evil. 

Friends, we continually hear of idols, but have grown deaf to the fact that they are indeed idols, beings created from fictitious thoughts.  Karma, Mother Nature, Luck, Father Time, and the list goes on.  A storm occurs and brings disaster, and we hear that Mother Nature was angry.  Someone gets hurt after hurting another, and we say it was Karma.  And pronouncing your “luck” is no more than robbing God of the reward of your praise for what He has done for you.