They have lied about the Lord; they said, “He will do nothing! No harm will come to us; we will never see sword or famine. The prophets are but wind and the word is not in them; so let what they say be done to them.”                      Therefore this is what the Lord God Almighty says:                                         “Because the people have spoken these words, I will make my words in your mouth a fire and these people the wood it consumes.”

Have you ever been told, “never say never”?  In the book of Jeremiah, God has sent Jeremiah to urge Israel to repent and turn back to him, otherwise He is going to destroy them.  God desperately wants His people to turn back to Him and be blessed.  He doesn’t want to have to discipline them.

But here in this scripture passage Jeremiah is telling God that these people don’t believe him, they have hardened their hearts and do not believe that God is going to do anything to them.  Poor Jeremiah has pleaded with them telling them everything that God has revealed to him.  He has told them all the warnings that God has issued and still they refuse to repent.

I watch mostly true crime stories on television and one thing that you hear over and over from victims or their families is, “I never thought this would happen to me or my family”.   We get so busy going about our daily lives that we forget to be watchful.  You see when you work in law enforcement, you look at the world a little differently.  My nieces and nephews might tell you that Aunt Val is paranoid, but Aunt Val is very careful.  I know what can happen to a young child when a guardian turns their back even for one minute.  I, myself, have been through a few scary situations when I was a teenager and alone and not so careful.  I remember a few times thinking that I would just be another statistic and my parents would mourn me thinking how stupid I had been to put myself in that situation.   Sometimes, I was thinking about how I had gotten into that type of situation by not listening to my parent’s advice.

You see God is a good parent and He loves us, but don’t think that means that we will avoid discipline.  I have been disciplined by God and it was no fun.  God wants us to do what is right.  God knows what problems we will face when we stray from Him, but He will never force us to follow Him.

We have free will.  The problem with that is that it is what usually gets us into trouble.  We start doing what we want to do and before you know it we are out of control.  We usually tend to open a doorway for the devil and wham! He just jumps right into our lives and takes over.

I want you to know one thing today.  We serve a God of justice.  He is righteous.  He wants us to be righteous.  He may gently nudge us and try to correct us when we first start to mess up.  He may send those in our paths to try to speak to us about getting our lives straightened out, but He will reach a point where He will no longer tolerate our behavior.  We may even reach the point of no return.

In my time in probation and parole I dealt with many adults who were still living with, and off of, their parents.  I encountered people in their 40’s and 50’s still living at home with their elderly parents.  Still using drugs and running around getting into trouble as if they were teenagers.  The few clients I had that actually turned their lives around all told me one thing.  It was tough love and God that did it.  Once their parents cut them off completely and they had nowhere else to turn, they turned to God and got their lives on track.

Now you have heard me say that it is not too late.  I want you to know that if we are breathing it is not too late to turn to God.  However, you need to know this.  When we sin it is often like crack or heroine.  It is instantly addictive.  It is said that sin will take you farther than you ever wanted to go and cost you more than you ever wanted to pay.  I can’t imagine that any heroine addict ever really believed that just that one time would ruin the rest of their life.

So my message to you today is to be very careful.  If you are straying from God, you may want to rethink that.  You may want to draw near to Him and call out to Him to help you get back on track.  We serve a God of justice but we also serve a faithful God.  If your Sunday living doesn’t match your Monday through Saturday living, you might want to draw closer to God and get that straightened out.  If you are struggling with some type of sin right now that you just can’t let go of, then turn to God before it is too late.  He will help you break free.

You see none of us know how long we have on this planet.  We also need to know that it is possible to reach a point of no return.  We can get so entangled in our sin that it is almost impossible to break free from it.

So my prayer for you today is that you realize that it could happen to you.  You could actually die and go to hell if you are not careful.  You could spend eternity in the fiery pit.  But know this, you don’t have to.  God doesn’t want you to.  Turn to Him.  Read your bible and pray.  Find a good bible teaching church and attend regularly.  Put simply, follow the instructions.  If there are questions or things that you do not understand, feel free to contact me through this website.  God wants all His children to enjoy eternal life in Heaven with Him.  Hope to see you there!

Have a great day!