There are some Christians who forget the mercy of God and think that God’s heavy-handed policing gives us no grace at all.
Then there are others who misconstrue God’s eternal love, inflating it into a mollycoddling injustice that blindly allows all unrighteousness to go free. As such, they end up abusing God’s grace, stubbornly choosing lifestyles mired in sin.
Neither of this is biblical, and the Book of Lamentations shows us why.
Lamentations 2 in particular zooms in on God’s justice in response to the multitude of Jerusalem’s transgressions (some examples of their sins can be found in Jeremiah 5:26-28 and Jeremiah 18:15).
“The Lord was like an enemy.
He has swallowed up Israel,
He has swallowed up all her palaces;
He has destroyed her strongholds,
And has increased mourning and lamentation
In the daughter of Judah.” (Lamentations 2:5, emphasis added)
If we prove ourselves to be utterly unrepentant and stubborn like Judah, if we choose to become a friend of the world, we turn God into our enemy (James 4:4).
We often hear messages of joy and peace in the Lord. But the condition is exactly this: remaining in Him.
Those who have received knowledge of the truth, yet continue to sin deliberately and arrogantly, as Judah did, will find themselves facing “fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:27 ESV).
We do not need to look too far to understand what this might mean. Just reread the utter destruction and exile that Judah faced (see Jeremiah 52).
Jesus Himself laid out both paths for us:
“If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” (John 15:6-7)
Having the Almighty, living God stand against us is a frightening thing (Hebrews 10:31).
God’s punishment for hardened sinfulness may not always come swiftly (Psalm 73). But His silence towards the wicked does not mean that He accepts their sinfulness.
Not wishing anyone to perish, God gives us time to repent (2 Peter 3:9).
In this God-given time of grace, run quickly back to Him. He opens His patient arms of love, waiting to accept us.
