Refusing to Be Ashamed of Sin

Jeremiah 3:1–13
» View this passage in NIV (Bible Gateway)

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Confession

Jeremiah ends his first message by exposing the spiritual harlotry of Judah. The first verse introduces his theme: God’s law (Deut. 24:1-4) forbade a wife, divorced by her first husband and married to another, to return to her first love. Yet Judah, who had separated from her husband, had lived as a prostitute (Jer. 2:20) with many lovers, was offered one last opportunity to return to her husband. God’s grace outshines the searchlight of God’s law. The people had forsaken God and gone a whoring from Him. They had “played the harlot with many lovers (v. 1).” They had not only polluted themselves, but “their land, with their whoredoms and with their wickedness (v. 2).” God had gently corrected them from their sins. Instead of raining fire and brimstone upon them, like Sodom, He only withheld the showers from them (vv. 3-5). Yet Judah refused “to be ashamed.”

On the surface the people had made good resolutions to fear God and to walk in His ways, but deep down in their hearts they wanted to live in their old paths of sin. God reveals to Jeremiah the story of two sisters–Israel and Judah (vv. 6-10). Israel had sinned (v. 6) and refused to return to God (v. 7), and had been put away in bondage (v. 8). Judah had seen all of this happen to her sister (Israel), but she also went ahead and played the harlot (v. 8). Judah added hypocrisy to her sin because she committed the same sins while pretending to return to the Lord (vv. 9-10).

Application

Every sin in my life, no matter how small it may seem, needs to be confessed. (I John 1:9).

Jeremiah 3:1-13 (English Standard Version)

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