Hard of Hearing

Jeremiah 43-45, Hebrews 5
Key Verse: Jeremiah 44:4-5

The sign said, "Stop." That much I read, and that is what I did. As I pulled away from the stop sign, my wife asked, "Did you see what that sign said?"

"'Stop,'" I replied.

"It also said, 'Look again,'" she told me. I hadn't noticed that second line.

I wonder how many warnings we miss because we aren't looking or listening. The answer is probably more than we could imagine. The saddest of these are the warnings from God we ignore.

God sent His prophets to the people of Israel to especially warn them against the sin of idolatry. Again and again they were sent, but the people did not listen or pay attention. In Jeremiah 44:6 God says that the result of the failure to listen was judgment. No more messengers were sent. Instead, God sent His fury and wrath.

While Jeremiah spoke to a specific time in the history of Israel, his message is one we need to hear. We, too, can hear the Word of God again and again. We can read the Bible, hear it taught and ignore what it says.

God did not give us the Bible just to increase our knowledge but to also affect the way we live. For it to have that affect on us means that we must not only hear but also heed. When it says "stop," we must stop. Those things that it says "do," we must do. What we must not do is what the people of Jeremiah's day did-neither hear nor heed.

Is there anything in particular that you know God wants you to change in your life today? If so, make that change now.