The Big Deal

I haven't been ignoring this blog all week. I've just been sick. Still am. It's terribly annoying. I've hardly been able to string two thoughts together, which makes articulating a meaningful post rather difficult. So this is going to be brief.

I've been reading through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations and now I'm in Ezekiel. All four books deal primarily with Israel's great sin and coming destruction. But do you know what their big sin was? It is mentioned time and time again, so much so that you could easily start to skip over it when you read. You know, like you skip over the stuff you already know, in an effort to get to the interesting part of an article? Well, this great sin might not be what you think. There was plenty of sin being committed by Israel. The rich were oppressing the poor. Innocent people were being slain unjustly. Child sacrifice had become common. Foreign alliances were the norm. The Sabbath was being ignored. The list goes on and on. But the sin that God blames over and over for the judgment that He would no longer withhold was this: God's people were worshiping other gods.

And that was the greatest offense of all. More vile than sexual promiscuity, murder, child sacrifice or any kind of ritual impurity. God was getting cheated of His due. He deserved all of the glory and honor and worship from His chosen people. And they were throwing it away on images made of stone and wood. And that, dear reader, is why He brought down massive judgment on them.

I wanted to point it out because I think that we tend to focus too much on the things we "do" that are wrong: stealing, lying, cheating, gossiping, bad attitudes, sexual sins. But you can refrain from every single one of those and be committing sin every day of your life, simply by worshiping things other than God. Or to put it in common language, to place anything in your life above God.

I'm betting that you don't have a secret closet full of wooden idols that you bow down and pray to. But I'm also betting that you do have a life full of distractions and ambitions that don't involve giving God His due: all your heart, mind, soul and strength. This requirement, of utmost importance, is found in the Old Testament and the New.

Deuteronomy 6:4

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD you God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength."

Matthew 22:37-38

"Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment."

Israel was failing miserably. I know that I have as well.

Jeremiah 2:32

"Can a virgin forget her ornaments
Or a bride her attire?
Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number."

There is hope, though, there always is. God didn't make a total end of His people. He preserved a remnant to bring back and reestablish. He makes a very similar offer to us, even if we have been chasing after other gods.

Jeremiah 3:1

"They say, 'If a man divorces his wife,
And she goes from him
And becomes another man's,
May he return to her again?'
Would not the land be greatly polluted?
But you have played the harlot with many lovers;
Yet return to Me, says the LORD."

God says, "Yet return to Me" no matter how thin we have spread our charms, no matter how many lovers we have chased apart from Him. A man cannot return to a wife he has divorced, but God will allow us to return to Him. No matter what.