{"id":5516,"date":"2014-07-05T00:05:01","date_gmt":"2014-07-05T07:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5516"},"modified":"2014-07-04T22:58:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-05T05:58:00","slug":"gods-intent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/07\/05\/gods-intent\/","title":{"rendered":"God’s Intent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen to the noise
\non the hilltops!
\nIt\u2019s the people of Israel,
\nweeping and begging me
\nto answer their prayers.
\nThey forgot about me
\nand chose the wrong path.
\nI will tell them, \u201cCome back,
\nand I will cure you
\nof your unfaithfulness.\u201d
\nThey will answer,
\n\u201cWe will come back, because you
\nare the LORD our God.
\nOn hilltops, we worshiped idols
\nand made loud noises,
\nbut it was all for nothing\u2014
\nonly you can save us.
\nSince the days of our ancestors
\nwhen our nation was young,
\nthat shameful god Baal has taken
\nour crops and livestock,
\nour sons and daughters.
\nWe have rebelled against you
\njust like our ancestors,
\nand we are ashamed of our sins.\u201d <\/p>\n

The LORD said:
\nIsrael, if you really want
\nto come back to me, get rid
\nof those disgusting idols.
\nMake promises only in my name,
\nand do what you promise!
\nThen all nations will praise me,
\nand I will bless them.
\nPeople of Jerusalem and Judah,
\ndon\u2019t be so stubborn!
\nYour hearts have become hard,
\nlike unplowed ground
\nwhere thorn bushes grow.
\nWith all your hearts,
\nkeep the agreement
\nI made with you.
\nBut if you are stubborn
\nand keep on sinning,
\nmy anger will burn like a fire
\nthat cannot be put out. (Jeremiah 3:21-4:4)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God has the cure. Repentance is more than just saying \u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d It takes both time and effort. The people began by realizing that what they\u2019d been doing, the way they\u2019d been living, had simply not worked and so they cried out to God. God told them that if they really wanted to come back to him, then he had a list of things they needed to do that came down to just one thing: they needed to get rid of the idols that they acknowledged hadn\u2019t done anything for them but relieve them of their money and time. But God pointed out that they were stubborn and hard-hearted and that what they wanted\u2014to be freed from their sins\u2014was not going to be easy. It would be like working on unplowed ground full of thorns. Getting a good crop out of that sort of land was hard. And he warned them, unless they got to work immediately, God would have to judge them, like a fire that couldn\u2019t be put out. Of course, carrying the imagery a bit further, if you have unplowed ground full of weeds, a fire is one of the quickest ways to get rid of them. It was an agricultural picture that his listeners, mostly farmers, would have quickly understood. Painful as it might be for the land in question, the result would be a very good thing. God did not intend to destroy them. But he did intend to fix them. <\/p>\n

Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen to the noise on the hilltops! It\u2019s the people of Israel, weeping and begging me to answer their prayers. They forgot about me and chose the wrong path. I will tell them, \u201cCome back, and I will cure you … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5516"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5518,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5516\/revisions\/5518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}