October 21

Unwilling to chastise

Ellen G. White

"For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men." — Lamentations 3:33 · KJV

The unwillingness of the Lord to chastise is here vividly shown. He stays His judgments that He may plead with the impenitent. He who exercises “loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth” yearns over His erring children; in every way possible He seeks to teach them the way of life everlasting. Jeremiah 9:24. He had brought the Israelites out of bondage that they might serve Him, the only true and living God. Though they had wandered long in idolatry and had slighted His warnings, yet He now declares His willingness to defer chastisement and grant yet another opportunity for repentance. He makes plain the fact that only by the most thorough heart reformation could the impending doom be averted. In vain would be the trust they might place in the temple and its services. Rites and ceremonies could not atone for sin. Notwithstanding their claim to be the chosen people of God, reformation of heart and of the life practice alone could save them from the inevitable result of continued transgression.

Thus it was that “in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem” the message of Jeremiah to Judah was, “Hear ye the words of this covenant,”—the plain precepts of Jehovah as recorded in the Sacred Scriptures,—“and do them.” Jeremiah 11:6. And this is the message he proclaimed as he stood in the temple courts in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim.

Israel's experience from the days of the Exodus was briefly reviewed. God's covenant with them had been, “Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be My people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.” Shamelessly and repeatedly had this covenant been broken. The chosen nation had “walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.” Jeremiah 7:23, 24.