Do you ever speak facetiously? Do you use sarcasm? Do you use them to make a point, to show there is an obvious answer? Have you heard others do so? Did you wake you up? Did you have an ah-ha moment when you heard it? Have you considered that God does so?
We sometimes say things with sarcasm or facetiously when we know the answer is obvious and we want the other person to know that we know. We want to drive home a point. We want them to realize they cannot pull the wool over our eyes, and they should not take us for a fool.
God used the same method to drive home a point to the Israelites through the prophet Jeremiah. Read today’s passage. See how it drips with sarcasm. The God of all creation who can do no wrong and speak only truth asks a sarcastic question. He knows the answer. He knows the Israelites know the answer. He is driving home the point that they had been foolish, that they had mistakenly walked away from him.
I wonder, if God were to speak to us today, would he use the same sarcasm? Would he ask what he had ever done to cause us to turn away from him? Do we even realize we have turned away? We pursue many things in our lives. We seek to climb the corporate ladder. We seek to make more money.
We don’t think to make God our priority. We don’t think to make a budget to live within our means and stick to it. We have not realized that we can live much better lives by putting God first. Yet, God still loves us. He still wants us to turn to him. He waits patiently. It is our decision to make. When we do fully turn to him, we will realize the freedom we have in him.
Jeremiah 2:4-5 Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord:
What wrong did your ancestors find in me
that they went far from me
and went after worthless things and became worthless themselves?
Marty Pressey 