“IN PRETENSE!”

 Jeremiah 3:6-10                      (ESV)

Faithless Israel Called to Repentance

“[6] The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, THAT FAITHLESS ONE, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? [7] And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to ME,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. [8] She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. [9] Because SHE TOOK HER WHOREDOM LIGHTLY, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. [10] Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but “IN PRETENSE”, declares the LORD.””

In a dictionary, the word PRETENSE is defined “A false appearance or action INTENDED TO DECEIVE; A professed but feigned reason or excuse; a pretext; Something imagined or pretended”.  

Israel had broken her relationship with THE LORD and HE “sent her away with a decree of divorce”(v8)!  To have ALMIGHTY GOD, our CREATOR and SUSTAINER, put HIS CHOSEN away in divorce would have been devastating to me, but the penalty for their sins DID NOT turn Judah back to THE LORD!  “Judah did not fear” and “SHE TOOK HER WHOREDOM LIGHTLY”!  She was “cheating” on her CREATOR with with NO REMORSE!!!

Are our actions and better today?  We tend to think that we can have an adulterous affair on our SAVIOR with no consequences?!?  ALMIGHTY GOD promises in Scripture many times that HE will never leave us nor forsake us, yet we tend to BULLDOZE through life without SLOWING DOWN and listening to our MAKER!  Isaiah 44:6 “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides ME there is no god”, and we listen to heretics and false teachers instead of searching HIS WORD for TRUTH!

Are we actual BELIEVERS exhibiting FAITH in our CREATOR, or are we acting “IN PRETENSE” trying to “fit in” where we are NOT welcome in “this world”?  Is our FAITH in our wealth, retirement or financial stability?  Or do we rely solely on our relationship with JESUS?  Professing “IN PRETENSE” is precisely what “the enemy” wants from each of us’. Will you FOLLOW HIM, or is your belief only “IN PRETENSE”???