“Your own wickedness will correct you,
And your backslidings will rebuke you.”
Among the condemnation-filled tirade of the book of Jeremiah is a verse that stands out in its context. It is a verse that provides us with an aspect of comfort in God’s providence. Chapter 2 verse 19 states that God turns our sin to our own benefit.
We know that God’s grace means that our sins are forgiven. We understand the awesome power of God’s forgiveness. His grace covers our sins so that He will remember them no more (Jeremiah 31:34). His grace has removed our sins as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12), and has cast them into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19). God’s grace has marvelously triumphed over our sin!
However, this verse gives us another aspect of that triumph. Not only does God eradicate our sins and offer us forgiveness, but He is able to use our sins for our own good. This does sound heretical, to suggest that our sins can accomplish something good, but we must remember that it is God behind it. Remember His omnipotence. All things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26; Luke 1:37; Ephesians 1:11).
As with all of the prophets, Jeremiah had a difficult job. He was called to speak God’s Word to a hardened and rebellious people. God wanted Jeremiah to point out the sins of His people and call them to repentance. Near the beginning of his lengthy message, he assumed the role of prosecutor and systematically laid out a strong case against God’s people, Israel. He was warning of them of God’s judgment and calling them to repentance.
However Jeremiah’s ministry was destined from the beginning for failure. The people were not going to change. And so he had to oversee the death of the nation. He had to watch it as it continued to reject God and was carried away captive to Babylon.
God still gave him comfort, though. The Lord, through the mouth of Jeremiah, said that their wickedness would cause them to repent. The assurance was spoken through Jeremiah’s own mouth that these covenant people of God will not reject Him forever, but that they would be corrected.
And it turned out that way too. True, they were carried off to Babylon, but after that they repented, returned to Israel and worshipped God again. And it was because of a realisation of their sin that they did so.
Daniel prayed to God, saying:
We have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. Neither have we heeded Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land. We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets. Therefore the Lord has kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice. (Daniel 9:5,6,10,14)Daniel, a prophet of God, confesses that it was because they had sinned that God brought them into bondage and captivity. He also confesses that it was not an act of anger by God, but that He did it as an act of righteousness. Later Gabriel speaks to Daniel and tells him:
"Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy" (Daniel 9:24).God delivered them into the hand of the Babylonians so that it would put an end to sin and transgression, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to cause the Israelites to listen to prophesies, and to prepare the scene for Christ. That is the result of the exile. That is the result of sinning against God. He used the sins of His covenant people for their own good. He turned them to their own benefit.
What a comfort this is for us! Everything in our life God turns to our benefit. Even our sin.
So let your wickedness correct you and your backslidings rebuke you.
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