Pray the word with David Platt as a resource from Radical.net.

Jeremiah, chapter 44, verses 15 through 17,

then all the men who knew that their wives had made offerings to other gods,

and all the women who stood by a great assembly, all the people who lived in

pathros in the land of Egypt answered Jeremiah.

As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord,

we will not listen to you, but we will do everything that we have vowed,

make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her as we did,

both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials in the cities of Judah and in the streets

of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food and prospered and saw no disaster.

I don't know if you were able to follow all of that, but basically the people of God

in the middle of experiencing judgment for their sin say, we're still not going to listen to

the voice of the Lord. We're still not going to listen to God's word through you, Jeremiah.

We're going to trust in ourselves instead of God. I read this and I am just reminded we are taught

that repentance turning from sin in and of itself is a gift of God's grace,

that we need God's grace for our eyes to be open to our sin, for us to turn from it, run from it

that left to ourselves, we actually just go deeper and deeper and deeper into sin.

And there's all kinds of implications for this certainly in our own lives when we think about our

need for God to convict us daily of sin, to guard us from blind spots in our lives and unwillingness

to see sin in us and to turn from it. We need to seriously examine our hearts and ask for God's

help in that on a daily basis. And then when we think about sharing the gospel with other people,

only God in his grace can open people's eyes to their need for Jesus and to bring people to trust

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