Psalm 80:16
our vine is cut down, it is burned with fire; at your rebuke your people perish.
Have you ever experienced the frustration of giving an
ineffective rebuke? Perhaps a family member, or friend, or colleague, says or does something that is clearly wrong or unacceptable, and you need them to know that it shouldn't ever happen again. Not simply because it annoyed you, but because what they did was dangerous in some way ... the colleague who is careless about computer security and risks deleting important data. The young child who discovers a box of matches and thinks the flames are pretty to play with. A rebuke can be appropriate but not always effective. We may feel
frustrated when we see the same wrongs repeated over and over again, and nothing we say makes any difference.
God's rebuke is different. At his rebuke his people perish.
God's words, by which everything was created, also have the power to destroy.
Maybe we're the ones who are insensitive to someone else's rebuke. We know that we're consistently saying or doing something that we shouldn't. Not just because it annoys someone else, but because it's actually wrong in God's sight. I don't mean those things where we're asking
for his help to change but still sometimes failing. I mean something we're not even fighting against. We like what we're doing so much that we don't WANT to change. We're quite prepared to ignore anyone who tells us it's wrong, even God himself. After all, what can they really do about it? I seem to be getting away with it so far....
If that's you, be warned. God's rebuke IS effective. He may
be patient now, giving us time to repent, but when he speaks in judgement, his word will be effective and there will be nothing we can do to escape it. So let’s seize the opportunity to repent today, confessing our sin and asking for help to change. Forgiveness is available in Christ for all who ask for it. But to wilfully persist in sin, without any desire to change, is to deliberately refuse that forgiveness.
And let's all of us pray that God would give us soft hearts
that are quick to hear and obey his words, and quick to repent when we fail, taking refuge in Jesus who endured God's deadly rebuke in our place at the cross.
