a miserable reproach

I will pursue them with sword, famine, and pestilence, and will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, a terror, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them, because they did not pay attention to my words, declares the Lord, that I persistently sent to you by my servants the prophets, but you would not listen, declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 29:18-19

This is NOT the passage in Jeremiah 29 that gets bumper stickered and motivational postered! But in context, it is the point of the prophet! The Jews were destined to be a reproach among the Babylonians, and among all the nations they once envied. The choice made in Judah to forsake God, disregard the covenant, and turn against the messages from God’s prophets led to this curse pronounced by God Himself upon His own loved people. They would become the most hated and reviled of peoples.

In Babylon, the Jews became a ridicule among their captors... a nation that had fallen so far to become the butt of jokes. Driven from their land, their history, and the temple of their God, the Jews would be forced to consider their plight as a reproach and to begin to worship God intimately, personally, familiarly again. And new humility would slowly emerge. A new respect for the Word of God, for His covenant and His prophets would eventually return to God’s people over seven decades of humiliating exile.

Rejecting God leads to reproach. And it is heart-breaking to read thes words and to know just how true they are. Historically they were true for Judah. God led His people into pain-filled suffering because they did not pay attention to His words. And disregard of God in this way is always ruinous, even today! And so this example motivates me to be serious with what God says and asks of me. The misery of disobedience and the reproach that comes from rejection of God are NEVER worth it!