Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Ignoring God's Warnings
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Genesis 3:6
God's claim on mankind is illustrated by His dealing with Adam and Eve and their response. Biblical Christianity, the true way of life of the Father and Son, has a claim on humanity's attention and loyalty because humans are Their creation and the clear aim of Their concerns from beginning to end in Scripture. In fact, Their message is aimed directly at mankind, indicating that the Father and Son do not hide from humanity. However, most people ignore Scripture's truths in terms of practical application in daily life. Even the Redeemer's Sermon on the Mount, though admired by many as wonderful advice, is not obeyed but ignored. How do we know this is true? Within His sermon, Jesus states that God has not done away with His law (Matthew 5:17-19), but people ignore His words, doing what satisfies the demands of their desires. Instead, humans follow the pattern established by their original parents. At the beginning, Adam and Eve took of the Forbidden Tree despite God's warning, and most human beings have followed their examples.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Hebrews Was Written (Part Ten): Christianity's Claims
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Jeremiah 11:7-8
Jeremiah alone carries this solemn warning from God Himself ten times! Mankind, it seems, has a tragic flaw in its character, so strong that it drives him to gamble away his life—and perhaps his loved one's lives—despite strong warnings from a truly trustworthy and authoritative Person. Somehow people manage to convince themselves that they know better (Proverbs 16:25). This message is of special importance to God's children. At this point, we should worry less about preparing to escape the end times' painful calamities than to take warning about preparing for God's Kingdom, which is far more important than avoiding the rigors of persecution, the pains of disease, the pangs of hunger, the fear of earthquakes, or the panic and deprivations of warfare. As real as those events are—and they are coming—they are nothing compared to losing out on the Kingdom of God because we failed to heed the Bible's exhortations while distracted by other things that burned up our time and energy. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of those now laboring under the weight of indebtedness have done just this. At the time when they could have heeded the warnings, their minds were consumed by their desires to make even greater profits while the getting was good. Jesus warns in Matthew 24:37-39: But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. This failure to self-discipline responsibly has been mankind's practice from the beginning. At Christ's return, people will be engaging in everyday life as if it would go on without change today, tomorrow, and forever. We, however, have been warned by truly trustworthy and authoritative persons. Jeremiah 30:7 warns that just ahead is the time of Jacob's Trouble, a time so disastrous that no other period in mankind's history can equal it. It would be wonderful to escape it because God chose to grant us that blessing (Zephaniah 2:3), but to lose out on the Kingdom of God would be a tragedy of far greater proportions. Massive changes in the earth's political, economic, and religious configuration are coming. Wars will be fought on a scale never seen before, and weapons of mass destruction, held in abeyance since 1945, will be used. The ball is in our court. Now is the time to show God that: -
We have taken His warnings seriously. -
We love Him and His way of life. -
We appreciate all He has done for us and given us. -
We are loyal and intensely desire to be like Him and His Son. -
Through prayer, study, and submission, we are ready and willing to give our all as living sacrifices to be in His Kingdom. Will we responsibly submit to Paul's appeal in Romans 13:11-14? And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts. Let us diligently and responsibly conform our lives to the image of Jesus Christ so that we might share life with Him forever.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Change and Responsibility
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Jeremiah 28:5-9
With a note of sarcasm, Jeremiah replies that he would be thrilled if Hananiah's vision were correct—it would be a remarkable turn of events. Then he points out that the prophets before them had all prophesied calamity rather than prosperity. Hananiah's words were completely out of sync with God's pattern of warning His people through the prophets. Prior to Jeremiah, God had sent Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, and Nahum to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. He had also sent Jonah to the empire of Assyria. All of them warned of tragedy and disaster if the people did not turn to God. Such warnings reach all the way back to Moses, who recorded the "Blessings and Curses" of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, detailing what God will do to a people who reject Him. Further, God also warns His people to be skeptical of those proclaiming a message of peace that lacks repentance (Jeremiah 4:10; 6:14; 8:11; 14:13; Ezekiel 13:10, 16). But, as God instructs in Deuteronomy 18:21-22, if what Hananiah said did not come to pass, it would be evidence that God had not sent him.
David C. Grabbe
Hananiah's Error
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Jeremiah 28:10-11
Hananiah ignored Jeremiah's words of caution and broke the God-ordained yoke that symbolized Nebuchadnezzar's authority over the kingdoms. Jeremiah probably enjoyed a measure of relief at no longer having to wear the yoke, but the gravity of what Hananiah had done overshadowed it.
David C. Grabbe
Hananiah's Error
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Amos 4:6-12
What are we to think of the disasters this nation has been experiencing of late? If they are not direct signs of the apocalypse, what are they? What God says to Israel through Amos. Between verses 7 and 12, God mentions sending them drought, blight and mildew, locusts, plague, military defeat, and divine punishment for sin, yet after every disaster, Israel still refused to repent. So, God warns them in verse 12 that He would bring on them a major judgment—His wrath, their Day of the Lord, a day of “darkness, and not light” (Amos 5:18-20). This passage suggests that the disasters we have recently seen are warnings to the nation that God is aware of its sin and the people's drifting from Him. He is trying to get their attention so that they realize that they need to repent and return to Him. These disasters, then, are precursor judgments and threats, prods to motivate repentance and a restored relationship. The ultimate judgment of God comes later, and Christ's return happens according to the prophecies recorded in Scripture. They are straightforward—not esoteric, not discernible only to biblical numerologists or experts of some mysterious Bible code. The prophecies will be fulfilled in real, visible, unmistakable events.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The End Is Not Yet
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