by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n
Humans have a terrible habit of shifting blame. We saw it in the Garden of Eden when Adam blamed the woman and God who gave her to him, and we saw it in the people of Jeremiah’s day. God brought the truth before their consciences, saying,\u00a0“Your ways and your doings have procured these things for you<\/em>” (Jeremiah 4:18).<\/p>\n What had their values and actions procured for them? It procured the Lord sending the Babylonian armies to besiege, capture, and destroy their world. They brought this on themselves by forgetting God, adopting all kinds of sexual deviancy, and coveting the absurdity of false religion that gave sanction to their evil ways.<\/p>\n For a time Jeremiah had appealed to them to repent, but they turned a deaf ear and tried to act like he was the bad guy. They said they would not turn away from their ways or turn back to God. So, God unleashed the limitations He had placed on the Babylonians, and they came in and took over.<\/p>\n When America is overrun, will not the history books say, “They brought it on themselves?” Individual consequences of reaping what we sow are also true of nations. We reap what we sow (Galatians 6:6-9). If you sow to the fleshly desires and forget your responsibility to God and righteousness, you “procure these things for yourselves<\/em>” the unhappy consequences.<\/p>\n Let us listen to God and turn our hearts back to Him!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Terry Wane Benton Humans have a terrible habit of shifting blame. We saw it in the Garden of Eden when Adam blamed the woman and God who gave her to him, and we saw it in the people of Jeremiah’s day. God brought the truth before their consciences, saying,\u00a0“Your ways and your doings have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[1624,608],"class_list":["post-64774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-blame","tag-excuses"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14793,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-did-god-take-israel-and-judah-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":64774,"position":0},"title":"When did God take Israel and Judah back?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: When exactly did God take both Israel and Judah back? Answer: When Judah returned from the Babylonian captivity, they did not come alone. \"So all Israel was enrolled by genealogies; and behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel. And Judah was carried away into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":85142,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/grieving-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":64774,"position":1},"title":"Grieving God","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by David Gibson How must God feel when He freely offers His great salvation, purchased at such dreadful cost, but the vast majority are not interested, too busy doing their own thing to care? A Recurring Theme \"I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14130,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/did-god-divorce-all-of-israel-or-only-the-northern-tribes\/","url_meta":{"origin":64774,"position":2},"title":"Did God divorce all of Israel or only the northern tribes?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 25, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: In Jeremiah 3:8, who did God divorce? Was it the House of Israel (ten northern tribes) only or all twelve tribes? Thank you. Answer: \"Then the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, \"Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41712,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/man-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":64774,"position":3},"title":"Man Up","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer I'd like to talk again with the men here. Men blaming women for their own sins is as old as Adam and Eve. Literally. You remember what Adam did when confronted by the Lord: \"the woman you gave me\u2026\" It didn't work then and it doesn't work\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/stumble-300x274.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":25036,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-god-send-people-to-hell\/","url_meta":{"origin":64774,"position":4},"title":"Does God Send People to Hell?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jesse M Kelly via Preceptor, p.12 - Vol.57, No.6, June 2008. While discussing the subject of \"Hell\" with a lady acquaintance one day, she said to me, \"I just cannot conceive of a merciful God sending one to Hell to suffer eternally.\" We readily agreed with her. God doesn't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/choice-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":59822,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/starting-over-from-scratch\/","url_meta":{"origin":64774,"position":5},"title":"Starting Over from Scratch","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Jeremiah had become very disillusioned at his job of delivering God's message. He had become the most unpopular preacher in town. At this point, he is disillusioned with God. \"You induced me\" to preach this very unpopular message, he said to God. Then he decided that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}