Ignored Alarms

the alarm and warn the people that their actions were not in line with what God laid out for the people in the first five books of the Old Testament. If the people did not change, then they would face the consequences of God’s judgment (5:6, 5:10-11, 5:15b). There are two main ways that the Israelites responded to Jeremiah’s warnings and alarms.
First, they simply just ignored them. 5:2 says that God, “struck them, but they felt no pain; [God] crushed them, but they refused correction. They made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.” These people didn’t care what Jeremiah was telling them or what God had told the people originally. They refused to repent and wanted to live their lives the way they wanted to. They choose to turn their backs on Jeremiah and Scripture and pretend that the warnings and alarms weren’t there.
The second way they responded was they tried to justify their actions or explain them away. 5:12-13 says that the people said, “He will do nothing! No harm will come to us; we will never see sword or famine. The prophets are but wind and the word is not in them; so let what they say be done to them.” These people heard Jeremiah, they knew what Scripture said about how to live their lives, and they just choose to put themselves above it. They had this, “It won’t happen to me,” attitude.
Has anyone here ever been in the mall when the fire alarm went off? I was in the North Shore Mall a few weeks ago when the alarm went off and I think it serves as a perfect illustration of these two responses to God’s warnings.
One would think that in a public building like that, that stores would have to momentarily stop their business but no one did. One would think that people would have to leave the mall when the alarm goes off but no one did. Instead, there were a lot of people who just went about their shopping like nothing was happening. They completely just ignored the loud sirens and went about their business. There were others though who you could overhear complain about the alarms and how inconveniencing and annoying they were. They chose, I chose, to put myself above the alarm and say, “Naaa, there’s not really a fire. We don’t actually have to leave.”
Now granted, there wasn’t really a fire in the mall most likely. My guess is that someone accidentally, or on purpose, set the alarm off or that somehow the circuit tripped. It was a false alarm. With God though, false alarms don’t happen. When the prophets brought God’s message, it came if the people did not repent. Never once in scripture do we have an account of a prophet assembling all the people together to apologize for that last warning he gave. You never read, “Whoops. That was for another town guys, I’m sorry” or, “Gotcha! You should have seen your faces!!” When God spoke, things happened.
Today we are surrounded by just as many alarms and warnings as the Israelites and we tend to respond just like the Israelites!
The first warning we have is Scripture. God has laid out for us how we are supposed to live and how we can have a relationship with Him. He has given us guidelines and rules not because He’s a jerk and wants to ruin our fun but because he loves us! He knows what is best for us and what will truly make us happy. I mean He did create us, he knows how we work best.
The second warning we are given is from men and women who truthfully