OUR FATHER WHO FIRST JUDGES HIS OWN PEOPLE

The book of Jeremiah chapter 5 verses 2 - 3 says this;

Although they say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives,’  still they are swearing falsely.”

Lord, do not your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain; you crushed them, but they refused correction. They made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.

This passage speaks of the people of Jerusalem who should have been righteous but instead were perpetrating evil and were treacherous toward the Lord.

Even though they feigned religious observance of the ways of God by using the buzz words of spiritual talk, inwardly, they were deceptive and unjust. 

Even though the Lord moved to correct them by chastisement but they were unresponsive to the Lord's discipline.

They just doubled down on their resolve to continue with only what pleased them and they rejected the calls to renounce their evil ways and to return to the Lord.

In their case, the Lord had tallied the population to see if there was even one righteous man in their midst and He had resolved to relent on His destruction of Jerusalem if even a singular righteous person could be located.

Even searching among the poor and among the influential had yielded no one who was righteous and so destruction was imminent.

4