The Lord defends his people from their enemies. Provides meat in due season. Cares for the nursing babe, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. But those who will despise His instruction and not listen to His Word with faith and exaltation of His name, will be utterly destroyed. 

And it happened after this that Ben-Hadad king of Syria gathered all his army, and went up and besieged Samaria. And there was a great famine in Samaria; and indeed they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and one-fourth of a cab of dove droppings for five shekels of silver. – II Kings 6:24-25 NKJV

I recently heard the heartbreaking account of a woman who grew up in a Christian home but in her teens became an alcoholic and was given over to drunkenness. Her parents, siblings, and friends pleaded with her to turn from her destructive sinful lifestyle. At 39 years of age, she was in the hospital dying of liver failure. Some of her last words were, “I want to live.” But it was too late and soon death came upon her.

One of the greatest griefs that a parent can experience is a child who grows older and will not listen to instruction. How often parents will plead with their children to turn from sin and evil to the glorious Christ of Scripture who is our light and life, joy and gladness, peace and salvation. How many parents have promised to give anything and everything for their wayward child if they would just repent and cease from sin. But many children will have none of their reproofs and exhortations. They would rather die in misery and sin than have life.

In a similar manner, the Lord Himself pleads with His children. Jesus comes to the end of His discourse with the Pharisees in Matthew 23 crying out, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”

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