God, the God of unfailing, devoted love is going to remove His steadfast love and mercy from His people. The Lord says, “I will show no favor.” The God of unending mercy and superabundant grace will stop offering mercy and grace.

But what is the reaction of the people?

They question why. They act like they don’t know why God could be treating them in such a way. They ask what sin they committed.

Does that surprise you? God tells them they have forsaken Him, not kept His law, and gone after other gods to worship them.

Did they really not know that they were doing this?

If they were really confused about why God would treat them this way, what would that mean?

I can think of a couple of things. One reason would be that they didn’t know they were breaking the law because they didn’t know the law and refused to listen to the prophets and those who did. If you don’t know the law, you don’t know that you are breaking it. If you have set in your mind your own version of the law, what’s right, then you think you are doing it. We often read in the Bible about people doing what’s right in their own eyes. People like that think they are good people. They think they are doing right.

Another reason they would be confused about what they could be doing wrong is that they thought they were worshiping God. If they did go to the temple and give offerings but also bowed to idols and such as well, they could think they were worshiping God and doing what He wanted. The people had the Lord’s altar moved off to the side and had other altars set up as well. It was mixture, “Jesus and” instead of “Jesus only.”

We definitely see both of those things in the church of today.

But, the truth is that God will always be a God of mercy and grace. He says He will send out fishers of men, and then hunters! He will get His people back one way or another. And He makes one more amazing promise. “This once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.”

He will MAKE them know. Lord, don’t let your people die for lack of knowledge. Make them know you are Lord.