Strange Punishments

“Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the Lord, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshipped them... and you have done worse than your fathers…  Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor,” (Jeremiah 16:11-13).

God’s punishment is giving the Israelites what they’ve always wanted.  That is weird to say, but true.  If you Israelites want to serve other gods, than the consequences of that will be a full measure of service to these gods (and all that entails).  Giving the Israelites what their hearts truly desire turns out to actually be their punishment. 

There are other places in the scriptures where this principle holds true.  When the Israelites refused to enter the Promised Land, God gave them all the wilderness experience their hearts wanted (Num 13-14).  When Judah banked their hope on Assyria (instead of God) to rescue them from the Syro-Israelite alliance, God gave them all the ‘Assyria’ they wanted (Is 8:5-8).  When Paul describes God’s response to the sin-saturated world around him, he explains that God “gave them over” to their own depravity, and their own degrading passions, and their own depraved mind (Rom 1:24,26,28). 

What about the final punishment the bible mentions?  While there is active punishment in hell, no doubt, the bible also talks about hell as separation from God (2 Thess 1:9).  This is interesting because the state of mankind, according to the bible, is active rebellion against God.  We don’t care much for God or his ways.  We rule our own lives anyway.  It would be better if God just butted out of my life.  But if we knew all that God creates, sustains, and holds together, than being completely cut off from God is probably the scariest thing imaginable.  It is a branch being severed from a tree.  So if hell is separation from God, and rebellion is our MO, than hell is giving mankind exactly what we’ve always wanted –the full measure of it.