In Jeremiah, chapter eight, verse seven, “Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the LORD.” The people were ignorant of God’s law. Moreover, their leaders so distorted the Word of God and falsified its message that the people were assured they could sin without condemnation. Similarly, the Apostle Peter speaks of those who twist the scriptures to their own destruction and to the destruction of others, as in Second Peter three, verse sixteen. We must beware of ministers who teach that those who willfully continue in sin and rebellion against God will still inherit salvation and God’s kingdom is not true.
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God,” as in First Corinthians six, verses nine to ten. Sin is those who live unrighteously, which is not doing right but doing wrong, ungodly things to themselves and to others.
What brought this ruin? The people would not attend to reason; they would not act in the affairs of their souls with common prudence. Sin is backsliding; it is going back from the way that leads to life, to that which leads to destruction. They would not attend to the warning of conscience. They did not take the first step towards repentance: true repentance begins in serious inquiry of what we have done, from conviction that we have done amiss. They would not attend to the ways of providence, nor understand the voice of God in them.