Jeremiah 3:7-8 (ESV)
” 7And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
8And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.”
Learn from other peoples mistakes, is one of the most infamous life virtues. It’s a saying told to us during our childhood by our parents, grandparents, and school teachers. It is a saying a I remember hearing many times from my high school U.S. History teacher, “if the U.S. would’ve learned from their previous mistakes we could have avoided this war. What I didn’t know growing up as a child is that it is a virtue taken right out of the Word of God.
In the scripture above the Lord is expressing His anger with the nation of Judah during the time when Israel had been split into two regions, north and south. Israel was experiencing extreme persecution because they were the worse of the two regions, yet Judah was not able to recognize the mistakes of Israel and change their ways to avoid destruction.
It’s comical at how true this is to our daily lives, many times we see others struggle and go through hardship and rather than learning from their mistakes we walk down the sane path they did. We laugh when our elders try to steer us in a safer direction, thinking we can take on the world, then we come to a point in the road, usually after fall into a booby-trap, where we realize we should have taken the advice that was given to us.
Troubles are inevitable, but destruction is avoidable. To do so one must SEEK the Lord and secondly listening to the wise instruction of our elders. The fact is that many of our elders have gone through some troubles and have valuable instruction to give us, we must be open to receive it. God Bless.
I Am A Witness 