Futility Revisited

Aim: To embrace Christ by faith—rejecting sin.

Doctrine: The church needs reminders of the awfulness of sin. It (sin) greatly provokes God and severely damages sinners.

Exegesis: Sin's slippery slope: first, practical atheism leads to haughty hearts (vv. 1-3); then, continued hardness leads to inevitable misery (vv. 4-7); finally, absolute unrepentence leads to hell itself (vv. 8-11).

Further application: The practical solutions to sin's tyranny: never despair of God's ability to forgive sins (in Christ), and always believe that God's ways (not ours) are best (and to be preferred).

Key phrase: v. 3a ''For because of the anger of the LORD this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, till He finally cast them out from His presence.''