Sorrow for the Lost; the Incurable Nature of Sin

“For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will make lamentation like the jackals, and mourning like the ostriches. For her wound is incurable, and it has come to Judah; it has reached to the gate of my people” (Micah 1:8-9)

I will lament and wail

There is no joy in the destruction of people–even sinful people. If we truly understand that no one is righteous, we understand that we are just a deserving of divine punishment as any other soul. If we have received Christ through faith and so escaped God’s wrath, we ought not to vaunt ourselves against others but rather mourn.

• “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” (Ezekiel 18:23)

• “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:8-9).

Her wound is incurable

Sin does not have a cure. It leads to death: period. The soul that sins shall die. There is no making the sinful flesh any more righteous before God. It cannot be upheld, it is completely unholy. Our flesh is not cured or made better, it is crucified with Christ–we die so that we may live to God.

• “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 2:22-24).

• “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

• “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4).