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Dr. David Jeremiah tells about a man who tried to steal gasoline from a motor home. He attached a hose to the vehicle and started siphoning. But the police found him writhing in agony. He had attached the hose, not to the gasoline tank, but to the motor home’s sewage tank! He paid a terrible price for trying to steal. In a more profound way, we pay a price when we reject God and insist on our own way. That is what Stephen told the religious leaders in Jerusalem (Acts 7). They rejected Jesus as their Messiah and were about to convict him of blaspheming God. In defending himself, Stephen reminded them of what happened when their nation rejected God’s prophet Moses. “Our ancestors refused to listen to Moses,” he said. “They rejected him and wanted to return to Egypt. They told Aaron, ‘Make us some gods who can lead us, for we don’t know what has become of this Moses who brought us out of Egypt.’ So they made an idol shaped like a calf, sacrificed to it, and celebrated over this thing they had made. Then God turned away from them and abandoned them to serve the stars of heaven as their gods!” If we, like them, reject God and persist in our own way, we should not be surprised when God abandons us. We pay an awful price—both here and hereafter–when we reject a loving God and live only to please ourselves.
