It is Natural
Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 8:4-7
Repentance is the natural order of life in a fallen world. That is the point of the questions the Lord asks in verse four. “When men fall, do they not rise again? If one turns away, does he not return?” No one falls and doesn’t get up unless the fall incapacitates them and they can’t get up. No one hits the ground and then thinks to themselves, “I kind of like it down here. I think this is where I will spend the rest of my days.” The immediate and natural response is to try and get up.
This leads to this observation of the Lord at the strangeness of his backslidden people. They have fallen and are not trying to get back up. They turned away and are refusing to return. This is unnatural. Even the stork, the turtledove, the swallow, and the crane know when it is time to return (verse 7). Their migration patterns and instinctive. They go and come again.
The point is that repentance is not an unnatural act. It is as normal and instinctive as bird migration. Or at least it ought to be. There is something seriously wrong with a person or a people who don’t have a spirit of repentance, who can continue unabated in their backsliding. When backsliding is “perpetual,” that is uninterrupted by repentance, a deadly spiritual condition exists.
It is or ought to be the most normal and natural thing in the world for us to be repentant people. We ought to be aware of and always turning away from what is wrong in us. We ought to be confessing our sins and iniquities and finding renewed forgiveness in Christ.
May we all be getting up when we fall down.
