This morning I felt led to read from Jeremiah 27:1-7 NIV:
[1] "Early in the reign of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: [2] This is what the Lord said to me: “Make a yoke out of straps and crossbars and put it on your neck. [3] Then send word to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon through the envoys who have come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah. [4] Give them a message for their masters and say, 'This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Tell this to your masters: [5] With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please. [6] Now I will give all your countries into the hands of my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; I will make even the wild animals subject to him. [7] All nations will serve him and his son and his grandson until the time for his land comes; then many nations and great kings will subjugate him."
These verses really makes one think about one's theology, and belief about God and His character, and can be veery challenging. Here are some challenging issues:
1) God speaks about Nebuchandnezzar, a enemy king, as "my servant"
2) God says that He is going to give Judah along with Edom, Ammon and Moab to the Babylonian King, which means they will be subject to him and under His power.
3) If our theology is a prosperity type, where we believe God blesses the obedient and punishes the sinful, here obedience leads to subjugation and disobedience to something worse. There is not really a path that leads to blessing.
4) These verses clearly speak about God using nations and peoples at a grand-scale which seems to take away the responsibility and relationship of the individual person.
In the following verses God warns against listening to prophets who prophesy against this word. Here are the verses - Jeremiah 27:8-11 NIV:
[8] “ ' “If, however, any nation or kingdom will not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon or bow its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation with the sword, famine and plague, declares the Lord, until I destroy it by his hand. [9] So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums or your sorcerers who tell you, 'You will not serve the king of Babylon.' [10] They prophesy lies to you that will only serve to remove you far from your lands; I will banish you and you will perish. [11] But if any nation will bow its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will let that nation remain in its own land to till it and to live there, declares the Lord.” ' ”
This is definitely some challenging stuff. Imagine if the church in America were to hear a word like this speaking about either Russia or China, about bowing our neck under their authority! I can't even imagine how quickly that prophetic voice would be shouted down!
I know I have a desire to only hear good words, words that proclaim blessing, and betterance! I don't want to hear that there might be difficult times ahead, or that I might be affected by bad things. I want blessing, blessing, blessing, always moving forward and always up! I tend to ignore anything that isn't what I want to hear.
In Judah, at this time, there was a bit of a war between prophetic voices, between Jeremiah and pretty much every other prophet, or voice. If we were to continue reading we will see the war between voices come to a head with Jeremiah being thrown into a pit. I find in my own life that I have a bit of a war in my mind, for I want to listen to my own voice, not the voice of the Lord.
As I reflect on verses like these, I always find myself going to a few verses from Isaiah where the Lord talks about His thinking and ways being far different than ours (See Is 55:8-9). He is thinking and moving at levels we cannot comprehend. I am reminded of a superior chess player who is 10-12 moves ahead in his mind. He knows that he has to make sacrifices of his men to move forward in the game, and ultimately win. If we multiply this chess board by several billion times, this is the context that God is thinking an acting within! We only get the smallest of glimpses at times, and often we don't understand all the things in process or the full context of what we observe.
I am reminded of a parable of 4 blind men who encounter an elephant, and each examines the part of the elephant in front of them, and they all come up with wildly different description based on what they were able to examine and experience (for more here is a link to the story - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant).
Because of our limited experience and perspective, we do not understand fully God's plan and purpose. What seems bad is usually a path forward to something much better. Graham Cooke, one of my favorite authors, says something like 'behind every difficulty is greater revelation'. We must learn to trust God, even in the midst of difficult seasons, difficult paths, even ones that look like both paths are not blessing.
If we hold to the theology that was present at the time of Jeremiah, we will struggle and become offended with God, when things don't turnout the way we think they should, especially when our experience seems counter to words of blessing we have received. The Jews understood that God was going to send a Messiah, they thought that meant they were going to be reestablished as a mighty nation, under His kingship! They couldn't comprehend how God would send them into captivity again, and again.
I think that often when we think about the church and God, we want the God to empower the church to rise up and be recognized as the proper representative of God on Earth, where we rule, and everyone is blessed. We want God to demonstrate His goodness and power so that everyone will see and know He is real, and good! We want a mighty King, a powerful Messiah, and we want to be recognized as being on His side.
We don't want difficult seasons in any of our lives, and when things don't work that way, we become offended, even to the rejecting of God. We can't believe that a good God would allow bad things to happen! We want His blessing, always better and better!
When we look at the reality of the church and the Kingdom of God, it was birthed into a time of subjugation (Rome) and did not rise up to throw off the shackles, instead it grew and multiplied mostly under the radar, hidden in the hearts of men and women. They became a persecuted people and yet they didn't walk away from God, instead they multiplied and spread in the midst of the fire of persecution.
I could continue on, but I have floors to vacuum and chores to do. Suffice it to say that I am encouraged today to think about what I think and how I think about God! As A.W.Tozer says, that is the most important thing, what I think about God. I am encouraged to look at my personal theology, and how I think God should act! I am encouraged to expand my thinking, so that I don't become offended when things don't turn out the way I want. I am encouraged to listen to God, not to my flesh as it will reject anything that is painful or difficult! I do know that God is good, all the time and in every circumstance, and I know that most of the time I won't have the proper perspective to understand how good He really is!
Lord, I pray for Your continued blessing and for more understanding of You, Your word, and Your will. Oh Lord help us!
Amen!
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