Bible in 90, Day 57: Safe amid the danger

Jeremiah 34-47

*image courtesy of firehawk77 at stock.xchng

God had warned the people through Jeremiah’s preaching (as well as many other prophets) that if they did not repent and turn from their evil ways, He would destroy Jerusalem.  They saw this happen already to the northern kingdom of Israel, and yet they did not believe.  They refused to turn from evil, and so God brought destruction through the Babylonians.

At this point (Jeremiah 41-43), the people asked Jeremiah to find out where God wanted them to go because they feared the Babylonians.  God specifically told them not to go to Egypt, but to stay in the land and obey the Babylonians.  If they would do this, Jeremiah prophesied, God would protect them.  The people did not believe Jeremiah’s words.  In fact, they called him a liar, and rebelled against the word of God and went into Egypt.  Just as God told them ahead of time, they found death there instead of safety.

The difficulty for the people was that God was telling them to stay in the place that seemed most dangerous in order to be safe.  The land had been plagued by war and conflict for years, and it didn’t seem that it was stopping anytime soon.  The safe place seemed to be Egypt, far from the fighting of Babylon.  But God insisted that He would watch over them and protect them in the dangerous place, and that they would die in the place of safety.

It’s all flipped.

It doesn’t seem to make any sense.  Why would God ask them to stay in the midst of the battle zone in order to be safe?  Doesn’t it stand to reason that fleeing would be the safest course of action?  What reason is there to stay?  Jeremiah’s words don’t seem to logical.

Not much has changed.

In the New Testament, we’re told things like, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,” “many who are first will be last,” and “whoever loses his life… will find it” (Luke 6:27, Matthew 19:30, 16:25).  Sometimes God’s standards or commands don’t make sense to us.  That’s a good thing!  If everything God did made total sense to us, then we would totally understand God, and would be God.  We are not God, and so it shouldn’t surprise us when His logic is different than ours.

Despite the seeming illogical nature of some of the things we read in the Bible, we must still follow His commands.  The people in today’s passage didn’t think it wise to stay in Israel, but God had promised to protect them.  It may not seem right to us to pray for those who mistreat us, but God has promised to deal with them in His own way, perhaps even by saving them.

Let’s not make the mistake of the remnant who rejected Jeremiah’s words.  Let’s not assume to know better than the King of the Universe.  Let’s follow God’s clearly revealed truth in the Bible, even when it goes against the norms of society.  Let’s trust the One who made us, and know that He is faithful to His promises, no matter how illogical they may seem to us.

*originally at Words of Reason