No consequences?

 

READ Jeremiah 40–44

Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” God’s OT people, were not insane, just determined to run their own lives without God’s interference even after most of them had been exiled to Babylon.

Jeremiah was given the choice to go or stay. He stayed. The governor appointed by the Babylonian king to lead the people remaining in Judea told them, “Do not be afraid to serve the Chaldeans. Dwell in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you. As for me, I will dwell at Mizpah, to represent you before the Chaldeans who will come to us. But as for you, gather wine and summer fruits and oil, and store them in your vessels, and dwell in your cities that you have taken.”

Other Judeans heard about the remnant in Judah and Gedaliah was governor, so they returned to Mizpah and gathered wine and summer fruits in great abundance. However, Ishmael with others killed Gedaliah, and slaughtered others, leaving only a few who pleaded, “Do not put us to death, for we have stores of wheat, barley, oil, and honey hidden in the fields.” (41:6–8)

Some resisted and came to Jeremiah saying, “Let our plea for mercy come before you, and pray to the Lord your God for us, for all this remnant—because we are left with but a few, as your eyes see us— that the Lord your God may show us the way we should go, and the thing that we should do.”

Jeremiah warned them to obey God and not go to Egypt. They repeated their plan to obey God, but they went to Egypt anyway, taking Jeremiah with them. When they arrived, the prophet warned them that they were not safe there. God said:

Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant . . . He shall come and strike the land of Egypt, giving over to pestilence those who are doomed to pestilence, to captivity those who are doomed to captivity, and to the sword those who are doomed to the sword . . . . he shall clean the land of Egypt . . . . break the obelisks . . . and the temples of the gods of Egypt he shall burn with fire. (43:5–13)

The Lord also said, “You have seen all the disaster that I brought upon Jerusalem and all the cities of Judah . . . . they are a desolation . . . because of the evil that they committed . . . they went to make offerings and serve other gods that they knew not, neither they, nor you, nor your fathers. Yet I persistently sent to you all my servants the prophets, saying, ‘Oh, do not do this abomination that I hate!’ But they did not listen or incline their ear, to turn from their evil and make no offerings to other gods. Therefore my wrath and my anger were poured out and kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, and they became a waste and a desolation, as at this day . . . . Why do you commit this great evil against yourselves, to cut off from you man and woman, infant and child, from the midst of Judah, leaving you no remnant? Why do you provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, making offerings to other gods in the land of Egypt . . . that you may be cut off and become a curse and a taunt among all the nations of the earth? Have you forgotten the evil of your fathers, the evil of the kings of Judah, the evil of their wives, your own evil, and the evil of your wives . . . . They have not humbled themselves even to this day, nor have they feared, nor walked in my law and my statutes that I set before you and before your fathers.”

Even as God set His face against them, they replied:

We will not listen to you. But we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem . . . .

Jeremiah, repeated his warnings with the same reminders that their choices will not work. Then God said,

. . .  All the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, until there is an end of them. And those who escape the sword shall return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah, few in number; and all the remnant of Judah, who came to the land of Egypt to live, shall know whose word will stand, mine or theirs . . . . (44:16–30)

Einstein was close, yet even ‘sane’ people assume they can ignore God and run their own lives without consequences. Lord, keep reminding me to seek Your will in all that I do, today and in all of life.