Tag Jeremiah

Elam’s Archers

Todd R Leave a comment

Ideas for blog posts come from all sorts of sources.  Sermons, memories, books.  But most often they come from Bible study.  I nearly always use a study Bible and read all of its notes as I go, while also making my own notes.  This post’s inspiration comes from a study Bible note that just said “Elam is famous for its archers,”[1] in reference to Jeremiah 49:35, which says:

“Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Behold, I will break the bow of Elam, the mainstay of their might.””

The verse is a small part of a long section in Jeremiah where God speaks about His judgement on many nations, as a comfort to the Israelites who were about to go into exile.  The message is: in the long run, God’s people will be redeemed, but their enemies will be judged.

What do Elam’s archers have to do with this?  After reading the “Elam is famous for its archers” note I realized that nation by nation, God’s judgement focuses on the things that the nation took pride in.  His judgement fits the crime; it isn’t just arbitrary.  In Elam’s case, they believed their superior archers were the source of their strength.  They trusted in their archers, not God, and so God would “break the bow.”  Their archers would be helpless against judgement.

Consider also these other examples, from the same chapter of Jeremiah:

Jeremiah announced God’s judgement on Edom, descendants of Jacob’s brother Esau.  They had a longstanding grudge against God’s people, and they rejoiced when Jerusalem eventually fell to Babylon (see the book of Obadiah).  In Edom’s case, Jeremiah said:

“For behold, I will make you small among the nations,
despised among mankind.
The horror you inspire has deceived you,
and the pride of your heart,
you who live in the clefts of the rock,
who hold the height of the hill.
Though you make your nest as high as the eagle’s,
I will bring you down from there,
declares the LORD.”[2]

Petra. Photo by Juanma Clemente-Alloza on Unsplash

Elam took pride in their archers; Edom took pride in their natural defenses.  Edom thought physical protection was their strength and could save them from judgment.  They had fortresses built right into the rocks of the mountains, apparently including the one now known as Petra (pictured).  In addition, by being in the mountains, they had the military advantage of fighting from higher ground, with their “nest as high as the eagle’s.”  But these defenses were overcome by Babylon.

Jeremiah also had a message “Concerning Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon struck down.”[3]  Jeremiah doesn’t recount the sins of Kedar and Hazor, but only that Babylon was used as an instrument of judgement against them.  These two people groups were nomadic tribes, moving about rather than settling primarily in cities.  So, how does God judge them?  Jeremiah 49:29 tells us:

“Their tents and their flocks shall be taken,
their curtains and all their goods;
their camels shall be led away from them,
and men shall cry to them: ‘Terror on every side!’”

Without cities, the markers of wealth for these unsettled people were probably their tents and flocks and camels.  These are what the nations of Kedar and Hazor would take pride in, but God in His judgement would take them away.  Repeatedly in these prophecies, God strikes specifically the things those nations have pride in.

Judah was not immune.  They thought their alliance with Egypt would save them from conquest by Babylon.  However, Babylon over time defeated both Assyria, who had conquered Israel, and Egypt, who Judah was counting on to rescue them.  They had trusted in their political alliances instead of in God, putting their pride in the wrong place.

We also are not immune.  What do we and our nations take pride in?  Like Elam, is it the strength of our military?  Like Edom, does our sense of security from enemies lull us into a state of complacency and pride?  Like Kedar and Hazor, has our wealth become a source of pride?  We may not even be aware of these things, but God is aware and He will judge all of our sources of pride.  As He said in Isaiah 42:8 –

“I am the LORD; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to carved idols.”

God does not tolerate rivals, and we should be ready for God to judge the great Babylon’s of our time, our nation, and our hearts.  Until we are perfected in eternity, we and our nations will have things we put pride in inappropriately.  Our own strength, our own security, our own wealth.  We, and our nations, aren’t perfect, but have many idols.  Things that distract us from God and lead us to do things we shouldn’t.  Only God knows what all of these things are.

If “Elam is famous for its archers,” what do you and your nation put too much pride in?  Pray that God will reveal these to us and help us to overcome them, putting Him in their place.

[1] Reformation Study Bible, note on Jeremiah 49:35.
[2] Jeremiah 49:15-16
[3] Jeremiah 49:28

You are What You Eat

Todd R Leave a comment

You’re probably familiar with that phrase: “you are what you eat.”  You probably also know that it doesn’t mean that if you eat broccoli you turn into broccoli.  What the phrase does mean is that there is a very close connection between what we eat and drink and our overall health and well-being.  Good food is good for us, and bad food is bad for us, but in a broader sense than just its impact on our digestive tract.  By saying “you are” it’s incorporating a bigger sense of your body, and also your mind and general well being.

I was reminded of the phrase when I read Jeremiah 15:16, which says:

“Your words were found, and I ate them,
and your words became to me a joy
and the delight of my heart,
for I am called by your name,
O LORD, God of hosts.”

If “you are what you eat” then what happens if we eat the word of God, and what does it mean to eat the word of God?  We definitely shouldn’t be munching on our Bibles, but similar to eating, we must let what we learn from the Bible (God’s word) become an internal part of us, the very source of our life and energy.  Also similar to eating, it is something we must do repeatedly and regularly, or else we starve.  We should let it continually empower and motivate us to do God’s will, to be His people and to glorify Him.  We can’t “eat” God’s word by keeping it outside of our lives and admiring it at a distance.  We must do what it says.  James puts it well in his epistle:

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.  For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.  But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”  (James 1:22 – 25)

As Jeremiah said, “your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart,” James said we “will be blessed in [our] doing.”  But this only happens when we “eat” what we read in the Bible.  We allow it to become an integral part of us, essential to our identity.  We don’t get “joy” and “delight” from God’s word if we keep it outside and admire it from a distance or treat it like we would a textbook. We don’t get “joy” and “delight” if we think it’s only written for other people to do what it says, but not specifically written to us.

Jeremiah says, “I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts.” Christians are called by the name of Jesus, the Christ.  We all fall short of who God wants us to be, as do all who are called by His name, but that doesn’t mean we can stop eating.  I think most people can tell the difference between someone who “eats” God’s word and someone who keeps it at a distance or doesn’t bother to learn it and spend time with it regularly.  Someone with true joy is a rare sight!  Someone who delights in God’s word rather than treats it as an academic study, or as irrelevant, or as an exercise in fault-finding, is also a rare sight!

Therefore, don’t ignore God’s word, “eat” it.  Regularly.  Because you are what you eat.

Serving Other Gods

Todd R 1 Comment

Foundational to God’s relationship with His people – His covenant – is the idea that He will be our God and we will be His people.  If we forsake all other “gods,” we will be blessed immeasurably by the true God, Yahweh.

However, in the time of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah, right before the exile of Judah into Babylon, God’s people were not being faithful to Yahweh and were worse than prior generations in their rebellion.  So, Jeremiah says in chapter 16, verse 13 – “Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.”

This punishment has 2 parts: banishment from the Promised Land, and also “you shall serve other gods day and night.”  Have you ever thought that serving gods other than Yahweh is a punishment, or just that its bad or sinful?   It certainly isn’t the way the world sees it: many consider serving any god as punishment.  Others might have their own gods and would only consider serving other gods, including Yahweh, as punishment.  But here the Bible says that it is only punishment to follow false gods.

Why is this?  A good explanation comes from another prophet, Zechariah, in chapter 10, verse 2:

“For the household gods utter nonsense,
            and the diviners see lies;
they tell false dreams
            and give empty consolation.
Therefore the people wander like sheep;
            they are afflicted for lack of a shepherd.”

Compared to a loving, omniscient, wise God, these other gods have no knowledge or wisdom and are not benevolent.  They cannot give us what we need to live and are not worthy of worship.  They cannot guide us like our Good Shepherd can.  Therefore, when we choose to follow anything other than Yahweh, are we punishing ourselves?

When Yahweh said “You shall have no other gods before me” in Exodus 20:3, He said it for our own benefit, and for His glory.

Amen.

Faith is Not a Democracy

Todd R 1 Comment

In our lives, there are many “voices” that try to influence us, from the people we know, to the things we read, to all the messages in our culture, and beyond.  These may not be literal voices in our heads, but all of these influences affect our inner dialogue and compete to make us act in certain ways.  Often, we don’t know why we do what we do or feel the way we feel, but chances are we got the idea from somewhere.

For Christians, one of those voices in our minds is God, guiding us in the perfect way to go by His Spirit, but we often let the other voices overrule Him.  This can be especially easy to do when He’s telling us to do something that seems strange to us.  One example is from ancient Israel, when the sins of the nation resulted in God passing sentence on the people, in the form of conquest by, and exile to, Babylon.

Once God had made up His mind, the result was inevitable and God, through His prophets, told His people to submit to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.  Israel was not to follow all the customs of Babylon, or commands from its king[1], but Israel was supposed to submit to Babylon as long as it didn’t make them disobey God.  In this message, His prophets were often lonely voices among many speaking to Israel.  Jeremiah was one of these, and he had to remind the people about whose voice mattered, in Jeremiah 27:8-9.

“if any nation or kingdom will not serve this Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, I will punish that nation with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, declares the LORD, until I have consumed it by his hand. 9 So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your dreamers, your fortune-tellers, or your sorcerers, who are saying to you, ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylon.’”

I bolded all the different groups of people who were competing to influence Israel.  These were the many voices Jeremiah had to compete with for the people’s attention, and there were perhaps dozens or even hundreds of them.  If people took opinion polls in those days, God’s word would have barely registered in the results.[2]

Also note that these people were “your” (Israel’s) messengers, not God’s.  These people were telling Israel what they wanted to say and to hear, not what God wanted them to hear.  In modern times, this might be like news networks and celebrities saying only what is popular to say or to believe.  Sadly, this also includes many Christians, even preachers, acting as messengers of our own culture’s values rather than as messengers carrying God’s word.

However, the lesson from the Jeremiah passage above is that God does not care about polling data, and He doesn’t want us to care about it either.  Even if many, or even all other, voices contradict God, He is still right.  Christians need to discern between the many influences inside and outside of us and find the ones that are coming from our Lord.  Even if He is telling us to do something strange, like submit to His judgement under a foreign king.

Paul warned his protégé Timothy and he warns us as well: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”[3]  These teachers are our modern “prophets, … diviners, … dreamers, … fortune-tellers, or … sorcerers” who seek influence over us.  They may be pastors and teachers, but they can also be the news channels we choose to watch, the politicians we support, the celebrities we emulate, subtle messages in our culture like advertising, things we learn in school or at work, or simply what’s popular at the time.  But only one voice matters and there is only one that deserves our absolute faith – God – no matter how many others vote against Him.

Our actions should not be ruled by a democracy, but by our King.  Be careful who you listen to.

[1] See the book of Daniel for some examples.
[2] Read the story of the prophet Micaiah in 1 Kings 22 for more about how outnumbered God’s true prophets were.
[3] 2 Timothy 4:3-4

God’s Word Withstands the Fire. Always.

Todd R Leave a comment

The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah faced immense opposition, and in Jeremiah 36:20-25 is recorded an interesting story of King Jehoiakim’s attempts to destroy the prophet’s words, and by extension, God’s words.  The king was unable to get his hands on Jeremiah, whose allies helped him to hide, so the king takes a different approach:

“So they went into the court to the king, having put the scroll in the chamber of Elishama the secretary, and they reported all the words to the king.  Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll, and he took it from the chamber of Elishama the secretary. And Jehudi read it to the king and all the officials who stood beside the king.  It was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in the winter house, and there was a fire burning in the fire pot before him.  As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the fire pot.  Yet neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments.  Even when Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah urged the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them.”

This wasn’t an impulsive, knee-jerk reaction to God’s word, but a deliberate, sustained act of rebellion.  This took time, and there’s almost a ceremony to it, as if daring God to stop him.  Many Christians today would be outraged if they witnessed something like this.  People in positions of authority disrespect God regularly, but imagine if the head of your country burned the Bible publicly on TV, and nobody stopped them, or even objected?  Sure, in modern times, people might object on their blog, on social media, or even on smaller TV and radio outlets, but in Jehoiakim’s example, nobody was able to challenge him. He “got away with it.”

Photo by raquel raclette on Unsplash

This brings up the question of: why does God allow things like this to happen?  I’ll suggest a question in response: Would it be a stronger testimony of God’s sovereignty if He had struck King Jehoiakim dead on the spot, or is it a stronger testimony that Jeremiah’s words still exist today all around the world?  If the second option is better, the next question is why do we sometimes feel such outrage and lash out (perhaps on our own blog or Facebook page) at such acts?  Do we trust God to deal with it, or do we worry that Jehoiakim is right – maybe God doesn’t care?

Part of the scroll Jehoiakim burned may have included these words of Jeremiah about the king himself: “With the burial of a donkey he shall be buried, dragged and dumped beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”[1] And “He shall have none to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night.”[2]  Therefore God knew both that justice would be done to Jehoiakim, and also that his burning of the scroll had only symbolic and temporary effect.  In contrast, God’s justice and God’s word are eternally immutable and effective.  As Isaiah said: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”[3]

There’s also another question for us: if God had chosen in His sovereignty to redeem Jehoiakim, would we be angry like Jonah at the repentance of Nineveh[4], or would we praise God for His profound and measureless grace?  The same grace that brought Jeremiah’s words back from the futile fire pot of King Jehoiakim.  The grace that was purchased by Christ on the cross.

This word of God will stand as well: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’  To the contrary, ‘if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” – Romans 12:19-21

Do we believe it?

[1] Jeremiah 22:19
[2] Jeremiah 36:30
[3] Isaiah 40:8
[4] See my earlier, short post on Jonah’s anger.