Today in God’s Word

March 15, Jeremiah 43

And they came into the land of Egypt, for they did not obey the voice of the LORD. And they arrived at Tahpanhes. - Jeremiah 43:7

It’s the freed slave, delighting in his freedom at first, and then choosing to go back and wear the shackles again. It's the addict who stays clean and sober after being blessed to overcome the addiction, making a deliberate choice to go back. And it's the debtor, who learned from paying off all that "easy credit" that Solomon was right--"the borrower is the slave of the lender." He felt good about becoming debt free, and then he went back into more debt than he could repay. All these folks went back to bondage they had once escaped.

Chapter 43 is another sad case of such an irrational reversal. Israel left Egypt nine centuries before, victorious, two million strong, liberated by God's power and led by God's faithful servant Moses. Now poor, broken Israel limps back into Egypt, survivors of the brutal consequences that came from disobeying God. The days when God fought their battles for them were over. They were led back to Egypt by fear and listening to lies instead of God's faithful servant Jeremiah.

Johanan, Azariah and the other insolent men accused Jeremiah of lying about what God told them through him. They were going to Egypt, and no prophetic word was going to stop them. They made the people afraid that the Chaldeans were coming to take them away to Babylon. Their defiance, as wicked and foolhardy as it was, fulfilled the prophecy about Jerusalem being uninhabited. They took everyone (including Jeremiah and Baruch) and went to Egypt.

When they arrived, God told Jeremiah to take stones and hide them in the mortar at the gate of Pharaoh's palace. He told Jeremiah that Nebuchadnezzar would come there and set up his throne on those stones. He would kill the Egyptian king and appoint another. He would destroy the idols that were unable to save the Egyptians from their attackers.

Was Jeremiah able to set those stones in the mortar because the Israelites were back in Egypt, back working for Pharaoh and the Egyptians on another building project? How did once-escaped Israel (or what was left of it) become enslaved in Egypt again? You see how the Israelites were like the slave, the addict and the debtor I mentioned at the beginning. Against all reason, they all went back into bondage.

What can you and I learn from this sad narrative in Jeremiah 43? As I thought about this text, another comparison came to mind. These pictures of insensible, needless ruin are also pictures of a Christian who has been freed from sin, as Paul described it in Romans. That person has escaped the bonds of sin through the saving work of Christ. He trusted and obeyed God, and grace saved him and set him free. But when that redeemed one stops listening and trusting and following the Lord, he listens to the lies again and is drawn away and entangled and bound in sin again. Could that happen to you and me? We'd better make sure we keep listening to the truth and following the Lord.

The underlying root of disobedience is clear here, too. These men who led the people back to Egypt were insolent. Other versions have arrogant or prideful. They heard what God said through the words of Jeremiah. But they refused to heed the words. The message was not what they wanted to hear, so they discredited and persecuted the one who delivered it to them. They did what they wanted to do. That's pride at work. They thought they knew better than God about what they should do. And pride is our problem as well when we choose to trust ourselves instead of God. It ruined these people, and it will ruin us, too.

Let's stay humble and keep our ears and hearts open to receive and obey the word of God. Instead of trusting ourselves, let's seek more grace to trust God more about every part of our lives.

Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Today in God's Word—March 2024

East Tallassee Church of Christ