Cause and Effect

Scripture: Then all the men who knew that their wives had made offerings to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, all the people who lived in Pathros in the land of Egypt, answered Jeremiah: “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, 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. For then we had plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no disaster. But since we left off making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” Jeremiah 44:15-18

Observation: Judah is ravaged. Jerusalem is burned to the ground. The survivors asked Jeremiah for guidance, swearing to obey God, and Jeremiah delivers the word of God - Stay in the land, do not go to Egypt, and stop worshiping idols. So of course the people ...

... immediately go to Egypt and declare they are going to resume worshiping idols because, when they did that before, they had no issues. You know ... right up until God absolutely destroyed them.

In other words, the Jews totally misunderstood God, and misaligned the cause of their destruction. They didn't understand God's love and patience, and therefore attributed their original time of peace not as a time of God's mercy as he attempted to guide them back to righteousness, but rather as credited to idols. They didn't understand God's judgment of their idol worship, and therefore attributed their destruction to their leaders' abandonment of idols.

They got it backwards.

Application: When I talk to non-believers about issues of faith, this "backwards thinking" is ALWAYS at the center of the issue ... they don't understand God's love and corresponding judgment, and therefore cannot make sense of life. They get EVERYTHING backwards: Success is a result of their hard work; Blessing doesn't actually exist; Major life issues have nothing to do with their own bad choices and sin; If the believe in God, they believe he ignores or is the source of suffering.

Our discussion about God, therefore, must address first the concept of God's love - that he loves everyone, and provided Jesus as the means to eternal life. Our discussions must also rightly position the results of long-term rejection of Jesus - there is an eternal consequence for non-belief, and a loving God will in fact deliver judgment upon those who reject Jesus.

This is truth, and whether or not others listen or they reject it as the Jews did, our job is to simply speak truth as Jeremiah did.

Prayer: Lord, I seek to speak the truth about your love to those around me. I already know that most of them will reject it - they are "locked in" to a backwards understanding of your love, and firmly set on their path toward judgment. As both Jeremiah and Ezekiel have show, that is an issue between you and them ... we are not here to save people, we are here to tell them about the love of Jesus Christ. Help me become better, stronger, and bolder in doing that every day. Amen.