My servant, Nebuchadnezzar
"Lord,
I want to trust You, to follow You with my whole heart, but this
doesn't make any sense!" Have you ever prayed that way? I found myself
on my knees in the sanctuary recently in prayer and working through that
very thought. It would make a nice story to say that an angel showed up
and sorted it all out for me, but that did not happen. I could tell you
that I got up from my prayer refreshed and full of sweet peace, but
that would be untrue, too. What did happen was re-discovery of the 27th chapter of Jeremiah!
A
few years after Nebuchadnezzar first invaded Jerusalem and carried off
Judah's king and nobles to Babylon, envoys of nations surrounding Judah
gathered to consider forming an alliance and seeking military backing
from Egypt to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar. It seemed like a
reasonable plan, since he was pre-occupied with internal strife and
issues in the eastern part of his empire. At last, the puppet king,
Zedekiah, thought it was the right time to free his land. There was a
shared assumption that this had to be God's will!
Jeremiah showed up at the council wearing a yoke on his neck claiming
to have a message from God that nobody in that room wanted to hear. "Now
I will give your countries to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who is my
servant. I have put everything, even the wild animals, under his
control. All the nations will serve him and his son and his grandson
until his time is up. But then many nations and great kings will conquer
and rule over Babylon. So you must submit to Babylon's king and serve
him; put your neck under Babylon's yoke! I will punish any nation that
refuses to be his slave, says the Lord. I will send war, famine, and
disease upon that nation until Babylon has conquered it." (Jeremiah
27:6-8, NLT) Jeremiah claimed that the Lord regarded that pagan king as
'His servant!' He also claimed that God wanted them to voluntarily
submit themselves to Babylon. He went on to tell the priests that they
should prepare themselves for sorrow because the Temple was going to
desecrated, and God was going to allow it! "For this is what the Lord
Almighty says about the bronze pillars in front of the Temple, the
bronze Sea in the Temple courtyard, the bronze water carts, and all the
other ceremonial articles. ... Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the
God of Israel, says about the precious things kept in the Temple and in
the palace of Judah's king: They will all be carried away to Babylon and
will stay there until I send for them, says the Lord. But someday I
will bring them back to Jerusalem again." (Jeremiah 27:19-22, NLT)
None
of this fit what they believed to be true about God and His
relationship with them. They assumed He would always defend them, that
He would never let His Temple be destroyed. Surely, with enough prayer
He would miraculously bring deliverance, so they thought. But, no, it
was not to be. God was using the Babylonian king to accomplish His will.
They just couldn't believe it.
Christian,
do you know that the Lord refuses to fit into your neat little box of
expectations? He is not a tame Deity that we can keep on retainer to
rain down positive answers to prayer so that we can live 'happily ever
after.' He is the Eternal Lord of Heaven and Earth, loving and good, but
also mysterious in His ways.
Isaiah asks us to trust Him even when we cannot see where He's leading because the Lord told him, "I
don't think the way you think. The way you work isn't the way I work."
God's Decree. "For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work
surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you
think. Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don't go back
until they've watered the earth, Doing their work of making things grow
and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, So will
the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty-handed. They'll
do the work I sent them to do, they'll complete the assignment I gave
them." (Isaiah 55:8-11, The Message)
We are
led by the Spirit, but the route He chooses may not necessarily be the
one we prefer. We have two important choices - to be wisely discerning
of His will and then to obey, regardless of whether we find it to our
liking.
And here's His promise for those willing to be led: "You
will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills will burst into
song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands! Where once there
were thorns, cypress trees will grow. Where briers grew, myrtles will
sprout up. This miracle will bring great honor to the Lord's name; it
will be an everlasting sign of his power and love." (Isaiah 55:12-13, NLT)
_________
Blessed Assurance
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God;
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest!
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.
This is my story, this is my song.
Praising my Savior, all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song.
Praising my Savior, all the day long.
Fanny Jane Crosby | Phoebe Palmer Knapp
Public Domain
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