Day 233 (Jeremiah 41-45) - Year 4
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Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Three days ago, on day 230, we first read about a potential plot to kill Judah's new governor, Gedaliah. Some of his military leaders told him that one of his trusted insiders, a member of the royal family named Ishmael, was going to assassinate him. But Gedaliah didn't believe the report.

Then on day 231, we found out the report was true. And today, we read the full account of how it all went down. Not only did Ishmael and his crew kill Governor Gedaliah, but they also killed a lot of other people in the process, including Judeans and Babylonian soldiers. The next day, 80 unsuspecting men come to bring grain offerings, and Ishmael fakes grief and invites the men. Then he starts round two of his mass murdering. He decides to spare 10 of the men who bribe him with promises of food and provisions.

Then Ishmael takes all the bodies and disposes of them in a cistern. His next move is to take everyone else captive, then force them all to move east with him across the Jordan River. But on their way there, they run into Johanan. He's the guy who originally gave Governor Gedaliah the heads up about Ishmael's plan. Johanan and his crew fight against Ishmael and his crew and defeat them. The captives get set free, but Ishmael escapes.

At this point, these people are living in a land that has erupted in chaos, and they're terrified. Put yourself in their shoes. Your country has just been dismantled. Your new enemy-appointed leader has been assassinated. You've just been kidnapped, and you have no idea what your enemies will do next. The people of Judah are ready to pack up and head to Egypt in hopes of finding some protection there, because anywhere has to be better than Judah.

They decide they should seek counsel from Jeremiah on what to do. They tell him to ask God, and they promise to do whatever God says, regardless of what it is. So Jeremiah spends 10 days in prayer, seeking God's will. Then he comes back and tells them...

Stay put. Don't go to Egypt. The reason you want to go to Egypt is because you're afraid of what will happen here. But if you let fear drive, it will lead you to the very thing you're afraid of. On the other hand, if you trust God and stay here and you yield the decision to him, then he will protect you and provide for you here.

These people should trust Jeremiah. They've been around long enough to remember a few years earlier when he was prophesying about everything that would happen with Jerusalem. Then they watched it all happen. His prophecy record is spot on.

Despite this, he knows they won't listen to him, and he tells them as much. He basically says, "In conclusion, God says stay here, don't go to Egypt, but the reality is you're going to disobey God and go to Egypt." And he's right. They don't believe him. In fact, they accuse him of not just being accidentally wrong, but of conspiring against them and being a false prophet.

Then, guess where they go? Egypt. So he's still nailing the prophecies. But that's probably no comfort to him considering they kidnap him and take him with them, forcing him to be disobedient to God's commands. One of the first things God has him do when they arrive is remind them that they've disobeyed and that they aren't safe there. They've run to the very spot where their most feared enemy will attack. Babylon will come to Egypt next and overthrow them too.

God even has Jeremiah mark the spot where King Nebi of Babylon will set up his throne in Egypt. God has been patient and persistent in warning his people about what's going to happen. He's given them counsel on how to avoid disaster, but they never listen. In 44:10, he says, "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 your fathers."

And we've seen this play out. This is not an exaggeration on God's part. So he is promising destruction for those who went to Egypt as a consequence of their sins. He says only a few fugitives will escape this coming disaster.

When Jeremiah passes the word along to them, they say, We're not interested in what you have to say. We've been thinking about it, and we realized that all our trouble started when we stopped making offerings to the Queen of Heaven. Everything was great up until that point. So we're going to start that up again. They're referring to the time during good King Josiah's reign when he made them stop doing pagan sacrifices, and he tore down the high places. But then after his death, things in Judah began to decline under the leadership of the last four evil kings.

And the people think it's because they stopped worshiping idols. Then Jeremiah says the scariest thing he's ever said. Okay, then go ahead. Worship your idols and see how that goes for you. God is done with you. He says only a few among them will survive and go back to Judah.

This whole final exchange was my God shot today. You know that verse we keep seeing over and over, Exodus 34, 6-7? It talks about how God is slow to anger, but it doesn't say he never gets angry. We see him angry here. It says he's merciful, meaning he doesn't give people what they deserve, and these people have certainly not gotten what they deserve up to this point.

It says he's gracious, meaning he gives them blessings they don't deserve. He's done that too. After all, he continued speaking to people who lied to him and disobey him and disregard him. But Exodus 34 also says he won't leave the guilty unpunished. He knows when the timing is right for that punishment to be doled out. And he says the time is now. He's not rebuking them anymore because he's given them over to their sins.

This is almost exactly what Paul talks about in Romans 1. Sometimes, God reaches a point where he gives people over to their sins, where he no longer begs them to repent, where he lets them continue sinning without any feelings of guilt. On the surface, that may look like mercy because they're not getting what they deserve. But at its core, this is God's passive wrath. Mercy would be if he called them to repentance, but wrath is letting them continue in sin unchecked. And that's what's happening here.

I'm so glad God's Spirit promises to convict His kids of their sins so that we never have to fear God's passive wrath. He never gives up on His kids. He promises to keep drawing us near when we wander off in sin. We can never exhaust His persistent love. And God even takes the time to remind Baruch of that personally. In the midst of what he's writing about those who fled to Egypt, God is drawing a distinction here between how He deals with His kids versus how He deals with those who don't know Him.

When you feel conviction about your sin, the enemy of your soul wants you to feel ashamed about it. But God says that's a mark of adoption. That's evidence of his love for you, proof that you're his child because that's his spirit at work in you. Thank God the spirit is with us to draw us out of sin and back to the Father's heart. He's where the joy is.

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