In
the realm of religion, just as in the realm of personal
relationships, there are mirages. People think they see things that
are in reality only illusions. One such example is found in the book
of Jeremiah. Jeremiah, God's prophet, had been prophesying for years
to Judah to repent and amend their ways lest God send a foreign force
to their country for their destruction and ruin. They never listened
and so God did indeed send the Babylonians resulting in death for
many and Babylonian captivity for those that were left alive. Only
the very poorest of the land were left in Judah to till the land
under the leadership of a man appointed by the king of Babylon, Gedaliah.
Due
to some outside intrigue by the king of Ammon men were sent to
assassinate Gedaliah which mission they accomplished. This put great
fear into the Jews left in the land fearing that the king of Babylon
would return and punish them over the affair even though they were
not involved in it. The desire was to flee to Egypt for safety.
(Read the account in Jer. 40:13-41:18.) Before leaving for Egypt,
however, they consulted with Jeremiah asking him, on their behalf, to
seek God's will in the matter. Having done so and received from God
an answer they were instructed and warned not to go to Egypt.
"Then
hear now the word of the LORD, O remnant of Judah! Thus says the LORD
of hosts, the God of Israel: 'If you wholly set your faces to enter
Egypt, and go to dwell there, then it shall be that the sword which
you feared shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt; the famine
of which you were afraid shall follow close after you there in Egypt;
and there you shall die. So shall it be with all the men who set
their faces to go to Egypt to dwell there. They shall die by the
sword, by famine, and by pestilence. And none of them shall remain or
escape from the disaster that I will bring upon them.'"
(Jer. 42:15-17 NKJV)
The
people did not believe Jeremiah, accused him of lying (Jer. 43:2),
and left for Egypt dragging Jeremiah along with them. Once there, they continued their idol worship (Jer. 44:8) and continued ignoring
Jeremiah's prophetic warnings (Jer. 43:8-Jer. 44:14). We now get to
the lesson I want to emphasize for this article. The people respond
to Jeremiah's prophecy by saying:
"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 certainly do whatever has gone
out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour
out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our
kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of
Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no
trouble. But since we stopped burning incense 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."
(Jer. 44:16-18 NKJV)
Here
is the spiritual mirage, the illusion, the incomprehension,
the self-deception, and herein lies the lesson we all must learn and
take to heart. There is a great tendency on man's part to believe
that if he is actively involved in spiritual affairs, sincere in its
belief and practise,
and if his life as it pertains to this world seems to be going
relatively well that is an indication God is pleased with him and his
religion and that God is with him blessing him as a result of his
spiritual life.
Just
because things are going reasonably well for us in our lives does not
mean things are well with us spiritually. Just because we have a
spiritual life, one we are actively involved in, does not mean it is
the right religion or pleasing to God. As far as I am able to tell
from reading the New Testament the Pharisees of Jesus' day were doing
just fine as far as the blessings of this world were concerned but
they were experiencing their own spiritual mirage as much as those
Jews in Jeremiah’s day.
The
Jews with whom Jeremiah was dealing could not have been more wrong
than they were with regard to their concept of cause and effect.
While they may have "had
plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble" the
cause was not because they were worshipping "the
queen of heaven" to whom they
attributed it. They were involved in
a spiritual illusion, a spiritual mirage, and one which man is very
easily led into even today.
We
easily deceive ourselves just as was the case in Jeremiah's time.
The
God of heaven is generally patient with man although no man should
sin thinking God will give him time to repent. God is under no
obligation to give man time to repent from sin. One can readily come
up with many examples from the Bible where sinners were struck down
immediately upon committing sin.
Nevertheless,
it seems most are given time as God "is longsuffering toward us,
not willing that any should perish but that all should come to
repentance." (2 Peter 3:9 NKJV) One sees this not only in the
book of Jeremiah where Jeremiah urged repentance and a turning back
to God for years before tragedy finally struck but it is a common Old
Testament theme as apostasy was common among God's people throughout
most of Old Testament history and the prophets were continually
calling for repentance with God giving time and opportunity.
Romans
two, verse four, helps us see God's patience and longsuffering with
sinful man. I quote it here from the New Living Translation. "Don't
you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you?
Does this mean nothing to you? Can't you see that His kindness is
intended to turn you from your sin?" (Rom. 2:4 NLT) The NKJV
reads, "Or do you despise the riches of His goodness,
forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God
leads you to repentance?" (NKJV)
The
Jews of Jeremiah's day were attributing God's goodness and
longsuffering, meant for their repentance and salvation, to blessings
from the idol they were worshipping--the queen of heaven. While we
do not worship idols today, save for a few places in the world,
aren't we in danger of doing something very similar to the Jews with
whom Jeremiah was dealing? Everything is going well; we see no need
to repent thinking our life is pleasing to God and we are being
blessed because of our godly life all the while knowing we cannot
read specific Bible passages without them condemning us--our life,
our faith, our conduct. We like the Jews of old will not listen to
God's specific word. We convince ourselves, in one way or another,
that things have changed today and the passage or passages that prick
us are no longer relevant to modern-day life and religion.
We
feel Christianity has evolved and things that once were are no longer
true or binding on us. God has changed, seems to be the thinking,
even though he has
specifically
said, “I change not.” (Mal. 3:6 KJV) We either
do
that or we twist passages to make them mean what we wish they said.
The
church at Laodicea can serve as an example of how we can delude
ourselves and see mirages. They were saying to themselves, "I
am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing." (Rev.
3:17 NKJV) However, what does Jesus say about them? He says they do
not know that they “are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and
naked." (Rev. 3:17 NKJV) His message to them ends up being "be
zealous and repent." (Rev. 3:19 NKJV) Yet, that was the very
thing they saw no need of, for they were saying among themselves, “I
am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing.” (Rev/ 3:17
NKJV) They were pleased and satisfied and yet Jesus says their eyes
needed to be anointed with eye salve so they could see (Rev. 3:18).
They were seeing a mirage.
I
am convinced people today are just as easily misled into erroneous
thinking about their status with God as they were back in Bible
times. A person can look at their life and see all kinds of
blessings and think God is being so good to me and therefore he
must
be pleased with my religious life. That is not necessarily the case
at all. One’s financial and social status, one’s blessings in
this life, tell us nothing about how God sees us. The beggar in the
account of the rich man and Lazarus had no money, no status or
standing in this world of men, but went to paradise upon his death.
That
kind of reasoning that correlates this world’s blessings with godly
approval would lead to the conclusion that Paul was displeasing to
God and living an ungodly life for he spoke about what he had
experienced when he said, "From the Jews five times I received
forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I
was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have
been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils
of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the
Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in
perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and
toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings
often, in cold and nakedness … ." (2 Cor. 11:24-27 NKJV)
Blessings
from God do not necessarily equate with God being pleased with you
and the way you are living your life. It is a spiritual mirage to
think God is pleased with me because of all I have, all I have done, and accomplished. Jesus himself, while living on earth, had little to
nothing of this world's goods. He once said he had no place to lay
his head (Matt. 8:20).
The
same point that is being made about individuals can also be said of
religious groups. Do not be misled by size and appearances. If one
wants to please the masses, it can be done. There are ways to tear
down the old building and build bigger and fill the parking lot up
(how this is done is no secret) and then say God blessed you as a
religious body. If you have been observant, you know how it is done
as well as I do. The question that has to be answered, however, is
what brought them in—God or the appeal to the fleshly man? Was it
an appeal to faith and duty or an appeal to that which satisfies the
natural man?
The
conclusion of the matter is this—while all blessings come from God
and we should be thankful for every one of them, we ought not to jump
to conclusions about why we received them. Many a man blessed
abundantly in this life will be found in hell in the next one for the
goodness of God in his case did not lead him to repentance while the
poor widow (Luke 21) having given up even her two mites along with
the beggar Lazarus (Luke 16) will be there in heaven. (One assumes
the poor widow continued faithful until death.)
It
continues to trouble me greatly how people just assume, make
assumptions, all of the time in the realm of religion. All seems to
be well with them and God, in their mind, just because they feel it
is so. Their religion is based on emotion, on feeling, and is purely
subjective. It is a matter of how I feel about it (just as in
Jeremiah's day) versus book, chapter, and verse from God's word.
When the choice is between the actual word of God as can be quoted
versus their emotions, God's word will take second place. That is
living life based on a spiritual mirage, an illusion that will be
shown up for what it is on the last day. Jeremiah spoke the word of
God. The Jews should have heard it. They paid the penalty for doing
it their way. We will pay the penalty for doing it our way unless
our way has the word of God behind it.
No comments:
Post a Comment