An engraving with a royal inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II.
(Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1311723)
As our nation continues to slide from a post-Christian
nation to an anti-Christian nation, I cannot help but feel I was born in Jerusalem, deported to Babylon.
I can remember when stores were regularly closed
on Sunday, and the Bible was read in public schools. Abortion was not only
illegal, but unthinkable. Now we’re legalizing infanticide. Homosexuality was hidden.
Today it has moved past normalization to proliferation. Tired of being a boy? Be a girl.
In this hour, it is good to revisit God’s message (in Jeremiah
29) to “people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.”
Verse 4 reveals that God was behind it: “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of
Israel, says to all those I carried
into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.” It was God’s discipline, for God's reasons.
So, what do we do in our Babylon? Sit in despair under a juniper
tree and weep?
Here’s what the Lord told the Israelites:
“Build
houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have
sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in
marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number
there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to
which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it
prospers, you too will prosper.”
Be productive? Work? Bless the pagan city?
I appreciate Jodi Hasbrouck’s comments on verse 11, which is usually quoted
apart from its context: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the
Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a
future.“
Hasbrouck writes: “In the midst of your suffering, cling to Jeremiah
29:11, but cling to it for the right reason: not in the false hope that God
will take away your suffering, but in the true, gospel confidence that he will
give you hope in the midst of it.”
“Sometimes,” Jodi says, “trials are of our own doing;
sometimes they’re the work of Satan; sometimes they’re just an effect of living
in a broken world. Regardless of the source, they're always an opportunity to
know God better.”
And an opportunity to bless a pagan nation. As Daniel did, working in a civil service job.
Posted by Dr. Christian Overman
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