Week 4 continued-- Still Time to Repent

It is interesting what goes through the minds of people in crisis. Here the Jews that have been left in the country after Babylon has destroyed Jerusalem come to Jeremiah for help. They want him to pray for them to find out what the will of God is for them. Their answer to Jeremiah is very similar to the one they gave Moses at Mt Sinai.

Jeremiah 42:5-6
5 So they said to Jeremiah, “Let the LORD be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not do according to everything which the LORD your God sends us by you. 6 Whether it is pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God to whom we send you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God.”

Exodus 19:8a
8 Then all the people answered together and said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do.”

Reading on in Jeremiah 42, we see that these Jews were as good at keeping their word as their ancestors had been. They had already decided in their hearts that they were going to go to Egypt and look for sanctuary there. Even though God promises to forgive them and bless them and even make sure they were safe if they would only be obedient and stay in the Land.

Once again they choose to only obey God only as long as what He is asking them to do is what they have already decided is the course of action to take. Why do you think it was so hard for them to see beyond their own understanding and listen to what the Lord was saying? How often do we treat the Lord the same way in our own lives, prefering to wait for the answer we want, rather than doing what God is saying right now? Boiling it down to its simplest component, why is it so difficult for them to understand that God is looking for a relationship and not for them to be religious?