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An Ambiguous End [10] - Neil Ryan

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  • Speaker: Neil Ryan
  • Date: 2008-06-29 am
  • Title: An Ambiguous End
  • Passage: Jeremiah 42 & 43
  • Year: 2008
  • Length: 37:45 minutes (8 MB)
  • Format: MP3 Mono 22kHz 32Kbps (CBR)
Can you remember back to a time when you thought you were so right when in fact you were so wrong!
I was driving on Monday night passed Unley Shopping Centre and noticed cars banked up through the lights.
Up ahead someone had stopped in a no parking zone to get money out of an ATM.
Quite dangerous!
As the cars in front pulled out and moved past I saw the man standing by the front of the car so I stopped, put the window down and re-educated him on few things….. in love!
The man just looked at me and said,
“It’s not my car. I’m just crossing the road!”
Then he said something else!
 
As I drove off, I thought..
“How did I get that so wrong?”
“Why did I stop in the first place?”
“I hope that bloke doesn’t come to Church this Sunday!”
 

We look at some people this morning that got it so wrong and the problem is – like me - they made up their minds before they got the right information!

 
Read Jeremiah 42:1-3
 
We need some background here.
 

Over a 20 year period between 606 BC and 586BC Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon had invaded Israel and systematically removed Jews into captivity. Ultimate and highly symbolic culmination of the defeat was the destruction of Solomon’s temple in 586BC.

 
From our view point we can see that this period of history was not only about MILITARY EXPANSION but also SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE.
 
Babylon was the superpower and their history books will show that taking Israel was just part of their successful and ruthless expansionism of the 6th Century.
 
But the Bible tells us that history is ultimately HIS-story!
This part of history is about much more than military superiority, it is about God’s sovereignty.
 
God gave Israel into hands of Babylon.
God used Babylon to judge His people for their sin
In the midst of international intrigue and conflict God is doing something and it would be 70 years before it became obvious!!
 
We would do well to remember that!
 
God doesn’t go absent in the mess.
God is not powerless in the chaos.
God is not mocked by apparent defeat.
 
We crave God’s immediacy.

This generation has been raised on McFaith that wants a drive through Christianity that only has a 60 second wait from the time we put our order in to the time that God delivers!

 
This generation craves spiritual immediacy and God won’t always deliver on that!
 
Back to the story!
There was some left in the land by Nebuchadnezzar.
He appointed Gedeliah as Governor.
 
Jeremiah 40 tells us what’s happening to Jeremiah in all of this.
Read v1-4
Wow!!
 
What an offer!
Jeremiah has been preaching for 40 years and has nothing to show for it!
His ministry is a catalogue of pain, abuse, loneliness and hurt.
Now there is an offer of good times!
 
Time to kick back in the sun.
Time to lay down the prophetic edge and sip on some of Babylon’s famous date and honey wine!
Time to replace the stress of ministry with the relaxation of self indulgence!
 
Sounds good to me!!!
Know what he did?

….. the commander gave his provisions and let him go. So Jeremiah went to Gedeliah…and stayed with him among the people who were left behind in the land. [Jer 40:5-6]

 
Love this guy!
 
The story gets messy!
Gedeliah is assassinated by a man called Ishmael.
Won’t go into it but Ishmael was in the line of David.
This was a man with Kingly heritage.
Maybe he was miffed that a commoner had been appointed Governor!
Who knows? Human relationships are complicated things!
 
Then Johanan comes to the rescue.
He is a good guy.
Read Jeremiah 41:11-18
 
The people are terrified when they think what Babylon might do to them when they hear that the appointed Governor has been assassinated, so, led by Johanan, they decide to flee to Egypt!
 
Here’s where it gets really interesting!
Having already decided to go to Egypt, they come to Jeremiah and ask him to pray for them.
Prayer request: Should we go to Egypt
 
Read Jeremiah 42:2-6
 
That is strong stuff!
It’s amazing how pious we can sound.
It’s amazing how religious we can sound when we think we know what God should do.
 

·       Nothing wrong with the decision to pray, but there is a problem when we only pray so that God can RATIFY what we have already decided!

·       There is a problem when prayer is only a way of patronizing God before we do what we want to do.
·       There is a problem when praying is simply playing the part and rather than submitting the heart!
 
…. Whether it is favorable or unfavorable…we will obey
This is great stuff!
 
But there is something not quite right here.

v2…. Please hear our petition and pray to the Lord YOUR God…..v3…. Pray to the Lord YOUR God who will tell us where we should go and what we should do.

 
There is a sense of distance with God already and Jeremiah picks up on it.
Notice v4 I will certainly pray to the Lord YOUR God as you have requested….
 
The people subconsciously want to leave themselves with an out. They want an escape clause. They want a 21st Century Post Modern attitude that says,
Your God says different things than my God and I will decide which God is right!
 
Jeremiah won’t have a bar of it.
He says, My God is your God and He is OUR God and it is GOD to whom I will pray!
 
v7 ….ten days later the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah
Don’t you love the way God does things?
Why not 10 seconds, 10 minutes?
How long does it take God to answer a simple question?
 
Wrong question –
How long does it take God to prepare us for the answer?
 
Read v8ff
 
Answer was clear.
God wanted them to stay in the land and He would bless them.
Even in the midst of catastrophe of exile, God shows a glimpse of his mercy and power.
Even now God is saying,
Don’t look to Egypt for your salvation!
 
How do they respond to the message?
Read Jeremiah 43:1-3
Can you hear it….. the Lord OUR God has not sent you…
We know what God is saying, you are just listening to Baruch, son of Neriah….
 
“All along they had regarded God as a power to enlist, not a Lord to Obey!” (Kidner)

This is another example in a long line of examples in history of where we use God to rubber stamp what we are going to do anyway!

 
So much of the baggage the Church carries in the 21st Century is the result of this kind of heart.
In face of the Word of God we some manage to say,
Buy my God says differently!
 
It has its roots in Garden of Eden.
God spoke and then Satan came and asked Eve
Has God said….
That should have been the end of it but Satan managed to get Eve to think that God meant something different to what he said!
She found a way to do what her heart really wanted to do!
 
That’s the core of the human struggle.
We ALWAYS want to find a way around what God says.
It’s not that we don’t want to hear from God, we just want God to say what we want to hear!!
 

What happens to us that we can make such good promises, such strong resolutions and yet be so unwilling to do what God really says!

 
In a nutshell?
Egypt is too good an option!
It offers immediacy.
To people who are –
·       worn out with fighting,
·       tired of being a remnant,
·       sick of the uncertainty,
·       confused by the circumstances of life
Egypt looks very attractive!
 
The VISIBLE REALITY of Egypt seems so much more attractive than the INVISIBLE REALM of God.
Egypt is an everyday option.
It will come to you again and again.
 
Don’t keep struggling– head for Egypt.
Don’t keep persevering – head for Egypt
Don’t keep praying – head for Egypt
Don’t keep waiting – head for Egypt
Don’t stay in minority – head for Egypt
 
I would be lying if I told you I have not hankered after Egypt many times….a day!!!
 
God’s word is clear.
Don’t go there.
Find me here! Where? There! Yes where you are!
 
Even Jesus faced that.
Father if it be possible, let this cup pass from me
[Neil translation: Father, if it’s possible, let me go to Egypt!]
 
You know this story has an ambiguous end!
It’s not neat and tidy.
Johanan and his people go to Egypt and they force Jeremiah to go with them.
 

Flannery O’Connor – American novelist mid 1900’s once remarked that she had an Aunt who thought that nothing really happened in a story unless someone got married or was shot at the end of it.

 
Life rarely has such definitive endings.
Life is ambiguous.
There are loose ends.
 
It takes faith to live with loose ends.
It takes faith to live with ambiguity and absurdity,
It takes faith to live with chaos and uncertainty.
 
Listen to Eugene Peterson in his book
Run with the Horses
 

Jeremiah ends inconclusively. We want to know the end but there is no end. The last scene in Jeremiah’s life shows him, as he has spent much of his life, preaching God’s Word to a contemptuous people [Jer44]. We want to know that he was finally successful so that, if we live well and courageously, that we will also be successful. Or we want to know that he was finally unsuccessful so that, since a life of faith and integrity doesn’t pay off, we can get on with finding another means by which to live. We get neither in Jeremiah. He doesn’t get married and he doesn’t get shot. He is in Egypt, the place he doesn’t want to be, with people who treat him badly, he continues determinedly faithful, magnificently courageous, heartlessly rejected – a towering life terrifically lived.

 
 
 
 
Discussion Questions
 
1.     Share a time when you thought you were so right when in fact you were so wrong!
 

2.     Over a 20 year period between 606 BC and 586BC Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon had invaded Israel and systematically removed Jews into captivity. Ultimate and highly symbolic culmination of the defeat was the destruction of Solomon’s temple in 586BC.

From our view point we can see that this period of history was not only about MILITARY EXPANSION but also SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE.
 
Babylon was the superpower and their history books will show that taking Israel was just part of their successful and ruthless expansionism of the 6th Century.
But the Bible tells us that history is ultimately HIS-story!
This part of history is about much more than military superiority, it is about God’s sovereignty.  God gave Israel into hands of Babylon.
 
As Christians how do we live with the present realities of life and also the reality that God is doing something much bigger?
Does that make us more unwilling to face present responsibilities?
Does it make us more aloof to our world?
Does it tend to make us socially irresponsible?
Does it make us ‘futurists’ who find it hard to live where we are, with what we have?
Discuss
 
3.     Read Jeremiah 40:1-4
After all these years of rejection and suffering, Jeremiah finally gets a break.
He is offered an out.
He can finally escape from all this and think about nobody but himself.
 
Share a time when you felt this was a good option.
Why do we get to this point from time to time?
Why do some people take that option?
 
4.     Read Jeremiah 42:2-6

Nothing wrong with the decision to pray, but there is a problem when we only pray so that God can RATIFY what we have already decided!

Discuss how that happens in our lives.
Share a time when you just wanted God to ratify some decision in your life
 
…. Whether it is favorable or unfavorable…we will obey
Why are our promises to God so hard to keep?
Why is our worship often more grandiose than our actions?
What is happening in our hearts?

Is it too simplistic to say we are hypocrites or is it more complicated. Is it not the basic struggle of the heart that wants God to say what we want to hear?

How does all this relate to what Paul says in Romans 7:14-20
 
5.     Read Jeremiah 43:1-3
What lies behind their response?
“All along they had regarded God as a power to enlist, not a Lord to Obey!” (Kidner)
Discuss.
 
6.     The Jewish people wanted to go to Egypt
To people worn out with fighting, tired of being a remnant, sick of the uncertainty, confused by the circumstances of life
Egypt looks very attractive!
The visible reality of Egypt seems so much more attractive than the invisible realm of God.
Egypt is an everyday option.
It will come to you again and again.
 
Discuss.
What sorts of things attract us away from where God wants usd to be?
What does ‘Egypt’ look like today?
How can we encourage each other to ‘stay!’
 
Even Jesus faced that.
Father if it be possible, let this cup pass from me
[Neil translation: Father, if it’s possible, let me go to Egypt!]
Discuss the depth of Jesus request.
How strong was the pull to run?
 
 
7.     Life rarely has definitive endings.
Life is ambiguous.
There are loose ends.
 
It takes faith to live with loose ends.
It takes faith to live with ambiguity and absurdity,
It takes faith to live with chaos and uncertainty.
 
Discuss.
Do we try and make Christianity to definitive?
What are the areas that you find really difficult to exercise faith?
What things do you want God to make a lot clearer?