July 3
DebDay 111: Choose Your Liberator
Jeremiah tells us of how the remaining Jews fled Jerusalem, under the imposing threat of the Babylonians. They even forced Jeremiah to go with them.
Through Jeremiah, God had told the people to stay put and submit to those who would conquer them. They would be given "their lives as the prize of war."
Instead, they ran. They ran to Egypt. The same Egypt they had been delivered from in Moses's day. The same exodus from Egypt their ancestors had celebrated in verse and song for centuries.
God warned them that running off to Egypt would end up a death sentence for them. He even told them how the Egyptian army, advancing on the Babylonians, would be wiped out.
Didn't matter. They told Jeremiah they would not listen to what he (speaking for God) had to say. They went contrary. They willingly disobeyed. They chose their own wisdom. They looked for salvation from another source.
Said another way, they ran toward slavery, instead of away from it. Not unlike what Proverbs (grossly) describes as "like a dog returns to its vomit."
A shirt-tail relative of mine once said, "People will always move toward what enslaves them." We all have that sad propensity to want to believe that the slave holder will somehow give us freedom and provision and autonomy.
We're all enslaved by something. It may be our chosen political views. It may be our spending priorities. It may be another person we spend way too much effort trying to impress. Even during Covid, our extroversion, or our introversion can end up enslaving us, right?
So we believe the slave holder, rather than the Liberator. Somehow, we talk ourselves into reversing their roles; the slave holder becomes the liberator, and the Liberator becomes the slave holder.
Proverbs 147:10-11 says, "His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man (Egyptian of otherwise), but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love."
It is impossible to "fear God" and ignore Him at the same time. Mutually-exclusive ideas. To fear God is to also hope in His (and no other's) steadfast love. Or freedom. Or liberation.
Knowing it or not, we all chose our liberator. We do this every day. We ask ourselves the question, "What will provide the most security, significance, provision and freedom today?
It may be God as Liberator. Or we run to something else.
But we all choose our liberator. And by doing so, we also accept the good or bad, life or death consequences of our choice.
And God turned out to be a better liberator than Egypt ever turned out to be.
-Mike Rydman, Lead Pastor, Radiant Church | Juneau
