Living abundantly: new visions

Dr. Angela Hare

A Study of the book of Jeremiah

Chapters 36-39

Times of Forced Exile

Times of Forced Exile

I have become an alien in a foreign land.Exodus 2:22

You are not in control.

Trust in Me.

Love,God

What Scripture says about exile:

Build houses and settle down.

Plant gardens and eat what they produce.

Marry and have sons and daughters.

Seek the peace and prosperity of the city;

if it prospers, you will prosper.

Jeremiah 29: 5-7

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:15

Build houses and settle down.

Plant gardens and eat what they produce.

Marry and have sons and daughters.

Seek the peace and prosperity of the city;

if it prospers, you will prosper.

Jeremiah 29: 5-7

What Scripture says about exile:

I don’t like this.

I want to be where I was ten years ago.

How can you expect me to throw myself into what I don’t like

– that would be sheer hypocrisy.

What sense is there in taking risks and tiring myself out among

people I don’t even like in a place where I have no future?

Exile: an attitude choice

I will do my best with what is here.

Far more important than the climate of this place, the economics of this place, the neighbors in this place, is the God of this place.

God is here with me. What I am experiencing right now is on ground that was created by him and with people whom he loves. It is just as possible to live out the will of God here as any place else.

I am full of fear. I don’t know my way around. I have much to learn. I’m not sure I can make it. But I had feelings like that back in Jerusalem. Change is hard . . . Building relationships in unfamiliar and hostile surroundings is difficult.

But if that is what it takes to be alive and human, I will do it.’

Exile: an attitude choice

Run with the Horses, 153

The exile was the crucible of Israel’s faith. They were pushed to the edge of existence where they thought they were hanging on by the skin of their teeth, and they found in fact they had been pushed to the center, where God was.

Run with the Horses, 155

But when he reached the Benjamin Gate, the captain of the guard, whose name was Irijah son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, arrested him and said, "You are deserting to the Babylonians!"

  "That's not true!" Jeremiah said. "I am not deserting to the Babylonians." But Irijah would not listen to him; instead, he arrested Jeremiah and brought him to the officials.

Jeremiah 37: 13-14

Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962)

King Zedekiah: Marshmallow Man

Then the officials said to the king,

"This man should be put to death. He is discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city, as well as all the people, by the things he is saying to them. This man is not seeking the good of these people but their ruin."

 "He is in your hands," King Zedekiah answered. "The king can do nothing to oppose you."

  So they took Jeremiah and put him into the cistern of Malkijah,

38:4-6

But Ebed-Melech, a Cushite, an official in the royal palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern. While the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate, Ebed-Melech went out of the palace and said to him, "My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have thrown him into a cistern, where he will starve to death when there is no longer any bread in the city."

  Then the king commanded Ebed-Melech the Cushite, "Take thirty men from here with you and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.“

38: 7-10

Ebed-Melech; a useful friend

So Ebed-Melech took the men with him and went to a room under the treasury in the palace. He took some old rags and worn-out clothes from there and let them down with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. Ebed-Melech the Cushite said to Jeremiah, "Put these old rags and worn-out clothes under your arms to pad the ropes." Jeremiah did so, and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern.

38: 11-13

Go and tell Ebed-Melech the Cushite, 'This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I am about to fulfill my words against this city through disaster, not prosperity. At that time they will be fulfilled before your eyes. But I will rescue you on that day, declares the Lord; you will not be handed over to those you fear. I will save you; you will not fall by the sword but will escape with your life, because you trust in me, declares the Lord.‘

39: 16-18

All of us are given moments; days, months, years of exile. What will we do with them?

Wish we were someplace else?

Complain?

Escape into fantasies?

Numb ourselves into oblivion?

Or build and plant and marry and seek the shalom of the place we inhabit and the people we are with?

Exile reveals what really matters and frees us to pursue what really matters, which is to seek the Lord with all our hearts.

Run with the Horses, 156