Jeremiah 2: A Godly Kingdom
Consider the traumatic situation the Israelites found themselves in: Judah humiliatingly defeated; Jerusalem razed; the skilled and influential carried off into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar.
What were the captives to do?
They got different advice: Political advice, ‘don’t fret, even now we are putting together a renewed alliance with Egypt and we will soon be in a position to secure your release’; Religious advice, ‘although something quite inexplicable has happened our God is still greater than theirs, He will soon recover and reassert himself so that you will be freed’.
But what was God’s advice? We need not speculate when we can read the book: it is set out in Jeremiah 29 and it is radically different. Foremost, they can forget all their illusions about release.
V8-9 "Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them," declares the LORD.
Second he makes clear that it is not Nebuchadnezzar who is responsible for their plight but God Himself.
V4. “ This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon”
Third, adjust because you are in for a very long stay
V5 "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”
Fourth, get stuck in and make your mark in your new communities.
V7 “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."
These cities of Babylon and Nineveh were great cosmopolitan melting pots of different races, languages and religious practice, not unlike cities of the modern world such as London and even parts of Southampton.
Finally, and overwhelmingly, the period of captivity was to be a spiritual one, because the promise of release was dependent on a spiritual quest.
V13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."
I believe that this is a letter to God’s people for all time. It is as much for us, the captives in Ashley, as it was for the captives in Babylon
I receive a large number of letters from Christians, many from this congregation in Ashley. Most of them are letters of complaint (this is not a criticism, I have just told the children to speak out and not to be silent): they complain about new un-Christian laws (be it on gay rights, abortion, embryonic stem cell research; human / animal hybrid embryos, access to contraceptives by children without parental knowledge, or whatever); or the lack of priority given to relief of poverty or fair trade; or the state of broadcasting, or the hostility of public authorities to Christianity; or the political correctness that excludes Christianity from the public space in case it offends any minority.
The subtext of many of these letters and emails is that we are no longer a Christian country and they write to me because they want Parliament to change the law and restore the status quo ante, to restore Christian values to their proper place. Well, I wonder if this is one of the ’dreams’ about which Jeremiah warned?
Mere parliaments changing the laws will not restore Christianity in this country or any other. If there is to be a great evangelical revival and missionary effort it will have to come from the Holy Spirit working through congregations such as this and not from the legislature. Now, it may be God’s will that Christianity be restored to its proper place, but I do not think that reading the New Testament gives us any right to expect it. On the contrary, Jesus told us that we would be despised ridiculed and persecuted for his name’s sake.
Of course, we should engage in the political process and work for the prosperity of the cities in which we live. We might argue about how best this can be achieved. Perhaps, we should form our own explicitly Christian political party in order to make a greater impact. For my own part however, I rather doubt that we would agree, even amongst ourselves, about what its agenda should be, and I think we would end up being marginalised. Personally I would prefer the values of each of our political parties to be informed and influenced by Christians joining them and rising to prominence within them, but this is a perfectly legitimate debate for us to have.
Christians should be involved at every level of civic society: if it prospers we will prosper with it. We have the example of Daniel, also of Shadrak, Meshak and Abednigo, captives carried off by Nebuchadnezzar who, despite the intensely hostile religious environment, rose to political prominence as senior administrators of the Babylonian Empire. They continually prayed for strength and wisdom. They needed to choose wisely what to say and how to act; when to compromise and when to draw their line in the sand, as do we.
Finally, we need to remember that the thrust of Christianity is not winning over kingdoms in this world: God’s Kingdom’s shining bounds increase ‘soul by soul and silently’. It is the example of Christ in our own lives that is the cornerstone of missionary effort and not the coercive power of the state.
Christianity is primarily about the Christian’s personal relationship with God:
You will … find me when you seek me with all your heart. …. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you, … I and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."
Amen
Talk for the Children
When I went to Sunday school one particular instrument of torture we were subject to was learning the Catechism. A list of questions and answers designed to teach the Christian faith. My Sunday school teacher made us learn the questions as well as the answers. I am sure some of your parents or grandparents here to-day will remember the one of the first questions…?
“Who made me?”
And the answer…?
“God made me”
And that goes for even those who hold the strange belief that we come descended from monkeys: so long as you believe that we were created by his will and for his purpose it does not matter how God went about it.
I want to fast forward however, to question 329. Anyone remember it…? I thought not!
In how many ways may we either cause or share the guilt of another's sin?
Well first, what is Sin…any offers?
Quite right. Sin is doing something we know to be wrong. But there is a much more common way we sin…anyone like to tell me how?
Absolutely, not doing what is right. That is why we say in the General Confession “…We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done…” Hold on to that thought about the significance of not doing something right.
Suppose you are all good children who wouldn’t dream of carrying on with your computer game when you know your mother needs help in the kitchen, you always make new members of your class welcome, and you wouldn’t ever take something that wasn’t yours.
But, suppose I am a thoroughly bad boy: I never help my mother; I enjoy making the first few days of any new boy or girl as uncomfortable as possible; I think nothing of slopping a Mars bar into my pocket when the shop-keeper isn’t looking.
Now, given what we said about sin, how might you good children be in any way responsible for my wrongdoing?
“By not stopping me”. Absolutely right! Go to the top of the class.
However, the question was “in how many ways…” and the answer to any ‘how many question has got to be a number. The number is 9. Here is the official answer:
We may either cause or share the guilt of another's sin in nine ways:
1. By Counsel
If you advise someone to cheat ion a game
2. By Consent
if you let someone do something wrong “ oh alright then, copy my homework”
3. By praise or flattery
If you suck up to the bully in the hope he won’t bully us
4. By being a partner
“I will distract his attention while you nick his pen”
5. By command
If you tell someone to do something that is wrong
6.By provocation
If call someone names until he hits then you share his guilt in hitting you as well as your own for calling him names
7. By concealment
If you tell lies to cover up for something wrong that somebody else has done
8. By excusing the ill done
“oh well, he didn’t hit her too hard, and anyway, she deserved it”
9. and this is the important one, the one you got right at the beginning:
Or by Silence
How many times do we see something going wrong but do nothing, or say nothing, hiding behind the excuse that we should mind our own business, instead of speaking out. And the most difficult situations to deal with are those involving our friends. We don’t want to lose their friendship so we say nothing when we really ought to take them aside and tell them they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. If we remain silent we let them down and we share their guilt. So don’t let people tell you to mind your own business when it is your business.
So, to recap, What have we learnt?
We have learnt that God made us That the answer to question 329 is 9
And that we should never be silent Halleluiah |
