Do you marvel at the wisdom of our God?

 Jeremiah 11:18-23

Do you marvel at the wisdom of our God?  I hope so for it is the “But God” moments in one's life that have such an impact, but I also believe one can easily miss them in this busy life.  On Monday’s at 6:30am, if you want to see me it’s going to be at Cross Roads coffee shop on Hwy 46 in New Braunfels, Texas.  It is my time with Paul who teaches the adult class Jan and I attend on Sundays, it is a time I look forward to and this morning was sure no exception to the rule.  After a few minutes of conversation, I said, you did not answer the question I ask in class, and it came from Philippians 1:29-30. “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.”  My question was “how do you define suffering”; for I’m sure that in the American Church we know little of what Paul the apostle is referring to.  Paul is in prison; Paul has been beaten, he has been stoned, not by bad drugs but with rocks, he also had been ostracized by the Jewish leadership and branded a traitor, now that is suffering!  

Jeremiah is encountering a plot or scheme against him, he tells us in verses 18, that the Lord made it known to him and in verse 19, Jeremiah is referring to himself as a gentle lamb led to the slaughter.  They did not like the message and they were ready to remove him from the living, but God had other plans, and Jeremiah did not engage his enemy, no he sought in prayer the power of his God, the one who had given him the message that has set the people against him.

But not just any people, it was family and friends, people he had known and grown up with in his hometown of Anathoth.  These people believed that Jeremiah had brought disgrace on them, and they saw him as a friend to their enemy the people of Babylon.  Do you recall the words Jesus spoke to the twelve when he sent them out in Matthew 10:19-22, “When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for My names sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”  And in verses 34-39, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”  Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

That is not the talk the Sunday name it and claim it group wants to hear, but it is the words of our Creator, the I AM, the only one whose voice has authority.  It was true in Jeremiah time, and it is true today, now I’m not sure about if we will suffer as Paul did, but this I’m sure of, we will suffer.  So run to Jesus who not only can protect you but will also give you the courage “to lose what you cannot keep to gain what you cannot lose.”

From the Back Porch

Bob Rice