Our reading today is Jeremiah 42-46, and I’m calling the episode “But You Promised.”

Have you ever made a bargain with God? You’ve been in trouble or in some other hard place, and you said, “Lord, help me here and I will never sin again! I’ll devote my life to you!” And then the trouble passes, and you go right back to your old ways. Yeah. Most of us probably have done that, and let me say that it’s not a good thing to do. We may forget, but God doesn’t. Thankfully, God understands our foolishness and we have forgiveness in Jesus, but making a promise to God is still a serious thing. My suggestion is that you take your promises very, very seriously.

In chapter 42 the people came to Jeremiah and said, “Please pray to the Lord your God for us. Pray that the Lord your God will show us what to do and where to go. Whether we like it or not, we will obey the Lord your God to whom we are sending you with our plea. For if we obey him, everything will turn out well for us.” So they made a promise that they would do whatever God told them to do, didn’t they? Let’s see how they followed through on their promise.

But first, did you notice that in the first sentence, they said to Jeremiah, “…pray to the Lord YOUR God”? Isn’t that interesting? These were *supposed* to be God’s chosen people, and yet they didn’t say “pray to the Lord OUR God.” But when Jeremiah replied to them, he reminded them of this when he said, ”All right, I will pray to the Lord your God, as you have asked…” 

Beloved, either He is our God or He isn’t. Either we follow Him or we don’t. Sure, we are weak and we fail, but if we are His, when we fall we get back up and, with His help, we try again.

But that’s not what these people did in chapter 42. You heard what happened. They did NOT keep their promise to do whatever God told them to do. God told them to stay there in Babylon and not go to Egypt. He told them that he would bless them if they stayed and bring disaster on them if they went. 

They said in essence, “Yeah. No. We’re going to Egypt. We don’t care what you tell us to do.”

So they told it like it was when they referred to God as “the Lord YOUR God”, didn’t they? They had no intention of listening if what He said was not what they wanted to hear. 

But God did keep his promise, and disaster came down on them. 

Let’s not play games with God. Let’s understand that He truly does want to bless us, and let’s do our best to please Him so that He can. 

Don’t you sometimes wonder why God allows evil people to continue in their evil for so long? Doesn’t it sometimes seem like God isn’t even paying attention to what’s going on? 

Well, of course He’s paying attention, and yes, He will bring justice. But as we have seen as we’ve been reading through Jeremiah, God sometimes uses bad people to do His will. Now, please DO NOT misunderstand me. I am not saying that God always causes evil people to do the things they do. Far from it. Most of the time, evil people do evil because they are evil. But sometimes, *sometimes* God brings punishment on those He loves through evil people, to bring those He loves back into relationship with Himself. 

We’ve seen that God used Nebuchadnezzar to do that with His chosen people, haven’t we?

But God always brings judgment to evil people. They do not get a free pass, ever. In chapter 46 we heard what judgment God had planned for Egypt. He was going to use the evil king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon this time to bring Egypt down. 

Nations and people can never escape the notice of God. He sees all the cruelty and injustice that man brings against man. He hears the cry of the innocents and the victims. And the day is coming when He will bring judgment  to those who do wrong. Perhaps in their own lifetime, perhaps when they stand before Him, but they will certainly know His judgment.

Bible translation used in today’s episode: Ch. 42-46 NLT

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