Catching Fog

But those slave owners changed their minds and forced their former slaves back into slavery.

That’s when the LORD told me to say to the people:

I am the LORD God of Israel, and I made an agreement with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt, where they had been slaves. As part of this agreement, you must let a Hebrew slave go free after six years of service.

Your ancestors did not obey me, but you decided to obey me and do the right thing by setting your Hebrew slaves completely free. You even went to my temple, and in my name you made an agreement to set them free. But you have abused my name, because you broke your agreement and forced your former slaves back into slavery.

You have disobeyed me by not giving your slaves their freedom. So I will give you freedom—the freedom to die in battle or from disease or hunger. I will make you disgusting to all other nations on earth.
You asked me to be a witness when you made the agreement to set your slaves free. And as part of the ceremony you cut a calf into two parts, then walked between the parts. But you people of Jerusalem have broken that agreement as well as my agreement with Israel. So I will do to you what you did to that calf. (Jeremiah 34:12-18)

What part of loving each other didn’t they get? Although God did not forbid slavery, he did regulate it heavily. The only reason people became slaves in Israel was because of economic hardship. Such slavery was supposed to be temporary. After seven years, slaves were supposed to be set free. Unfortunately, the Israelites never abided by that agreed to limitation. Instead, they kept their fellow Israelites in permanent bondage. So God sent Jeremiah to warn the Israelites to repent or else.

One day the rich slave-owners finally decided to obey God and release their slaves in a grand public ceremony. They even made a formal promise to God about it. Such formal promises were confirmed, not by signing on the dotted line, but by sacrificing animals and walking between their cut up pieces. But almost at once, the slave-owners re-enslaved their slaves. So, not only had the violated the original promise their ancestors made to God in the time of Moses, they had violated the agreement they themselves had just made! God told them they were in big trouble.

Harming others, especially harming the disadvantaged and powerless, is one of the surest way to upset God. God doesn’t like bullies.

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For this is what the LORD says:
“When I sold you into exile,
I received no payment.
Now I can redeem you
without having to pay for you.”
This is what the Sovereign LORD says: “Long ago my people chose to live in Egypt. Now they are oppressed by Assyria. What is this?” asks the LORD. “Why are my people enslaved again? Those who rule them shout in exultation. My name is blasphemed all day long. But I will reveal my name to my people, and they will come to know its power. Then at last they will recognize that I am the one who speaks to them.” (Isaiah 52:3-6)

What’s a nice person like you doing in a place like this? God points out that his people are where they are because of their own free choice. God didn’t get paid for sending them to exile and so it wouldn’t cost him anything to get them out of it, either. They went to Assyria because of their idolatry and because of their mistreatment of the poor and powerless. They had been warned prior to their exile that if they kept up their bad behavior that the Assyrians would come and take them away. They had freely chosen to ignore both Moses and the prophets after him.

No problem, however. God would rescue them anyhow, if for no other reason than to silence those who blasphemed and rejoiced over the suffering of his people. Both the new slave masters and his enslaved people would come to know God’s power—once again—and once again, they would recognize the one true God. Never again would the Israelites worship any other God than Yahweh.

God will rescue us, and not just because we don’t want to hurt anymore, but because of what we mean to him. It really is all about God.

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“Don’t let foreigners who commit themselves to the LORD say,
‘The LORD will never let me be part of his people.’
And don’t let the eunuchs say,
‘I’m a dried-up tree with no children and no future.’
For this is what the LORD says:
I will bless those eunuchs
who keep my Sabbath days holy
and who choose to do what pleases me
and commit their lives to me.
I will give them—within the walls of my house—
a memorial and a name
far greater than sons and daughters could give.
For the name I give them is an everlasting one.
It will never disappear!
“I will also bless the foreigners who commit themselves to the LORD,
who serve him and love his name,
who worship him and do not desecrate the Sabbath day of rest,
and who hold fast to my covenant.
I will bring them to my holy mountain of Jerusalem
and will fill them with joy in my house of prayer.
I will accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices,
because my Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations.
For the Sovereign LORD,
who brings back the outcasts of Israel, says:
I will bring others, too,
besides my people Israel.” (Isaiah 56:3-8)

It’s human nature to exclude the outsider. It is also the human fear: those in a new job, a new school, a new place, experience the fear of not belonging.

But God reassured those not originally a part of Israel that his arms were always open wide. God announced that anyone who came to him was welcome and would become as much a member of his people as those who had lived in his land their whole lives.

God reminded the Israelites, as much as he announced to those new immigrants, that they were not allowed to exclude anyone. Despite God’s words to Moses requiring the Israelites to be kind to outsiders, it was a hard lesson for the Jewish people to learn. Their reluctance to bring God’s message of hope to the Gentiles—the outsiders—continued from Jonah’s reluctance to go to Nineveh, to an early church that doubted that Gentiles could ever become followers of Christ.

Likewise, God granted the future to eunuchs, those who had no way of passing their memory beyond the present since they would forever be childless. Their future, God said, was not dependent on the children they couldn’t have, but on their relationship with an eternal God who could never forget them.

God is not exclusive; God is not hard to come to. God welcomes all and we are not allowed to exclude anyone. Everyone is good enough for God.

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“Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel,
And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts:
‘I am the First and I am the Last;
Besides Me there is no God.
And who can proclaim as I do?
Then let him declare it and set it in order for Me,
Since I appointed the ancient people.
And the things that are coming and shall come,
Let them show these to them.
Do not fear, nor be afraid;
Have I not told you from that time, and declared it?
You are My witnesses.
Is there a God besides Me?
Indeed there is no other Rock;
I know not one.’ ” (Isaiah 44:6-8)

No one can stop God. All the supposed power and attributes of all the gods that the Israelites knew of from the people around them were combined into just the one God—their God—the only God that really existed. The Israelite’s neighbors, Egypt and Mesopotamia, not to mention the Canaanites, believed there were many gods—and since there were many, they were in conflict with one another. Each had his or her own agenda. The gods did not get along. The gods were like squabbling bureaucrats, each striving for advantage and prestige. So sometimes people got caught in the crossfire between them. Just because a god wanted something to happen didn’t mean that some other god couldn’t stop it. Just because you faithfully obeyed your god didn’t mean some other god might not get mad at you.

God reassured his people that there was only him to contend with. Unlike the non-existent gods their neighbors—and all too often the Israelites—worshipped, Yahweh was firmly reliable. He was strong, he was united, and he would take care of them in a consistent way. What he had said, that’s what would happen. There wasn’t some other god trying to thwart his goals.

God’s will was going to happen: he had a plan, and he knew what he was doing. So what have we ever got to worry about?

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“Staying with it—that’s what God requires. Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry, and you’ll be saved. All during this time, the good news—the Message of the kingdom—will be preached all over the world, a witness staked out in every country. And then the end will come.

“But be ready to run for it when you see the monster of desecration set up in the Temple sanctuary. The prophet Daniel described this. If you’ve read Daniel, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you’re living in Judea at the time, run for the hills; if you’re working in the yard, don’t return to the house to get anything; if you’re out in the field, don’t go back and get your coat. Pregnant and nursing mothers will have it especially hard. Hope and pray this won’t happen during the winter or on a Sabbath.

“This is going to be trouble on a scale beyond what the world has ever seen, or will see again. If these days of trouble were left to run their course, nobody would make it. But on account of God’s chosen people, the trouble will be cut short.” (Matthew 24:13-22)

Winston Churchill once gave a commencement address that consisted of one sentence: “Never give up.” That thought had kept him going during the darkest days of the Second World War. The destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the Romans was one of the major turning points in history.

In 66 AD the Jewish people revolted against Rome, established a revolutionary government, and kicked the Romans out of Jerusalem. In 70 AD the Romans returned in force. When the Roman army under arrived in Jerusalem bearing the banners and standards of Caesar—idols of the emperor—Christians made the connection to Daniel’s prophesy about a “monster of desecration.” Because Jesus warned his followers to flee, all the Christians ran away from Jerusalem.

Thankfully, the events Jesus foretold did not happen in the winter. And the Romans did not attack on a Sabbath. But thousands of people were slaughtered and those that survived were scattered. Persecutions arose against Christians with ever increasing ferocity. But the church grew in the face of that persecution. So much so, that within a couple of hundred years, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire that had once persecuted it. Jesus had told his followers to never give up and in the end, they triumphed. It’s the same for us today. Sticking with it, regardless of what we face, is all Jesus asks.

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Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”

Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”

And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. (Matthew 24:1-8)

The world always has trouble. The disciples asked Jesus three questions. First, they wanted to know what Jesus meant by the destruction of the temple. Second, they asked about the sign of his “coming.” And finally, they asked about the end of the age.

The disciples were not thinking about the second coming of Jesus. When they asked about his “coming,” they were wondering when he’d come into his kingdom and take the throne of David. When they wondered about the end of the age, they wanted to know “when will this age of Roman domination over Israel” end?

So the disciples were a bit puzzled by Jesus’ answers. Jesus began by explaining about his “coming.” He warned of false messiahs offering false hope. He warned that the disasters of war and earthquake were merely the beginning of sorrows.

Since Jesus spoke those words to is disciples in the last week before his crucifixion, the pattern of the world he described has continued without end. The endless wars and endless natural disasters have merely been the beginning of our sorrows. Life has problems in it. Such ordinary problems—even big things like wars and earthquakes—do not mean that God is about to end the world. Life continues despite disasters and God is in control. Jesus told us not to be troubled by any of it.

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