Back
to Egypt
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the December 19, 2015 Sabbath School Lesson
“When
Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded
with one voice, ‘Everything the Lord has said we will do.’” Exodus 24:3, NIV
Many years ago, while I was serving as a medic in the
United States Army, I was stationed at Fort Bliss by El Paso, Texas. Surrounded
by hundreds of miles of desert and blessed with continuous warm and sunny
weather, it was ideal country for motorcycle riding. I owned a 185cc Suzuki
Street and Trail motorcycle and rode it both on the highways and through the
desert. It was a lot of fun and an economical means of transportation for an enlisted
man’s budget. I had no problem finding other young men in the military and at
church who also loved the sport of motorcycle riding, and we spent many hours
and miles traveling together.
After being stationed at that post for a year, I
received orders to transfer to Alaska. Reasoning that in the land of ice and
snow there would be little opportunity for motorcycle riding, I sold my beloved
Suzuki and shipped out for the Arctic tundra. However, when I got there, I
found that although the riding season was much shorter, there were many avid
motorcyclists there as well. I was soon wishing I had a motorbike again.
Eventually, someone transferring back the “lower forty-eight” of the United
States was offering his 125 Suzuki GT for sale. I was interested as I had
really enjoyed my previous Suzuki, and he was offering it for a good price. But
I was not sure I should buy it, as I had little money after the cost of the
transfer from Texas, and I knew the riding season was almost over already. I
decided to take the matter to God.
Now I did not expect a booming voice from heaven to tell
me “Buy the motorcycle!” so how was I to know God’s will in the matter? I had
read in the Old Testament that the Israelites had at times cast lots to
determine God’s will, so I decided to give that a try. I prayed for God to show
His will then cast the lot, and it came up that I should not buy the bike. Now
I really wanted that Suzuki, so I began to rationalize that it was silly to
cast lots as no one does that in modern times to determine God’s will. When I
discussed it with other church members, they were shocked that I would even do
such a thing, calling it immature Christianity. So buttressed by my rational
thinking and the testimony of others, I bought the motorcycle anyway the same
day its former owner shipped out. Also that same day, it stopped running and in
spite of rebuilding the engine twice, it never performed well.
Eventually, I sold it for much less than I paid for it. Now,
I began to wonder, was God speaking to me through the cast lots, or was it just
coincidence? I cannot prove that it was one or the other, but I have learned
from the experience that if I am going to ask God to reveal His will in a
matter, I should be prepared to follow through in harmony with that revelation.
This seems to also be an emphasis in our lesson this week.
The people remaining in Judea after the Babylonians destroyed
Jerusalem had been left under the rulership of Gedaliah, who had been placed in
authority by King Nebuchadnezzar.[i] Those who did not want the
Babylonians to have any authority over them eventually murdered Gedaliah and
his guards as well as several others suspected of complicity with him. Ishmael,
son of Nethaniah, who had been hiding with the Ammonites, returned to Judea
with his retinue to implement their evil will against the Babylonian
sympathizers, including Gedaliah. In doing so, they acted more like terrorists
than liberators. Johanan, with the remnants of the Jewish army behind him,
mustered a response to Ishmael’s attack, but was unsuccessful in preventing his
escape back to Ammon along with a handful of his supporters.
Fearful that the Babylonians would enact retribution
against all Jews without regard to who might have been involved in the plot to
murder Gedaliah and who might not have been involved, Johanan and his
supporters resolved to flee to Egypt along with the remainder of those from Judea
and the royal household. Strangely though, even though they had already decided
on this course of action, Johanan asked Jeremiah to inquire of the Lord, what
they should do, even promising to obey what the Lord revealed whether they
agreed with it or not. How this must have pleased the prophet. Finally people
were willing to call upon the Lord for guidance and not simply choose to go
their own way. Maybe some had learned from the destruction of Jerusalem, and
even now a remnant might find grace from the Lord in spite of the failings of
the past.
It took ten days for Jeremiah to receive a response from
God to his inquiry on behalf of the remnant. It may be, because of the delay,
they became even more resolved to return to Egypt. Whatever the reason, when
Jeremiah returned and told them of God’s grace to them, and how He would bless
them if they remained in Judea, they refused to receive that grace. Perhaps
their fear of the Babylonians overruled their willingness to trust God. Or
there may have been a more fundamental reason they chose not to accept the out-stretched
hand of God. Even Jeremiah may not have understood how deep the problem was
while in Judea, but later the twisted root came to the surface while in Egypt.
Instead of seeing the fall of Jerusalem as being caused by their unfaithfulness
to God, those who fled to Egypt apparently decided among themselves that the
real problem was they had not been as faithful as they should have been to their
idolatry. Perhaps the women were foremost in this allegation for they bold-facedly
confronted Jeremiah with this assertion and even said they did so with the full
knowledge of their husbands, as though that should put the “amen” to the issue.
How shocking it must have been for the prophet to hear such a distorted
interpretation of what had happened to Jerusalem and her people. Their desire to
return to Egypt and her idols was an echo of their ancestors who accused Moses
of self-serving and who demanded to be allowed to return to Egypt and her
idols.[ii]
For Seventh-day Adventists, all of this may have a
particularly appropriate application. We, as a people, have long claimed to
recognize Ellen White, one of the denomination’s founders, as someone who was
gifted with a prophetic spirit, but do we listen to her counsel any more than
those Jewish exiles listened to the words of Jeremiah? She wrote many volumes
intended to guide us through the final days prior to the return of Jesus. That
return was foretold by Jesus and reported in the Gospels.[iii] It was promised by
angels in the book of Acts.[iv] It was also the
expectation shared in many of the epistles. Finally, His return was promised in
the book of Revelation recorded by the Apostle John.[v] But do we take the
expectation of that return seriously. Or do we take each day as it comes,
expecting them to remain pretty much the same from the moment of our birth
until we approach the hours of our death? Perhaps we feel it is an event to
come after we have passed, so it has little relevance to us, and by association,
anything related to the apocalypse is irrelevant to the present as well.
On the other hand, perhaps the writings of Ellen White,
and maybe even the Bible, remain on the shelf gathering dust. Could this be because
we fear that should we become aware of what they say, we may be called to
account for what we have done with that knowledge? Could it be we are like children
who cover their ears to keep out words they do not want to hear? Are we perhaps
keeping God’s counsel from reaching us by obstructing our hearing with so many
other things that occupy our time? Or are we, like the Jews in Egypt of
Jeremiah’s time aware of what the counsels of scripture and prophets may have
said, but we put our own special interpretation on them in order to make them
ineffectual?
Like the words of Jeremiah to those Jews who chose
self-imposed exile in Egypt, God only wishes to offer us grace and blessing.
But like someone who refuses nourishing food with the assertion that it may be
poisoned, we can refuse that grace and those blessings. We can set our personal
mental barriers so high that we refuse God’s grace, even disparaging the very
idea and discouraging others from accepting it as well. God is certainly willing
to allow us our free choice in the matter. But He is love and will continue to
offer that grace, whether we wish it or not, and some, dear reader, perhaps
you, will be blessed by accepting it.
