So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums or your sorcerers who tell you, ‘You will not serve the king of Babylon.’ They prophesy lies to you that will only serve to remove you far from your lands; I will banish you and you will perish. But if any nation will bow its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will let that nation remain in its own land to till it and to live there, declares the LORD. (27:9-11)
Jeremiah had a simple message to his nation–submit and live or fight and die. Of course, what made his message hard to swallow was that “submitting” not only included submitting to God but also submitting to the pagan king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. Such a message went against everything they believed as a nation. Israel was God’s chosen people. They would not submit to anyone. Such submission would be a sign of defeat. Their nationalistic pride resisted the thought of being “under the yoke” of another nation. The same pride existed during Jesus’ day when the greatest desire of the people was to escape the yoke of Rome. They wanted Messiah to come–not to free them from the bondage of sin but from the shame of being in submission to another country. Their nationalistic pride trumped their allegiance to God…and because of it they rejected the Messiah.
I think we have to be careful of the same thing. I love our nation. We live in the most blessed nation in the world. We have freedom, prosperity, and relative peace. There is no other country in the world that I would rather live. The sacrifices that have been made for our freedom are great and should never be taken for granted. We should pray daily for our nation and, as citizens, should defend our freedom as much as possible. But, in the end, we cannot allow our allegiance to the USA to trump our allegiance to God. They are two different things. Our ultimate citizenship is in heaven not on earth. We cannot forget that. The fourth century Christians forgot that. To them, the Roman empire, Christianized under Constantine’s reign, was intertwined with their Christian faith. As the empire went, so did their faith. Thus, their faith took quite a blow when the Roman empire fell in 410. It took a theologian named Augustine to remind them that there are two cities–the City of God and the city of man. We live in the city of man, but our ultimate allegiance is to the eternal City of God.
Another thought that amazed me this morning was the fact that Jeremiah’s prophecies are even included in the Jewish Old Testament. To me, it is confirmation of the fact that the Bible is from God and not from man. Think about it…if you were collecting a list of sacred books for your nation, would you include a book that page after page reamed your nation for disobedience and told you to submit to a pagan nation in order to receive God’s blessing? The Jews included this book in the Bible not because it glorified their nation but because it was God’s Word and glorified Him.
Lord, I am so thankful that You are in control. Give me wisdom as I live in the city of man and serve the City of God.