Salvation and Suffering Part One

When the prophet Jeremiah was sitting in a rotten well because his peers threw him down there for being a dissenter, disturber of the peace, menace, hater of Judah, enemy of the Jews, hater of God, (all of which he wasn't) he must have wondered if he was crazy to believe God when He said to Jeremiah,
"And I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands. But you dress yourself for work; arise and say to them everything that I command you before them. And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the LORD, to delver you."
Perhaps Jeremiah wondered what God meant when he said "They will fight against you, if being thrown down a well was merely "fighting" as opposed to "prevailing". When your sitting at the bottom of a well, there because your peers put you there, it feels like anything but victory. It feels like the opposite of "they shall not prevail against you."
Perhaps when Abraham was told by God to sacrifice the same child that God had promised him would be the progenitor of Abraham's eternal line, Old Abe wondered if the voices that told him to "leave your Father's house and go to a land that I will show you" were really the voices in his head. Maybe he thought God had just gone sadistic.
We know that Job, upon losing everything, (literally everything but his life), in one day didn't curse God, but he sure had a lot of questions.
Surely Elijah wondered how God could throw down fire from heaven and consume an alter of water, but be unable to keep the wicked queen from coming after him.
John the Baptist, while sitting in prison, wondered, "Did I baptize the wrong guy?"
And Jesus, perhaps he was just simply quoting Scripture in lieu of the prophetic tradition, when He cried "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", though sinless, one wonders; did Jesus not have a ready answer to his question?
It's a good thing that with these cases we get the end of the story. For Abraham was stopped from sacrificing Isaac. Job was given a family again, with even greater wealth than he had possessed before. The queen was eventually killed, and Elijah was kept safe. John the Baptist, got an answer from Jesus. We can assume he believed Him. And Jesus, this may be of most importance, rose again.
But what about Jeremiah? When did God come through on his promise to Jeremiah? Remember God had said, "they will fight against you but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you" How was this promise fulfilled? Well, as the story goes, after years of listening to Jeremiah spout off judgment as God's mouthpiece, and mocking, ignoring, and punishing, him, Jeremiah's prophecy of the takeover of Jerusalem came true, and these people were put in captivity in Babylon. And the thing is, had it not come true, Jeremiah would've been stoned according to Deuteronomy 18. That's what you did to false prophets. But Jeremiah's deliverance, was not as tangible as Abraham's, Job's, or Jesus'. John's deliverance was graver than Jeremiah's even. John lost his head. But Jeremiah was left in Jerusalem, with all the others that the Babylonian conquerors considered useless; the old, the sick, and the handicapped. It's quite sad. But its quite remarkable as well. Jeremiah faithfully preached the message of judgment and repentance for his whole life in obedience to God's Word, without having any repentance occur, and on top of that received an onslaught of beatings, mockings, and imprisonment, only to end up a refugee in his own country. God certainly kept his promise. They did not prevail against Jeremiah. But was Jeremiah better for it? If he were a false prophet, he would've been stoned. If he were no prophet, he would still be a refugee. But one word both describes Jeremiah and vindicates his potentially pointless life: example. Jeremiah is for all time an example of what unwavering obedience looks like. And all these people were in a predicament as bad as Jeremiahs. But Jeremiah had one thing on them. He was right. Never again could Jeremiah be accused of being a dissenter, or an enemy of God. In fact, no one could ever doubt that Jeremiah knew God. Could there be a better distinction to have? Vindication came. It came in God's time, and in God's way; like it always does.
When you read the Bible, you begin to see that it is essentially the story of a wretched, and rejected people being saved by their one, unique God, in ways that only God could think of. Over and over again God comes to rescue his people in unique ways. He uses unlikely heroes, parts rivers and seas, makes the earth stop spinning. etc. It culminates in his arrival on the earth in the first century as a human being. Where God Himself becomes the unlikely savior of the world, in the form of a Jewish carpenter who grew up in a small hick town. And they rejected Him. Imagine, when God came to His chosen people, they said, "Please go away."! It figures.(This is not a condemnation of Jewish people c.f. "There is none righteous, no not one"Let's face it, none of us would have got the Messiah we wanted) And now He is the example. And His vindication was indeed, very unexpected, (but He said He was the Son of God didn't He?) He rose again!
"What shall we say to these things? If God is for us who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died -- more than that, who was raised -- who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING KILLED ALL THE DAY LONG; WE ARE REGARDED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED. No in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure than neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:31-39
God solution to suffering, to the conquering of pain, has never been to eliminate it, but to persevere through it. He did not even spare His own Son. Even God endures pain. The victory is not that pain is never a part of our lives, the victory is in faith. If we believe God. We shall receive the unexpected vindication, a reward which is intangibly greater than had we never suffered. "God is for us" does not mean that pain is minimal. If anything "we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered" But Paul says that we are more than conquerors. And that at the end of faith, us and the love of God are inseparable. God is doing a weird thing in your life. May you trust Him that He is for you, and that your salvation is sure and better than you can imagine.

Read

Read my post that I will put up on Friday. Read it and read it good. If it is not sweet, and you happen to see me this weekend. Slap me hard, for that will be the last time that I let you. But go ahead slap me good.

Northern LIght

I go to Northern Light every day now. I don't have internet at my house anymore. That place is my office. Actually, I am there right now. This might as well be Twitter.