Jeremiah 34
Bible Passage: Jeremiah 34
Whenever I read the Bible, I always felt that God’s words are so direct and clear. A “yes” is a “yes” and a “no” is a “no”. However, when I read this passage, verse 17, tells me that God is one who is able to be sarcastic! In the NKJV version it is not clear, and it requires pondering on the word ‘liberty’ spoken by God. In the NIV version it is clear in that it tells us that ‘liberty’ is connoted with “…” which means sarcasm!
God through the prophets like to use analogies to tell the people His message. In this case, the Jews acted as if they were merciful to their slaves (who are their brethren) in releasing them from bondage, but they went back in their promise. Likewise, our Lord used the same analogy on how He would allow the enemies of the Jews to attack them again and this time to put them in bondage for 70 years.
According to Wikipedia, Zedekiah was a king set by the Babylonians, and that Judah was under the tribute to Babylon. That meant that the Babylonians first defeated Judah and gave them freedom to rule on their own but they had to pay taxes to Babylon. Like how the Jews treated their Jewish slaves, they gave them freedom and false hope and after awhile decided to enslave them. God used the same scenario they played and allowed his servant Babylon to punish the Jews for their sins.
In this modern time, slavery is almost a non-existence. Apart from physical slavery, there slavery to freshly sin and even hatred. Our hearts can be enslaved to hatred and I have known people who have severe hatred of their family members for years; not even talking to the person who lives in the same house for more than a year. That is another reason for the Sabbath day which, TJC do not really emphasize and that is on the Sabbath Day is a day of liberty and freedom from enslavement. For the Israelites then it was physical enslavement from the Egyptians. This Sabbath rest is a rest from slavery. Jesus on the other hand proclaimed to us that whenever we worship God especially so on His Holy Day, we have to forgive those who hurt us and in so doing keep the spirit of the Sabbath Day by liberating our hearts from hatred and from sin.
Hatred is something that can consume a person. It can make a person declare a cold war with another person or in a worse case, a verbal attack. The worst case is to execute murder. Our Lord Jesus wants our hearts to be freed from hatred for even He endured the cross and suffered under the hands of His enemies such that salvation can be accomplished.
I guess it is not easy to forgive those who maligned or hurt us. I must say since the beginning of the year till now, I have been doing a project (at work) that faced so many obstacles. From very poor project management from the main contractor, to poor support from the vendor to poor support from the heads in the company. Due to this project, I have also missed many Tuesday night services and frankly I have been unhappy these 8 months. The project is coming to an end and a war between the companies involved is brewing. The main contractor is putting all the blame on my company and the funny thing is the heads of the company are not doing anything to stop all the disinformation and accusations. I guess this could be test of my faith in God and a trial for me. It is very easy to declare war on them because of hard evidence of the main contractor’s mismanagement, but thank God I have not gone to that extent. Thinking about Jesus having to go on the cross even though He has full power to get off the cross, tells us a lot of things. What more this trial is far less painful than what Jesus went through.
As an encouragement for myself and perhaps for others,
For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps”
(1 Pet 2:19-21)
May the Lord give us true liberty.