Jer. 41-42
Here it is again – that choice to trust and obey God and live, or to trust in your own reasoning and die. God doesn’t always ask us to do what seems the most reasonable or feels the safest to us. Interesting that God knew the remnant Jews had no intention of obeying Him before they even responded to His word through Jeremiah. But they sounded so sincere when they asked Jeremiah to pray on their behalf! What happened?
It could be that the people asked, hoping for the answer they wanted to hear. They then rationalized their way out of their commitment when Jeremiah brought back an unexpected word. We willingly believe what we wish and struggle with trusting anything else. But I noticed one other little detail. Jeremiah 42:7 says, “At the end of ten days the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah.” Ten days. Must have felt like an eternity given what they had just been through. The text indicates that they were scared and probably hungry. And it took ten days of being scared and hungry to wear down their resolve to obey God. We have been reading in Hebrews how faith is patient. It wouldn’t be faith if it wasn’t. I need to remember that when I am wondering if God is ever going to act.
Heb 11:1-19
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). Interesting that the author of Hebrews has already written at length about how and why Jesus is the assurance of our hope. So I suppose we could say that Jesus is our faith. And, applying that to what it says in verse 6, that it is impossible to please God without Jesus.
I realize that the Old Testament people mentioned in Hebrews 11 did not know who Jesus was. However, they believed in the Promise, who is Jesus, all the same. And they remained convicted in and committed to their belief to their physical death (or removal from Earth, in Enoch’s case). And they give us some insight into how we can know that we have such assurance and conviction in things we have not known or seen.
These ‘heroes of faith’ show us what I just mentioned from the Jeremiah reading. That is, faith manifests itself in patience. When we are convinced that something will happen, we wait for it. Further, Hebrews 11 shows us that faith also manifests itself in obedience even, or maybe especially, when we don’t understand. So when we are exercising true faith in God, we wait for and obey His word. That is something that remnant in Jeremiah would have done well to understand.