Refuse | Wayfarer

Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I put my sword into the hand of the king of Babylon and he brandishes it against Egypt.
Ezekiel 30:25b (NIV)

One of the changes in reality of life that I’ve observed along my life journey is how spread out family has become geographically. When my great-grandfather settled in northwest Iowa from the old country, his children all lived within a small geographical area their entire lives. My parents’ generation started spreading out around North America, My generation continued to spread, and our children’s generation has spread around the globe. While technology has made it easier and easier to communicate, there is no doubt that geographic distance makes it more difficult to know and be known.

Yesterday, Wendy and I enjoyed time with family. Our nephew, Elias, celebrated his first birthday. Wendy and I headed to Ankeny where we hung out with five of our nephews and nieces. Wendy’s sister and her two kiddos are back in Iowa from their home in Mazatlan, and we’re feeling really blessed to have them staying with us in Pella for a few days. It was our first opportunity to meet our niece Rosie, and only the second time we’ve been physically present with our nephew, Ian. Of course, the first order of business was for the two of them to get comfortable knowing their Aunt Wendy and Uncle Tom.

We have 15 nephews and nieces. We love them all, but have varying degrees of relationship with them. Some of that is proximity, but some of it is also choices that are made.

One of the overarching themes of the entire Great Story from Genesis to Revelation is God’s expressed desire to be known and to have a relationship with the pinnacle of HIs creation, human beings who have the free will to choose or refuse to be in a relationship. Complicating this is the nature of evil which sets itself up against such a relationship.

In today’s chapter, Ezekiel continues his seven-part prophetic rant against Pharaoh and Egypt. Four times God through Ezekiel says, “Then they will know that I am the LORD.” I was once again struck by the synchronicity with the story of the ten plagues (or “strikes”) against Pharaoh back in the story of Moses, which I talked about in my message yesterday among my local gathering of Jesus’ followers. Pharaoh refused to know or acknowledge the God of Moses, though he had over a thousand gods of Egypt and was considered a god himself. In this, Pharaoh becomes an example of those who choose personal empire over a relationship with the God of Creation. Seven times in the ten plagues God says “then you will know that I am the LORD.”

One thousand years later, Egypt is still refusing to know and be known.

Ezekiel’s prophetic message was fulfilled. The Babylonians did invade Egypt, did defeat Pharaoh, and did a lot of damage. It would be the Persians, however, who would finish the job and complete the prophetic message. Ezekiel’s prediction that “no longer will there be a prince in Egypt” was fulfilled when Pharaoh Nectanebo II became the last Pharaoh ever in 340 B.C. The Pharaohs of Egypt remain an example to this day of hearts that remain hardened in their refusal to acknowledge and know Yahweh.

In the quiet this morning, I fast forward my thinking to Jesus, the Son of God, who came to earth that we might know God. The Story is the same. God inviting His creation to know and be known in an intimate spiritual relationship.

““I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.”
John 10:14-15 (NIV emphasis added)

Along my spiritual journey, I’ve come to understand that the degree to which I know God is proportionate to my willingness to choose into a relationship with Him and the degree of my refusal to do so.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

So Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch son of Neriah, and as Jeremiah dictated, Baruch wrote on it all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire. And many similar words were added to them.
Jeremiah 36:32 (NIV)

Along my life journey I have taken a few willful detours. I chose to leave the path of following Jesus and, instead, struck out on my own way. It was during these detours that I learned the lesson of the prophet Jonah: You can’t actually escape from God because no matter where you run He’s already there. It’s like the lyrics to David’s psalm:

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

In today’s chapter, Jehoiakim the King of Judah is spiritually on the run. Jehoiakim wanted nothing to do with God. He barred the prophet Jeremiah from the temple. He put layers of bureaucracy between himself and the prophet so that he wouldn’t have to listen to Jeremiah’s incessant messages telling the King to turn from his rebellious ways.

And so, Jeremiah dictates God’s message to his servant and scribe, Baruch. He then sends Baruch to jump through all the bureaucratic hoops at the temple. God’s favor appears to be on Baruch as he recites the words of the scroll and his message gets passed up the chain of command until he finally has an audience with the king.

King Jehoiakim’s hard heart, however, was unmoved. As the envoy reads the scroll, King Jehoiakim has each column cut from the scroll and thrown into the fireplace of his chamber. He then tries to have Jeremiah’s servant arrested. So Jeremiah repeats the message to Baruch so that a copy would survive, and he adds a prophetic prediction of the negative consequences Jehoiakim and his royal line will experience because of his willful choice to shun God.

In the quiet this morning I am thinking about King Jehoiakim. He also was experiencing the lesson of Jonah, the same reality I experienced on my rebellious detours on my life journey. You can’t really successfully run from God. No matter where you run, God’s already there. I can harden my heart. I can refuse to listen and willfully ignore the truth, but then I’m just like the child who puts a cardboard box over their head and thinks no one can see him.