Ⅳ
The secret of Israel’s failures and defeats was that they had lost God’s presence and were no longer one with God (cf. Josh. 7:3-4; 9:14); we should always be one with our God, who is not only among us but also in us, making us men with God—God-men:
Ａ
As God-men, we should practice being one with the Lord, walking with Him, living with Him, and having our entire being with Him (Rom. 8:4; 2 Cor. 2:10; Gal. 5:16, 25); this is the way to walk as a Christian, to fight as a child of God, and to build up the Body of Christ; if we have the Lord’s presence, being one with Him, we have wisdom, insight, foresight, and the inner knowledge concerning things; the Lord’s presence is everything to us.
Ｂ
The stubbornness of the children of Israel in sinning against God was due to their not being one with God (Jer. 42:1—43:2); if they had been one with God, they would have received God’s word and would have known His heart, His nature, His mind, and His purpose; furthermore, they would have spontaneously lived Him and would have been constituted with Him to be His testimony on earth.
Morning Nourishment
Rom. 8:4 That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit.2 Cor. 2:10 …Whom you forgive anything, I also forgive; for also what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, it is for your sake in the person of Christ.
The stubbornness of the children of Israel was due to their not being one with God. For example, Johanan, the leader of the remnant, strongly determined to go to Egypt to take refuge. He feared that the Babylonians would come to avenge the murder of Gedaliah. But God wanted them to remain in the Holy Land to be a remnant of His people. God would visit them and grace them and even use them to be His people as a testimony of the living God on earth. However, they altogether misunderstood God by their consideration and by their opinion. Nevertheless, all the leaders of the forces and all the people begged Jeremiah the prophet to pray for them concerning the way in which they should go and the thing which they should do, promising him that whether it was good or evil, they would listen to the voice of Jehovah (Jer. 42:1-6). They said they would obey because they expected Jeremiah to go along with them. They expected that he would give them a “sugarcoated” word. Jeremiah, who was not one to speak such a word, told them that he would pray to Jehovah according to their words. (Life-study of Jeremiah, p. 219)
Today’s Reading
Instead of being in a hurry to speak, Jeremiah waited for ten days. After ten days the word of Jehovah came to them through Jeremiah, telling them not to go to Egypt but to remain in Judah. Jehovah said, “If you will still remain in this land, I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will plant you and not pluck you up” (Jer. 42:10a). This indicates that He would bless them, and they would enjoy Him. However, if they did not listen to this word but went to the land of Egypt, they would die there. Concerning this, Jehovah said, “If indeed you set your faces to go to Egypt and go to sojourn there, then the sword, which you fear, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine, about which you are worried, will follow hard after you there in Egypt; and you will die there. And all the men who set their faces to go to Egypt, to sojourn there, will die by sword, by famine, and by pestilence; and they will have no survivors or any who have escaped from the evil which I will bring on them” (vv. 15b-17).When Jeremiah finished speaking the words of Jehovah, all the people, including Johanan, accused him of lying…(43:2). Refusing to listen to the voice of Jeremiah to remain in the land of Judah, Johanan and all the leaders of the forces took the remnant and went to Egypt.
Once they were in Egypt, there was an argument between a great assemblage of those who knew that their wives burned incense to other gods and all the women who stood by, and Jeremiah the prophet (44:15-30). They told Jeremiah that they would not listen to him. Instead, they would burn incense to the queen of heaven (the wife of Nimrod) and pour out libations to her, just as they did in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. They even went so far as to say that when they burned incense to the queen of heaven, they had plenty of food and were well off and did not see evil …(vv. 17-18). That was a lie. When they were in Jerusalem, they were besieged and even forced to eat their children.
The children of Israel were a people who were not one with God. If they had been one with God, there would have been no problem. If they had been one with God, they would have received God’s word and would have known His heart, His nature, His mind, and His purpose. If they had been one with God, then spontaneously they would have lived Him and would have been constituted with Him to be His testimony on earth. (Life-study of Jeremiah, pp. 219-220)
Further Reading: Life-study of Genesis, msgs. 6-7, 13-14