JOSIAH had been king for eighteen years when the lost Book of the Law was found during a clear up of the temple (see 2 Chronicles Ch 34). The king made sure that during his life-time the law was the standard that the people followed but when he died it was a different story. From a human point of view the treatment of the Jews in Egypt was down to the oppression of their masters, but from God’s standpoint it was the iron-smelting furnace where the dross was burnt out and the pure metal obtained. There are usually two ways to look at adversity. Whether or not we think God brings something bad our way we can usually see how He can and does use it to refine us.
Ultimately the false gods are powerless. They cannot answer the cries of the people. The saddest part of this is that God is longing for the people to return to Him. They are His beloved (v15). They are a fruitful olive tree, but He who has planted them will bring disaster on them because they have turned away from Him.
The people of Judah had turned away from the true God who loved them and who had done so much to bring them into nationhood. They had given their allegiance to a false deity of man’s imaginings who couldn’t help them at all because he simply didn’t exist. Our society today has done much the same thing. We are surrounded by prohibitions of all kinds. It seems that everyone is to be allowed freedom of speech except Christians. In many ways we are living through times like the days of Jeremiah. It would be very easy for us as believers to give up and compromise with the unbelieving world as indeed many have done, but our God is Jeremiah’s God. He did not forsake His people then and He will not now. Pray that we may be given grace to keep the faith.
