Today's text from the ESV Study Bible: Jeremiah 46-48.
Previous to this year's chronological reading of the Bible, my worldview never gave consideration to the idea that God is actually in control of absolutely everything, including foreign nations.
Somehow, in my mind, I put the Creator of all into a box where he was somehow only concerned with Christians, and the missionaries who went out to create more Christians.
The idea that God actually controlled Hitler's actions, for example, is mind boggling. Nonetheless, a simple reading of the Bible will confirm this fact.
Side note: As I am typing this, the thought comes to mind that one of Satan's greatest weapons is ignorance. If everyone would simply read the Bible, and force themselves to wrestle with the words therein, I suspect a great many would have a completely different perspectives.
In today's reading we find that God has proclaimed judgment on Egypt, Philistia, and Moab. The Bible makes bold claims when we read such things. Behind these words lies a crystal clear statement of Yahweh: I alone am God, and I alone decide whether a nation will go to the left or to the right.
Jeremiah prophesied that the Babylonians would come against the mighty alliance of Assyria and Egypt. In the Battle of Carchemish, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Assyria once and for all, and sent Egypt's Neco II running back to Egypt with his tail between his legs.
This was prophesied by Jeremiah, recorded in our Bible, and this battle is also recorded in Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian Chronicles which are housed in the British Museum.
It is impossible for the thinking person to contemplate the previous sentence without a great internal consternation.
The Bible has never been disproved in its chronicles and prophesies. There are still a great number of unsolved puzzles to be solved in future times, but the word of God remains true in spite of what any might think.
As Josh McDowell has proclaimed, the overwhelming amount of evidence supporting the Bible and its claims demands a verdict. Furthermore, when you consider all of the evidence, your verdict can only be on the side of Yahweh and his claims.
Therefore, I asked myself: If this is so, which I have always believed, why have you waited fifty years to read this book?
Answer? I preferred to live in ignorance, and live my life as though I were king, and God was merely there to be my Santa Claus.
I possess great shame to confess the previous statement. Nonetheless, it was true.
Was true!
Dear reader, can I challenge you? Have you read the words of the Bible and greatly struggled with it's precepts?
If not, why not join the remainder of my chronological journey through the Bible? I would enjoy your company.
