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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Now Pashhur the son of Immer, the
priest who was also chief
governor in the house of the Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things.
Then Pashhur struck Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin,
which was by the house of the Lord.
And it happened on the next day
that Pashhur brought Jeremiah out of the stocks. Then Jeremiah said to him,
“The Lord has not called your name Pashhur, but Magor-Missabib. For thus says
the Lord: ‘Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your
friends; and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes shall
see it. I will give all Judah
into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive to Babylon
and slay them with the sword. Moreover I will deliver all the wealth of this
city, all its produce, and all its precious things; all the treasures of the
kings of Judah I will give into the hand of their enemies, who will plunder
them, seize them, and carry them to Babylon. And you, Pashhur, and all who
dwell in your house, shall go into captivity. You shall go to Babylon, and
there you shall die, and be buried there, you and all your friends, to whom you
have prophesied lies.’”
Jeremiah 20:1-6 (NKJV)
This ends today’s reading from God's holy
word. Thanks be to God.
Going back to the earliest moments of the Bible and the
story of God’s people, we find that in certain circumstances, the Lord would
institute a name change and, in doing so, show that He is a game changer as
well when it comes to the way He purposes His people.
Take Abram and Sarai for example. If you haven’t studied
the Old Testament book of Genesis you may not even be familiar with these names
but you may be more familiar with Abraham and Sarah, the new names that God
gave them.
Abram meant “exalted father” but God had bigger plans for
His servant who had been so obedient, leaving his homeland and taking his
family with him to a land that God would lead him to. For because of Abram’s
faithfulness, God promised to make him the father of many nations and changed
his name to Abraham to reflect that.
And although Sarai and Sarah both carried the meaning, “princess”,
that’s where the similarity between the old and new name stopped for Sarah
would be the mother of all nations, a far cry from the old, barren woman who
once felt she would never be able to bear a child.
Did I mention that God is a name changer and game changer?
Fast forward a little to one of the sons of Abraham and
Sarah, Isaac. He was given the name Jacob which means “holder of the heel”
because when he emerged from the womb he had a grip on the heel of his brother
Esau who was born just before him. Later, Jacob, with the help of his mother
Rebecca, would trick Isaac into blessing his youngest son with his birthright
which should have been given to Esau. After this, Jacob would become the head
of the family when Isaac died and he would assume all his father’s property. As
a result of this, God would change Jacob’s name to Israel which simply meant “may
God prevail”. His twelve sons would each become a leader over a part of Canaan
and the people within those parts would be referred to as a tribe thus the
advent of the twelve tribes of Israel.
The New Testament also had key occasions where name changes
were game changes. Take Simon for example. He was an ordinary fisherman until
he was called to follow an extraordinary man named Jesus. As Simon grew in his
faithfulness toward his Lord, Jesus decided it was time to elevate Simon
amongst his disciple peers, changing his name to Peter which simply meant “rock”.
In the context of what Jesus meant, He called Peter the rock upon which he
would build his church. That’s coming a long way from the days when he simply
cast a net into the sea to catch fish. Now Peter would be a foundational piece
of the church’s first beginnings.
Name change reflecting a big game change.
One final example before I turn back to our passage from
Jeremiah for we can’t talk about amazing name changes and the way it changed
the game for those who experienced them without looking at a man named Saul. We’re
first introduced to him in the Book of Acts as he personally provided oversight
at the stoning of Stephen, one of seven followers of Jesus who were hand selected
to supplement the work of the original disciples. Saul was there because that’s
what he did for a living. A devout Jew, he took pleasure in persecuting and executing
Christians, that is until that fateful day when he was on the road to Damascus
to do what he did best but Jesus had seen enough.
Striking Saul blind on the road, Jesus asked Saul why he
would persecute God’s only Son before leaving him without sight. The blindness
would last for three days until Saul, now in lodging in Damascus, received a
visit from a man sent by Jesus, a disciple of His named Ananias. Jesus had told
Ananias to go to Saul and place his hands on him, restoring his sight. So
profound was the experience that Saul was left behind in that Damascus lodging
place and perhaps the greatest apostle of all time emerged, an apostle named
Paul.
It was quite a name change and it changed Christianity
forever as Paul traveled on missionary journeys and was single-handedly
responsible for the advancing of the gospel beyond Jerusalem, Samaria, and
Judea.
Up to now, the name changes we have seen have all been for
the positive but that’s not always true in the scriptures. Today’s verses are a
perfect example of that.
In them, we are introduced to a priest named Pashhur who
the scriptures tell us is a chief governor, a very prominent servant in the
house of the Lord. We read where Pashhur struck Jeremiah before taking God’s
prophet prisoner and placing him in the stocks. Ironically, the name Pashhur
means “freedom” or “release” which is what Pashhur did to Jeremiah the
following day but God would not stand by and allow His messenger to be abused.
And so, speaking through Jeremiah, God changed Pashhur’s name to Magor-Missabib
which translates to “terror on every side”, the terror here being the fear that
would be struck into the hearts of the Israelites by the attacking Babylonian
army who would lay siege to Judah and its holy city of Jerusalem, leaving the
lands in ruins before taking all the Israelites into custody and placing them
in exile for seventy years.
Pashhur’s name had been changed by God but it was for the
worse, not the better.
So how
does this apply to us today?
Well, we
need to look at our state before we gave our lives to Jesus and professed Him
as our personal Savior. At that point, we all bore the following names:
Doomed
Lost
Condemned
But God
so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever places their
belief in Him will not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). Our Maker
and Creator did not desire that we all perish and so He, through Jesus, gave us
a chance to rename ourselves through our commitment to His Son, and in doing
so, change the game of our lives forever. Here’s how our names changed:
We went
from being doomed to being saved.
We went
from being lost to being found.
We went
from being condemned to being redeemed.
Death
would no longer be the end but rather the beginning of a blessed life eternal
with God and Jesus, free from sin and hardship and affliction. Through Christ,
our future is secured and we become victorious people, a people who will rise
above death to a new life where there will only be light and love and peace.
The name
of Jesus changes everything. I pray you have committed yourself to Him and the
blessed gift of salvation He offers.
Amen.
In
Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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