THE GREAT DELIVERER

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“So then, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when people will no longer say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’ but they will say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the descendants of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where He had banished them.’ Then they will live in their own land.”

Jeremiah 23:7-8

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

The scene had to still be fresh in the minds of the Israelites in Jeremiah’s time.

Their ancestors of years prior were attempting to escape Egypt after 430 years of captivity (Exodus 12:41), led by Moses. Hot on their trail was the Egyptian ruler, Pharaoh, and his army who had to feel confident that they would be able to recapture the Israelites because they would soon find themselves confronting a great sea which was too deep and wide for them to ever make it across. It looked pretty bleak for the people of God.

That is, until God stepped onto the scene and became their Great Deliverer.

You know what happened next, right?

God sent His almighty power to earth and divided the great sea that was between the Israelites and their freedom, allowing them to cross on dry land (Exodus 14:29). And once they were safely on the other side, God allowed the waves of water to crash down on Pharaoh and his men, passing judgment upon them for the sinful way they had treated his people and their refusal to release them at His command.

Fast forward to Jeremiah’s time and as we see in the scripture passage for today, the people still talked about the Egyptian rescue, revisiting God’s delivering power with each retelling. But note that there was soon to be a new deliverance story to tell in addition to the Egyptian testimony, one that would involve the Israelites of that day:

“So then, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when people will no longer say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’ but they will say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the descendants of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where He had banished them.’ Then they will live in their own land.” Jeremiah 23:7-8

The people of God in Jeremiah’s time had the assurance that they were in the hands of the Great Deliverer every bit as much as their ancestors had been. Generations had come and gone but God was the great constant, always watching over His people and ruling all creation with authority. In the case of the Israelites in today’s scripture, God exercised His position of power by passing judgment on His people because of their blatant, willful disobedience and disrespect. They had chosen to worship false gods and idols, angering God to the point where He chose to send them into exile, just as their relatives had been only this time the exile would be in Babylon and only last seventy years. At the end of this period of punishment, God would make the way for His people to return to their homeland of Judah where they had been banished from. Once back there, they would have the opportunity to rebuild their homes and their relationship with the God who delivered them.

And the entire happening would become part of Israelite lore with coming generations speaking about how the Lord God Almighty once again became the Great Deliverer for His people.

Now, fast forward again to today and know that the God of the Israelites, who were saved from Egypt and later Babylon, is the same God we adore and worship today. Nothing about Him has changed through the ages including His willingness to deliver His people.

So how does God reveal Himself to us as the Great Deliverer today?

He does so through His Son, Jesus Christ.

You see, all of us were at one time captives to our sins, shackled to wickedness without hope of escaping the wrath of judgment that will come on every person who ever lives. Our destiny was simply destruction unless God offered up a way for us to be delivered.

And so God showed us how much He loved His people by sending His only Son to the world to live among them before allowing Him to be sacrificed to pay the price for their sins and provide a way for them to be delivered from death to life, just as Jesus was three days after His crucifixion. Since that time, countless people have made their choice to receive Jesus as Savior and accept the gift of eternal life offered by God the Father. They have found their way to freedom now and forever through the work of God, the Great Deliverer, and the reward of eternal life through His Son, the only One who can bring us to God the Father (John 14:6).

Have you accepted the offer of salvation from the Great Deliverer today?

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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