Bound By Truth

Like so many others, I have watched over the last few days as my social media feeds have filled with picture after picture of the devastation that the people in North-West South Carolina, Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee are currently dealing with. Heart-breaking stories of lives lost, towns wiped away and entire families loosing all of their earthly possessions have accompanied many of these images and our entire nations heart goes out to these people.

When we are faced with devastation of this magnitude we come face to face with the fact of how quickly life can change, that all that we own/have can be taken away and even ultimately our own fleeting mortality. In these times I find great comfort that I serve the Living, Sovereign God of all creation and knowing that none of this occurred outside of His eternal decree. Ultimately, I am reminded that there is only one absolute truth and surety in life and that is the immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and sovereign Lord.

In the Old Testament we find the book of Jeremiah, the prophet. Called by God during the days of Kings Josiah, Jehoiakim and Zedekiah to deliver God’s warnings to His people regarding their sins. In the 9th chapter of Jeremiah we the following text:

Thus says the LORD: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Je 9 9:23–24.

Up until this point, Jeremiah had been continually striving to open the eyes of the Israelites to the truth that they had lost their fear of God, were deep in their sins and in danger of God’s wrath being poured out. The people of God continually failed to heed the words of the prophet. They were set, they had all they needed, there was nothing and no one that could defeat them because God would go before them, they had created for themselves a refuge built on a false foundation.

We are very similar to the Hebrew nation. We have built for ourselves palaces of refuge that are on foundations of sand. Our faith is placed in objects, people, careers, money, social status, literally anything other than God. I remember being angry the first time I heard Obama make the comment that America was not a Christian nation, but honestly, of all the things he ever said, that one is certainly true. The reality of our situation is such that when all of these things that I mentioned above are removed we are terrified, our world crumbles, our identity vanishes and we are left without a refuge.

Think of the impact of that truth, the truth that when these things are taken away or are lost, we lose our refuge. A refuge is a place of shelter, of protection, of safety, and when this place is lost to us, the result is devastating. This truth will resonate with anyone who experienced the loss of something or someone that was a refuge to them. It may have been the loss of a home or a career, it could have been the loss of a job, or it may have been a loss much more personal to the individual, but that sense of safety, shelter, protection and security was no longer there…and the result can be terrifying.

That is, unless your refuge is something greater, something immovable, something unchangeable. In this passage from Jeremiah the people are warned not to boast in wisdom or might or riches (knowledge, power, wealth; still boasting in these things aren’t we) but that their boast would be that they know and understand God.

Now, if we aren’t careful here we can step on a land mine with this statement, understand God, because we may be tempted to take this to a level that is not what is intended. This is not a full and complete understanding, for that is not possible, but rather to have a mental perception of the characteristics of God. The word know in this sense is to have a basic realization that something exists or noticed. In other words to acknowledge that He exists and know Him in a way only possible by the revealing of the Holy Spirit.

Take the following description “that I am Yahweh who shows lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on the earth.” This helps us to understand what is being conveyed in the previous clause, the specific knowledge and understanding that we are to having regarding the Lord God. The main thrust of these two verses is that when our boasts is in anything other than God, that boast will be put to shame, it will fail, and it will leave us in a situation where we have lost our refuge.

Before the naysayers get to far gone, I am not discounting or shunning the good gifts that God gives to His people. What I am saying, in fact, what I am EMPHATICALLY and CATEGORICALLY saying, is that the good gifts that God gives His people should never become their refuge or their boasts. In the New Testament Paul makes a similar statement:

For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ga 6:13–14.

Here, Paul points to the truth that the one boast that any believer has, is in the finished work of Jesus Christ, the in-full payment of the sin debt that we owed to God. Through this work we are reconciled to our true refuge, Yahweh.

Tragedies will continue, we live in a fallen world; devastation will be part of this life and in the blink of an eye all that we once held dear can be wiped away.

If that were to happen to you, today, would you be left without a refuge, without shelter, safety, security or protection? I can promise you this, that if you are boasting in the things of this world, then you will find yourself in this situation. The beauty of the truth, however, is “But God”, in Him you can find a refuge that is eternal and secure, a refuge from which you can never be separated, Praise be to God!!

SoliDeoGloria #GodsSovereignty #TrueRefuge #Jeremiah923 #TrustInGod #FaithOverFear #ChristianFaith #BiblicalTruth #GospelHope #ReformedTheology