The Sovereignty of God
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
David C. Wright
Jeremiah 20:7-18
February 6, 2011

         Gracia Burnham and her husband, Martin, had served as missionaries in the remote mountains of the Philippines for fifteen years.  In 2001, on their eighteenth wedding anniversary, they were abducted and held by an Islamic terrorist organization known as Abu Sayyaf.  They spent thirteen harrowing months on the run with this group in the jungle with limited food and supplies, and watched as several of their fellow hostages were executed by their captors.  Christians all around the world were praying for their safe release, and the Burnhams remained confident that they would survive to be re-united with their three young children.  But on June 7, 2002, during a firefight between the Philippine military and the rebel group, Martin was killed while Gracia was wounded, but rescued.
          In her book, In The Presence of My Enemies, Gracia writes, “Sometimes I wonder, ‘Why did Martin die when everyone was praying he wouldn’t?  Why does Scripture lead you to believe that if you pray a certain way, you’ll get what you pray for?’  People all over the world were praying that we’d both get out alive, but we didn’t.’”
          As a pastor, I’ve asked the same kind of questions over the years as I’ve watched  young mothers die of cancer, and seen tragic accidents claim the lives of young people.  Tragic events can cause us to question God’s judgment, can’t they?  Jeremiah 27 gives us a peek behind the curtain, so to speak- a peek into God’s thinking behind one specific tragedy in human history.  It portrays a God who is actively involved in human affairs to further God’s own purposes.
          Here’s the set-up.  In 598 B.C., after years of warnings from Jeremiah, the Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar finally sweep into the land of Judah.  Young King Jehoiachin wisely capitulates to Nebuchadnezzar, paying him off from the temple treasures.  The King and thousands of the brightest and most skilled citizens of Judah are taken away by Nebuchadnezzar and pressed into his service in Babylon.  But Judah is left intact with the requirement that it pay tribute money to Babylon each year.  King Zedikiah is then placed on the throne of Judah by the Babylonians.
          About four years later, several surrounding nations send envoys to Judah.  They are plotting to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar, who has been weakened by defeats elsewhere.  They want Judah to join them in their rebellion.  We’ll pick up the story in Jer. 27 using “The Message” version.  
         1-4 Early in the reign of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, Jeremiah received this Message from God: "Make a harness and a yoke and then harness yourself up. Send a message to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon. Send it through their ambassadors who have come to Jerusalem to see Zedekiah king of Judah. Give them this charge to take back to their masters: 'This is a Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel. Tell your masters:
          5-8"'I'm the one who made the earth, man and woman, and all the animals in the world. I did it on my own without asking anyone's help and I hand it out to whomever I will. Here and now I give all these lands over to my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I have made even the wild animals subject to him. All nations will be under him, then his son, and then his grandson. Then his country's time will be up and the tables will be turned: Babylon will be the underdog servant. But until then, any nation or kingdom that won't submit to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon must take the yoke of the king of Babylon and harness up. I'll punish that nation with war and starvation and disease until I've got them where I want them.
          9-11"'So don't for a minute listen to all your prophets and spiritualists and fortunetellers, who claim to know the future and who tell you not to give in to the king of Babylon. They're handing you a line of lies, barefaced lies, that will end up putting you in exile far from home. I myself will drive you out of your lands, and that'll be the end of you. But the nation that accepts the yoke of the king of Babylon and does what he says, I'll let that nation stay right where it is, minding its own business.'" (Jer. 27:1-11, from “The Message”)
This is a difficult passage which is well ahead of its time in terms of its understanding of the workings of God.  Let’s follow Jeremiah’s message carefully.  First, God tells him to put on a yoke, a sign of submission, and go to all the gathered diplomats who have come to Jerusalem to convince Judah to join their insurgency against Babylon.  Jeremiah is to deliver God’s message to them.
          God begins by asserting his absolute authority over all the earth, including their lands. "'I'm the one who made the earth, man and woman, and all the animals in the world. I did it on my own without asking anyone's help and I hand it out to whomever I will. (Jer. 27:5) God has created all that there is, including people and animals, and therefore God has the right to do with his creation as he pleases to bring about his good plans for it.
          This is known as the doctrine of the sovereignty of God.  It basically states that God is rightful ruler over all there is because God has created all there is.  God makes this point even more clearly to Jeremiah in chapter 18, when he instructs him to go to a potter’s house and watch the potter at work.  Jeremiah watches as the potter destroys a pot he had just made because it was flawed and uses the same material to shape a new pot.  God says, "Can't I do just as this potter does, people of Israel?  Watch this potter. In the same way that this potter works his clay, I work on you, people of Israel.”  (Jer. 18:6) God goes on to say that he has the absolute right to do as he pleases with any nation that subverts his good plans for humanity by engaging in evil and disobedience.
When my wife Bonnie got to this point in this sermon as she read it yesterday, she commented that she really didn’t care all that much about the nation of Judah 2500 years ago and didn’t think you would either!  She suggested I do something fun at this point to keep you with me!  Thank you, Bonnie!  But this is a very difficult passage, and I don’t have anything fun that works here.  So instead I’ll just plead with you to stay with me now, because we’re going somewhere!
          God fashioned the nation of Israel for a specific purpose.  They were to be a light and blessing to the rest of the world.  But they rarely served the purpose for which they were created because of their stubborn idolatry and disobedience and injustice to the poor.  God had been abundantly patient as he sent prophets to warn them for hundreds of years, but now the day of reckoning had arrived.  They would be set aside and re-formed for God’s work.  Here is how it would happen.
 Here and now I give all these lands over to my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I have made even the wild animals subject to him. All nations will be under him, then his son, and then his grandson. Then his country's time will be up and the tables will be turned: (Jer. 27:6,7a)
          This is pretty radical thinking for us and even more so for the country of Judah!  God is going to use the pagan Babylonian king Nebuchanezzar to carry out God’s work!  That is almost unthinkable.  Nebuchadnezzar didn’t even worship the Lord; he worshiped many gods, including Marduk for whom he built grand temples.  And, he oppressed smaller nations throughout the known world.  Why would God choose him to discipline his own people?  We are not told.  We are only told that it served God’s purposes to do so.
Further, we are told that resistance to God’s plan is futile.  (Like resistance to the Borg, for you Star Trek fans).  God tells the gathered envoys that if they rebel against Nebuchadnezzar and refuse to serve him,  then they will be punished with sword, famine, and pestilence- the usual results of siege-warfare.  But, they are promised that if they bring their necks under the yoke of the Babylonian king and serve him, they will be left in their land to live in peace. 
          Let’s summarize the hard teaching found here.  Since God has made everything for his purposes, he has absolute authority over all creation (including you and me) to do with us according to his design for his creation.  God can and will use anyone or anything to bring his good plans to fruition.  Our job is to submit to the will of God, even when we don’t understand what God is up to. That’s what it says.
          Some of you are squirming in your seats as you hear this message.  I must admit that I’m squirming a bit up here myself!  There are parts of this message that are very hard for us to swallow.  First, (if we’re honest) we don’t really like the idea that God is sovereign, that God has authority over us.  We like to feel like we have an absolute right to control our lives.    In fact, we resist giving that control to anyone, even going to war when necessary to prevent it!  Fortunately, God has given us a great deal of control over our lives, just as he did to Judah.  But we’ve been given that control, that authority, that freedom, in order to carry out God’s purposes.  And that freedom can be taken away, if we refuse to further God’s design for his creation, just as it was taken from Judah. 
          Still, it is extremely difficult for us to acknowledge that we are not the ultimate authority in our lives and in our world.  We simply don’t want to give up that control!  In fact, it is only possible to do so if we believe that the Ultimate Authority (God) is always acting in our best interest.
This is where faith comes in.  There is a great deal we do not know and understand about God’s work in the world.  We could spend the rest of our time this morning listing questions about things that have happened in this world that we don’t understand.  But there is a great deal we do know about God’s character from the Scriptures, from the stories of other people, from our own experience.  And they all reveal a God who is good and loving- a God who will go to outrageous lengths to secure our place in his family.  As we celebrate the Lord’s Supper this morning we will remember how much God sacrificed for us because of his great love for us.  God calls us to trust in him and his goodness, and submit to his plans for us, believing that ultimately they are for our good.
          Corrie Ten Boom was a young Dutch woman when the Nazis rumbled into Holland.  Along with the rest of her Christian family, she sheltered Jews from the Nazis.  But they were betrayed and her entire family was sent to concentration camps.  All of them died there, including her beloved sister, who died in her presence at Ravensbrook Camp.  Corrie was “mistakenly” released and later wrote several books and spoke publicly about her experiences.  She was often asked how a loving God could have allowed the tragedies of the Nazi regime.
          One time in response, she took a piece of embroidery on which she was working and held the bottom up to the person asking the question.  “What do you see?” she asked.  “Nothing.  Just a jumble of threads,” was the response. “Good,” she replied, turning the piece over so that the top faced the questioner.  “Now what do you see?”  “Now I can see the whole picture, although it is not yet finished.”  Corrie responded, “That is the way it is with us and God.  God is producing a great work of art- his creation.  We can only see the bottom- a jumble of threads.  God alone sees the top and knows just where each thread must begin and end.”
          That is where we find our faith in the sovereignty of God.  We believe that God is good and that God knows the whole plan and purpose for our world.  We are called to play our part by living according to God’s ways, even when we don’t understand that way and when that way is very difficult- to be that single thread that is part of the bigger picture.
         We began this sermon with the story of missionaries Gracia and Martin Burnham.  At the end of her book, Gracia Burnham comes to this conclusion, “I used to have this concept of what God is like, and how life’s supposed to be because of that.  But in the jungle, I learned I don’t know as much about God as I thought I did.  I don’t have him in a theological box anymore.  What I do know is that God is God- and I’m not.  The world’s in a mess because of sin, not God.  Some awful things may happen to me, but God does what is right.  And he makes good come out of bad situations.”

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