Jer. 34:21-22; 2 Tim. 2:11-13, Hindrances to Obed. (5)

        v The hindrance of MANIPULATIVE obedience, Jer. 34:22.

This hindrance might seem the same as the cheap obedience we considered yesterday.  But there is actually an additional feature that we must consider and that we believe was a real problem in Jeremiah’s days.  Sometimes we seek to manipulate God through our obedience, and that is a recipe for unfaithfulness.  When God does not meet our expectations we will become disappointed and will walk back our commitment.  Or even worse, when God does meet our expectations, the motivation for our obedience may be gone and we may begin to rationalize it away.

In Jeremiah’s days there were many false prophets.  The gist of their preaching was peace and safety.  It was much akin to the health and wealth preaching of our own day.  They assured the people that God was not going to allow the Holy City of Jerusalem and the magnificent temple of Solomon to be destroyed.  Yet this was the very thing Jeremiah was preaching.  

In 34:21-22 we see what happened in this case.  The Babylonian army had come to Jerusalem and created alarm in the hearts of the people.  King Zedekiah had made a covenant to deal properly with the slaves and the people had followed him (34:8-10).  But then the Babylonians had to leave Jerusalem to deal with the Egyptians.  The obedience of the people had worked, so to speak.  God had rewarded their obedience by making the enemy leave. 

Here is the problem.  God often does promise reward for obedience.  Many promises are conditional.  That is the basis for the Old Covenant: if you obey I will bless you; if you disobey I will curse you.  You will remember in our last post we quoted from Heb. 11:25-26 about Moses forsaking the riches of Egypt.  We purposely omitted the line at the end of v26 until now: for he looked to the reward.  Moses understood that the riches of Egypt were no match for the reward of obedience to God.  You may also remember in the story of Moses that it was forty years after he left Egypt before God began to use him to deliver Israel.

While we may know all this, the truth is that we may not truly reckon with the fact that the promised reward for obedience may not be immediate.  And further, it may be preceded by greater times of distress.  The rest and reward may await our arrival in the presence of our Lord when we die.  Thus our obedience must not be conditional.  Many promises of God are conditional.  Rest assured, He will always keep His word.  As Paul notes, even if we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.