Do you find yourself in seeming exile from the presence of the Lord? If not now, you probably have in the past or you probably will in the future.
Has sin become a barrier between you and the enjoyment of being with Jesus? Well, you are not alone. In fact, people who belong to God have been experiencing this estrangement since the Garden of Eden.
Sometimes we may be only a short season out of step with the Spirit. Sometimes we may willingly travel, like the prodigal son, to the foreign land away from the Father.
In the book by the prophet Jeremiah, we witness the prophecies about going into exile due to sin. We also witness the promise that God will restore his wayward people.
“You who have escaped from the sword,
go, do not stand still!
Remember the LORD from far away,
and let Jerusalem come into your mind.
—Jeremiah 51:50
By the time we get to this 51st chapter of Jeremiah, God tells of the ultimate judgment on Babylon. Babylon was the great enemy of God’s people. We see this judgment play out during the Old Testament period, and we see it’s final work near the end of the book of Revelation.
As New Testament believers, we have our Babylons. Our three headed foe is the world, the flesh, and the devil. Ultimately these will all be dealt with by the Lord. We need to heed Jeremiah’s call as one’s who will escape. Go, do not stand still!
Do not linger, like Lot’s wife, over the place of wickedness. Don’t just stand there when ultimate judgment is coming. Go!
You may ask, in which direction do I go? Jeremiah helps us answer that question.
Remember the LORD from far away
In our going we must have in our mind where we are going. To often we act like the words from the Chesire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. In response to Alice’s question about which way she should go. Alice also indicated that she didn’t much care where she should go. Here is the response to that indication,
Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.
—Chesire Cat
Instead of being like Alice, we should be like the prodigal after he came to himself and said,
I will arise and go to my Father.
—Luke 15:18
So we should be going to the Lord. We do this by remembering the LORD from far away.
To remember in the Bible has the idea that we are to call to mind. But more than that we are to act decisively on account of what we call to mind. So we call the Lord to mind and we act decisively on account of the Lord. This is no mental wandering or standing pat where we are.
Let Jerusalem come into your mind
To Jeremiah’s hearers Jerusalem was the place that God had made his city. It was there that the temple had existed, where the people’s worship had taken place, and where the presence of God dwelled.
They were to have all of that in mind as they began to move in the direction of this great city.
For us, Jesus is our Jerusalem. He is the temple, the receiver of our worship, and the very presence of the Lord. He is the Lord.
The church is also pictured as a temple in the New Testament. With Christ as the corner stone, with the apostles and prophets as the foundation, we believers are the stones built into a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit.
If you find yourself alienated from the presence of the Lord, get yourself to Christ and to his church. Final judgment will come upon our enemies. Don’t be found loitering around the ashes of that which will be destroyed. Go, do not stand still!