the church

Sometimes the place that feels safest isn’t the safest place at all.

In Jeremiah’s day, God’s people were frightened.

They had watched their nation collapse. Jerusalem had fallen. Their leaders were unstable. They feared what Babylon might do next.

So they asked Jeremiah to seek God’s direction for them.

And God answered.

He told them not to run.

He told them to stay exactly where they were.

And He promised to be with them, protect them, and show them mercy.

But there was a problem.

Staying didn’t make sense to them.

Egypt looked safer.

So they chose the place that seemed secure instead of the place God told them to be.

And the very danger they were trying to escape followed them there.

That raises an important question for us:

Can we do the same thing?

Can we step outside the protection God ordinarily provides by rejecting His instructions, resisting rightly ordered authority, or simply deciding that our way makes more sense than His?

And what does that look like in everyday life?

In our homes?

Our churches?

Our workplaces?

Our relationship to civil government?

Scripture repeatedly places us under different kinds of God-given authority. But none of those authorities is absolute, and all of them remain under God’s authority.

So what does it mean to live under what one pastor called God’s “umbrella of protection”? And when are we actually required to disobey an earthly authority in order to obey God?

Today we’ll look at a frightened group of people who ran toward what looked safe, why obedience would have been the better refuge, and what their choice can teach us about authority, submission, church membership, and trusting God when His way doesn’t seem to make sense.