Exile

   “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe!  Plans to give you a future full of hope.”  (Jeremiah 29: 11)

  This was the promise God made to the Israelites during their seventy-year exile in Babylon.  A promise of hope for the future; that after their exile they would once again inhabit the promised land.

   The Babylonian exile was the cost for the sinfulness of the people.  They had served other gods, building altars to them and worshipping the gods of the pagans.  Their kings were corrupt and sinful, not following the precepts of God.  They had turned from the one true God.  Because of their sins God allowed them to be exiled to Babylon.

   The words of Jeremiah are just as applicable to us today.  We too are in exile because of our sins.  Many of our leaders are as corrupt and sinful as were the kings of Israel.  We will live in exile in this world until we enter the next.  Still, God has promised us the opportunity for a return to the promised land; the promised land of heaven.

   Our promised land was Eden.  We had all we could need or want including a loving family relationship with our Lord.  Satan took that from us with his temptations.  By convincing Eve and Adam that they could eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he tempted them with godlike power.  They wanted to be as God and decide what was good and evil.  For their sinfulness they were exiled from Eden.

   We are still trying to make our own judgements about good and evil.  Relativism would have us believe that nothing is true forever; that truth changes as society changes.  What was evil before is now considered good.  We, like Adam and Eve, have taken it upon ourselves to over-rule God’s law through our pride and selfish desires.

   Our exile is not for a certain period of time.  We remain in exile as long as we live in this world.  Our hope for a return to the promised land lies not on a date certain but on our faith in God and His word.  We can choose God and return to the promised land or reject Him and remain exiled from His presence throughout eternity.

   “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.”  (Ps 122: 1)