‘Don’t fight. Just surrender’ was the message of the Lord to Israel and surrounding nations. ‘Just submit to Babylon and you will live.
You can understand just how unpopular those words were. Especially when that would mean they would be in captivity for three generations of the Babylonians (Jer 27:7). They, their children and grandchildren would all die in captivity. And they were to surrender without a fight?
What nation do you know that would do that? That would trust that this was the Word of the Lord?
Pride was a huge factor. Every nation on earth thinks their soldiers are the best. Every military on earth thinks they have a “no surrender” attitude.
To surrender meant showing the nations around you that you were weak. Surrender meant humbling oneself before an enemy.
There were messages coming from Jeremiah to surrender, and the other prophets, fortune-tellers, sorcered, dreams, etc… saying, ‘Don’t do it!’ (Jer 27:9). But only Jeremiah was speaking the Word of the Lord. The others were lying. They were saying what they wanted to believe and what their paying customers wanted them to believe.
The Lord told them either surrender or be destroyed.
Babylon would have power for 70 years but then the Lord would come against him. But in the mean time 70 years was 70 years! That was no joke if you were one of the ones who would have to live that. Your children would never know freedom.
But who do we trust? The Lord? Are we willing to humble ourselves to do what he says? Or will our pride get in the way?
We may never be in a position where the Lord instructs us to surrender to another nation. But we are often directed to surrender fully and completely to him on an everyday basis. That means we must lay down our pride and trust Him. That means we hear and believe and follow what He says to us and not the world even though that’s very unpopular right now.
Sometimes the words of the Lord are hard to obey. But his way is always for our best.
