July 24, 2022 - Who is really behind all this? Pastor Paul Vallee

Jeremiah 18, Jeremiah Series I’m currently listening to lectures on Utopia and Dystopia, which express the nature of human anxieties and fears that we struggle with in our society. One of the more well-known writers in this literary genre is George Orwell. In his book, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four,’ he ‘Big Brother,’ which is the name given to the totalitarian regime ruling by that year. Orson wrote this book in 1948 during the ‘Cold War and described the sense of powerlessness that individuals feel in that kind of a world. In Dr. Pamela Bedore’s course: “Great Utopian and Dystopian Works of Literature,’ she writes in her course guidebook: “Nineteen Eighty-Four embodies the power of language to shape thought for good or for ill and explores the devastating potential of language to destroy both personal and cultural identity when used to preserve a totalitarian system of government.” Many today are deeply concerned, and rightfully so, about the suppression of speech. We can quickly develop anxieties over what our future holds. Yet, the more significant question that could be raised is, ‘Who really is behind all of this? We know from Scripture that our battle is not with ‘flesh and blood,’ which we often forget. We have a spiritual adversary trying to destroy humanity, but we discover in Jeremiah that God is ultimately in control. He is the One shaping the destinies of human lives? Here in Jeremiah 18, we will find that ultimately, God is the one who raises up and brings down nations, kingdoms, and governments as they are simply instruments in His hands. Even though God allows freedom of choice, the choice is framed between what is best, His will and the opposite position of rejecting God’s path and then experiencing the ensuing consequences. God gives us opportunities to discover His ways which ultimately bring hope, life, and peace; or we choose to live autonomous lives, strike out on our own, and find our path strewed with more significant challenges and diminished resources. In Jeremiah 18, God leads the prophet Jeremiah to a potter’s house, where a visual presentation is about to occur. This becomes a dramatization of the message the prophet is to deliver to the nation.