"If...then" statements in the Bible

"If...then" statements are important in computer languages, both in programming and in queries. When you see a conditional statement like this, you know that the second half of the statement will only happen if the first half does. There's no way around it--that's part of the beauty in math and logic for me. If you know the input and the function, you know the output.

I guess that's why I'm oddly comforted by the fact that so many "if...then" statements are in the Scriptures. There are a lot of things I don't understand, so I like it when something is straight forward. Here's the strange contradiction, though--I can be comforted by the presence of these statements and still be brokenhearted over what some of them mean for us.

Right now at church, we're working our way through Jeremiah. A few years back, we started making our way through the Bible chronologically. What was supposed to be a 1-year journey was stretched out the first time to be somewhere close to 3 years. We started through from the beginning again a while back, and I'm pretty positive that we're going to end up taking longer to make our way through this time. I was thinking we should skip to the end and study Revelation with everything that's going on right now, but there's this crazy thing about God's timing...and Jeremiah is incredibly eerie to read right now in light of current events.

When God originally promised blessings and His favor to Israel, it came in the form of an "If...then" statement from the very beginning. In Genesis 17, we see the initial promise God made: 

“I am El Shaddai [God Almighty].

Walk in my presence and be pure-hearted.

I will make my covenant between me and you,

and I will increase your numbers greatly.”

Too often, we focus on what God promised to give but lose sight of what He required. It's not hard to overlook, because He stated it very simply without much fuss: "Walk in my presence and be pure-hearted." His covenant was an agreement, and just like with any covenant (or binding agreement), both sides have things to uphold. If not, the covenant is broken. God is faithful to uphold His end of the covenant, but that is the second half of the "If...then" statement. The first half is what was required of the people, being pure-hearted and walking in the presence of God.

In Jeremiah 12, we read a prayer that seems very familiar to most people. Jeremiah is crying out to God, asking why the wicked prosper and why bad things keep happening. I've found myself wondering the same thing on many occasions. I look around and see the evil that seems to be running rampant in the world, the wicked people who seemingly have everything handed to them on a silver platter while good people struggle. More specifically, I'm seeing the United States being overrun by people who are determined to break down the Christian values upon which this country was founded.

Here's a little clarification of my view, before anyone starts thinking that I'm someone who thinks the prophecies regarding Israel directly pertain to the U.S. I don't think that. I don't believe that we are God's chosen nation--that's a designation that very plainly applies to Israel. I do, however, think that when we invoked the name of God in establishing this country and when we asked for His blessing and His protection, we entered into a covenant with Him. In doing so, we chose to take His requirements onto ourselves in order to ask for His promises.

So in light of that, let's look at the next chapters of Jeremiah.

God starts off by telling Jeremiah that He created Israel to be close to Him, to cling to Him and be His people. Their purpose was to bring glory to His name (which is the purpose of everyone who covers themselves with the name of Christ). But as He tells Jeremiah, God's people chose to turn away from Him.

When the bad stuff started happening, though, the Israelites started crying out to God. In their case it was a drought--in ours right now, the "bad stuff" looks like riots and violence and tyranny and hatred being spewed out. So like Israel did, we've started crying out to God. We mirror Israel's words in chapter 14:7-9

"Although our sins testify against us,
    do something, Lord, for the sake of your name.
For we have often rebelled;
   we have sinned against you^.

You who are the hope of Israel,
    its Savior in times of distress,
why are you like a stranger in the land,
    like a traveler who stays only a night^?

Why are you like a man taken by surprise,
    like a warrior powerless to save?
You are among us, Lord,
    and we bear your name;
    do not forsake us!"

 And we know that God's promises tell us that He will protect us and rescue us, right?

Here's the thing, though--His covenant with us is an "If...then" statement that depends on us holding up our end of the bargain. Here's God's response:


“Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence! Let them go! And if they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ tell them, ‘This is what the Lord says:

“‘Those destined for death, to death;
those for the sword, to the sword;
those for starvation, to starvation;
those for captivity, to captivity.’"

Wait a minute--that's not what He's supposed to say, right? He's supposed to just tell us that all the ugly stuff we've done, all the times we've broken our promises, doesn't really matter. He'll swoop in and save the day, rescuing us from the consequences of our actions.

Here's the thing, though--we've spent decades pushing God out. We've told Him (as Israel did) that we're smarter than Him and that we can take care of ourselves. We've declared that we are better at planning our future and determining our steps, that we don't need to follow God's path because we can create our own.

And then we have the nerve to wonder why that path has become treacherous.

God is eternally faithful and merciful, but He is also eternally just. As such, there are times when in His wisdom He lets us deal with the consequences of our actions. It's just like we do as parents--as much as I would love to protect my kids from anything negative, making sure they have a happy, comfortable life, and as much as I would love to protect them from the negative consequences of their actions. As a parent, though, I know that sometimes my children need to learn from their actions. Sometimes they need to face up to the negative consequences of bad decisions in order to truly understand why those decisions are wrong. If they don't ever have to deal with the consequences, they won't ever learn to stop making those wrong decisions.

So here in Jeremiah, God decides to give people exactly what they've asked for. He decides to take a step back and let people be in charge. As a result, though, they are forced to deal with the consequences of being in charge.

We want to be in charge of our lives. We try to make it sound holy, quoting verses out of context or in bits and pieces:

• "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11
• But we ignore the fact that this verse directly follows one that talks about 70 years of exile in Babylon.
•  "He will give you the desires of your heart" ~Psalm 37:4b
• But the first of that verse? It says that God will give us our heart's desire when we desire Him.
• "God works all things for good" ~Romans 8:28
• But we conveniently leave off the end of the verse that says God works all things for good when we are called according to His purpose.

The thing is, we aren't good at being in control. We push God and His standards out of the picture and then wonder why He doesn't answer us when we ask Him to get us out of the messes we create.