We're currently in the bay area on a trip celebrating my dad's upcoming birthday. We don't have a strict itinerary we're following, so everything has been quite flexible. My brother decided recently that he wanted to play in a chess tournament about half an hour from my aunt's place in Santa Clara.

It was a one day tournament today starting from 9 in the morning and ending at 3 or 4 in the afternoon. My brother won the first three rounds, and ended up playing his friend in the finals. He drew with his friends, and in the tiebreak calculations came out in first place overall. Congratulations Isaac.

There were two adults rated over 2000 in the tournament, but neither of them placed in the top three, which ended up being my brother, his friend, and another chess kid I've seen before (perhaps during our las vegas chess tournament trip?)

During my brother's first round, my mom and I drove to the Best Buy in sunnyvale to see if it had the notebook memory that the best buy we visited yesterday ran out of. We arrived one minute before the store opened its doors, and found that they had the RAM in stock. I bought 4 sticks of 1 GB notebook RAM for $29.99 each.

Later in the evening, I installed it, upgrading my computer from 512MB of slow ram to 2GB of fast ram. Huzzah.

During my brother's chess tournament, I spent a good amount of time reading more of Shadow of the Almighty.

Devotion time notes:

Jeremiah 27

The Lord sends Jeremiah to deliver a message to the kings of five nations, telling them that everything in creation is under God's dominion, and revealing what God has planned regarding the rise and fall of nations. All these nations will become subject to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon until the time comes when Babylon will become subject to other nations. God himself will ensure these things, directly punishing nations who do not accept the rule of Nebuchadnezzar.

Empires rise and fall at God's command.

Jeremiah also warns the people against false prophets who prophesy lies, who claim that their nations will not become subject to Babylon. It would seem to the people as if these prophets preach the truth, since the people believe that their god will deliver them from the hands of foreign kings, but God makes it clear that his will is true reality, even if it from the peoples' view of him.

True messengers of God do not overlook or ignore the sinfulness of their people and turn a blind eye to God's judgements, but instead appeal to God on behalf of their people and do what they can to turn the people's hearts back to God. Godly Pastors and church leaders in our day and age must act in the same way.

Jeremiah ends up informing the kings of the five nations, the king of Judah, and the priests and people of Judah of these things, warning them strictly not to reject the rule of Nebuchadnezzar, which God has ordained.

At the very end of this chapter, God once again shows his boundless mercy and Father's heart for his wicked and rebellious people. After the time of punishment ends, he offers a promise to restore the nation of Israel. Though the people have rejected God, he does not abandon them forever, but lovingly carries out the necessary correction while at the same time offering hope to his people.

In preaching these things to these nations, Jeremiah obeys God by physically wearing a yoke. Matthew Henry says,

Hereby he intimated that he advised them to nothing but what he was resolved to do himself; for he was not one of those that bind heavy burdens on others, which they themselves will not touch with one of their fingers. Ministers must thus lay themselves under the weight and obligation of what they preach to others.

Henry also notes that with the rise of the Babylonian empire, these five nations and Judah were most likely organizing treaties and devising ways to defend their homelands. Jeremiah, however, informs them that nothing in the world could save them, for the creator of the world had ordained these the things that would surely come to pass.

We are currently living in a similar state now, for Christ has come to save the world, and has promised that he will return. The Lord of all creation has revealed to all of us what will surely happen in the future, and we are powerless to resist these things, so it would be foolish of us to try. The fact that the conquest of these six nations happened exactly in history as Jeremiah warned reveals to us the awesome power of God that we must bow to, but the fact that God redeemed his people and restored them just as he had promised reveals to us the infinite love of God that we can take hope in and cling to with confidence.

God is not a cruel, merciless God that subjects his own people to needless violence and oppression, for he had given his people many chances to turn back to him and avoid all these things. He had promised good things for his people as long as they would love him and obey his precepts, yet they rejected this good deal and took a bad one. Therefore, our merciful and loving God was forced to use the Babylonian conquest as a way to correct his people and bring them back to himself, rather than as a way to carry out cruel and unnecessary bloodshed.