Day 172: The People Fail to Obey, Again

Jeremiah 42:19-43-7

“Yahweh has spoken concerning you, remnant of Judah, ‘Don’t go into Egypt!’ Know certainly that I have testified to you today. For you have dealt deceitfully against your own souls; for you sent me to Yahweh your God, saying, ‘Pray for us to Yahweh our God; and according to all that Yahweh our God says, so declare to us, and we will do it.’ I have declared it to you today; but you have not obeyed Yahweh your God’s voice in anything for which he has sent me to you. Now therefore know certainly that you will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence in the place where you desire to go to live.”

When Jeremiah had finished speaking to all the people all the words of Yahweh their God, with which Yahweh their God had sent him to them, even all these words, then Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men spoke, saying to Jeremiah, “You speak falsely. Yahweh our God has not sent you to say, ‘You shall not go into Egypt to live there;’ but Baruch the son of Neriah has turned you against us, to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may put us to death or carry us away captive to Babylon.”

So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, didn’t obey Yahweh’s voice, to dwell in the land of Judah. But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the captains of the forces took all the remnant of Judah, who had returned from all the nations where they had been driven, to live in the land of Judah— the men, the women, the children, the king’s daughters, and every person who Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan; and Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of Neriah. They came into the land of Egypt, for they didn’t obey Yahweh’s voice; and they came to Tahpanhes.

It has been hard for me to read about the life of Jeremiah. He spent his life in obedience to God but in return he had a life of great persecution by his own people and here we read that it continued as he was taken captive by more disobedient Jews and forced to go to Egypt. It’s alarming that these Jews lied to Jeremiah about what they intended to do. Notice that they accused Jeremiah of lying as they themselves were lying. When we fail to trust in God, our fears are able to take over and produce evil in us. If only they had been willing to simply rest in God’s word. Instead, they forced Jeremiah to go with them to Egypt.

Jeremiah’s words here appear to show us that he was used to the idea that God was using him to give messages to those who would disobey them. Even before the people decided to disobey, Jeremiah predicted that they would. Perhaps Jeremiah was learning to rest in God’s will for him. As we move on to the next book of the Bible, I think we will get a better look at what Jeremiah was thinking as he went through these things. The next book of the Bible is called: Lamentations. It’s pretty obvious from that name that it wasn’t a fun thing for Jeremiah to endure, but perhaps we will learn how he was able to endure it and it will help us as we endure things that we must endure in our lives as well.

Day 157: What Sense Does This Make?

Jeremiah 38:1-6

Shephatiah the son of Mattan, Gedaliah the son of Pashhur, Jucal the son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur the son of Malchijah heard the words that Jeremiah spoke to all the people, saying, “Yahweh says, ‘He who remains in this city will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans will live. He will escape with his life and he will live.’ Yahweh says, ‘This city will surely be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, and he will take it.’ ”

Then the princes said to the king, “Please let this man be put to death, because he weakens the hands of the men of war who remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words to them; for this man doesn’t seek the welfare of this people, but harm.”

Zedekiah the king said, “Behold, he is in your hand; for the king can’t do anything to oppose you.”

Then they took Jeremiah and threw him into the dungeon of Malchijah the king’s son, that was in the court of the guard. They let down Jeremiah with cords. In the dungeon there was no water, but mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire.

It’s hard for me to complain about my problems as a Christian when I think about Jeremiah. He had just been given his freedom from a dungeon only to be forced into a muddy well. Wouldn’t he have been better off in the dungeon? I wonder if Jeremiah began to question his decision to ask the king to leave the dungeon? It’s hard to see how Jeremiah could have been happy about anything. Everyone hated him, he was starving, he was in a small space and sinking in mud to top it all off. Is this what it means to serve God? Would anyone decide to follow Jeremiah’s example? How could this be God’s will?

This is really hard to deal with don’t you think? God told Jeremiah to spend his life giving people a message that they wouldn’t receive. Then he told him to use his money to buy property that was going to be taken over by foreign invaders, and then allowed people to throw him into a mud hole to die. Have you ever felt like what God is doing doesn’t make any sense?

As I mentioned before, Jesus knew about these things and He actually told us what we should do in these circumstances. He told us to become extremely glad because these are the kind of things that happen to people that God intends to reward. As bad as things were at this low point in Jeremiah’s career, that fact was that things were going to become very, very good for him in the future. Thankfully, we get to read about that too. For now, we should practice thinking like Jesus told us to think. Let’s not think about the mud hole we are in, let’s consider what it means for our eternal future. Every minute we get closer to our eternal destiny and we can’t even begin to imagine how amazing it will be for us when we arrive.

Day 156: Ask and Receive

Jeremiah 37:16-21

When Jeremiah had come into the dungeon house and into the cells, and Jeremiah had remained there many days, then Zedekiah the king sent and had him brought out. The king asked him secretly in his house, “Is there any word from Yahweh?”

Jeremiah said, “There is.” He also said, “You will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.”

Moreover Jeremiah said to king Zedekiah, “How have I sinned against you, against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me in prison? Now where are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, ‘The king of Babylon will not come against you, nor against this land?’ Now please hear, my lord the king: please let my supplication be presented before you, that you not cause me to return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there.”

Then Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guard. They gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers’ street, until all the bread in the city was gone. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

God really hates lies. He even calls it out as a major reason for His punishments in the book of Revelation. Here’s what He says:

Revelation 21:8

But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

You could say that Jeremiah was now in a sort of Hell on earth situation. He had spent many days in a dungeon during a time when no one had food. I doubt very much if he had eaten at all while sitting in the dark and cold. When the king took him out to talk with him about his visions for the future, Jeremiah still didn’t lie. He had to tell the king that he was going to be taken by the Babylonians. I think that most people would lie in this situation in order to get out of suffering, but an honest man doesn’t do that. There’s a worse place than any place here on earth and that is Hell and Jeremiah was obviously aware of what would happen to him should he ever fail to tell the truth about what God said. You can contrast his behavior with that of the king. The king wouldn’t even talk to Jeremiah openly but talked to “him secretly in his house.” In a sense, the king was lying by his behavior, just to protect his reputation.

Even though Jeremiah was obedient, starving to death in a dungeon was a horrible thing. Even though he had to tell the king the truth, he reasoned and pleaded with the king to be allowed to not die in the dungeon. I would like to take this opportunity to talk about suffering a bit more because I think that those who don’t suffer that much sometimes act like it’s a good thing that we should somehow enjoy. It is true that suffering for the Lord is always good, but Jeremiah demonstrates the wisdom in choosing to do what we can to stop suffering, even for the Lord. Jeremiah didn’t want to suffer if he could avoid it and he asked God’s representative of the evil government of his time if he would allow him to not go back. Remember, God had told Jeremiah that He would be with him and protect him, yet God had allowed Jeremiah to end up starving to death in a dungeon. It really wasn’t adding up. God chose to require that Jeremiah ask to be taken out of the situation and God arranged that this condemned king would choose to remove Jeremiah from the dungeon and feed Him instead.

Could it be that God wants us to ask Him to remove our suffering? I believe He does. That doesn’t mean that all of our suffering will be removed, but I do believe a great deal of it will be. Jeremiah demonstrates this but so did Paul. He asked God that his “thorn in the flesh” be removed. In that case God gave him the grace to overcome it without removing it, but Paul still asked repeatedly. Even Jesus asked to be removed from some of His suffering if it was God’s will. Jesus had to go through the whole thing for us. I think that’s why God wants us to ask. Jesus already went through the fire for us. I think that God desires to take take some of that fire from us when we ask. So I believe that when we are suffering, we should ask God to take us out of it, even if that suffering has served a good purpose in our lives.

Day 155: Mob Justice

Jeremiah 37:11-15

When the army of the Chaldeans had withdrawn from Jerusalem for fear of Pharaoh’s army, then Jeremiah went out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin, to receive his portion there, in the middle of the people. When he was in Benjamin’s gate, a captain of the guard was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he seized Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “You are defecting to the Chaldeans!”

Then Jeremiah said, “That is false! I am not defecting to the Chaldeans.”

But he didn’t listen to him; so Irijah seized Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes. The princes were angry with Jeremiah, and struck him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe; for they had made that the prison.

It’s pretty obvious that this passage is relevant today. They had mobs back in Jeremiah’s day but they were nothing like the ones we have today. With the presence of world-wide social media, an accusation can turn into condemnation in a matter of seconds. I happen to live in an area in the United States in which this has happened multiple times in the last 20 years. In Jeremiah’s case, he was merely leaving town at a time when he could do business outside of the city. This appears to have been the business of acquiring the land that God told him to purchase. While he was doing that, he was falsely accused of attempting to defect to Babylon. Instead of being given a proper trial, they simply kidnapped him, beat him and locked him in jail.

There’s a lot of things for us to learn from these events. First of all, doing God’s will doesn’t always mean that you won’t be opposed or stay out of trouble. In this case, Jeremiah was completely obedient to God, yet he ended up being accused, beat and thrown in jail! Was this a sign that he was outside of God’s will? Absolutely not, but isn’t that what we think sometimes? We need to remember events like these when we go through trouble. We especially need to remember them when we are tempted to accuse other Christians of sin when things don’t go well for them. The Bible clearly illustrates the fact that good people often suffer persecution and it should be very obvious that this continues in our cultures today. Let’s remember what Jesus told us:

Luke 6:22-23

Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude and mock you, and throw out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake.

Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did the same thing to the prophets.

Another important thing to pay attention to is that government officials and police have a very serious responsibility to follow the law and to not jump to conclusions based on appearances. Israeli law clearly stated that no one was to be accused without a proper trial, yet that’s exactly what happened to Jeremiah here. Ancient Israeli law actually forms the bases for our laws for trials today. Israel had these very laws already but they abandoned them in their own fear and passion. Any of us in positions of authority have the ability to do this whether we are managers, parents or older siblings. Let’s learn from this and stand up for justice. Let’s allow God to show us the facts before we jump to conclusions. Let’s also remember that social media is often used to slander people. This is a sin that actually keeps people from heaven. As I have mentioned before it’s right up there with all the other big ones like murder and sexual sins. Christians should have nothing to do with social media slander but should be a force of righteousness that moves people toward the proper methods of justice.

Day 150: God’s Desire to Forgive

Jeremiah 36:1-7

In the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, “Take a scroll of a book, and write in it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel, against Judah, and against all the nations, from the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah even to this day. It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I intend to do to them, that they may each return from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.”

Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah; and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all Yahweh’s words, which he had spoken to him, on a scroll of a book. Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, “I am restricted. I can’t go into Yahweh’s house. Therefore you go, and read from the scroll which you have written from my mouth, Yahweh’s words, in the ears of the people in Yahweh’s house on the fast day. Also you shall read them in the ears of all Judah who come out of their cities. It may be they will present their supplication before Yahweh, and will each return from his evil way; for Yahweh has pronounced great anger and wrath against this people.”

This passage exposes the heart of God for everyone to see. After all of these pronouncements of His coming judgment on Judah, He still has the desire to see if anyone would be willing to repent. Isn’t it obvious that God hates to do bring punishment? God would do anything to get His people to repent and turn back to Him and even after all that Jeremiah has spoken, He is still trying to get them to repent so that He wouldn’t have to punish them.

So God had Jeremiah write a book that contained everything God told him. I am pretty sure that this required a supernatural memory. It could also be that men were smarter back then. It would make sense that people today are not as smart after so many years of genetic degradation. I think that the reason we think we are smarter, other than mere arrogance, is that our culture has influenced us to think in an evolutionary way. We automatically think that we are getting smarter when the scientific facts would suggest the exact opposite. It’s true that we have built on the documented knowledge of others, but that doesn’t mean that the average man is smarter today. In any case, Jeremiah was able to do the job.

Another encouraging thing is that Jeremiah found a brave man willing to write it down and then proceed to go out to read it to others. Baruch could see that Jeremiah’s words had already caused him to be restricted, but was willing to be obedient to God’s desire. It’s encouraging to know that Jeremiah wasn’t completely alone. It is possible that we may be called to suffer alone for a time, but often, God gives us friends who are willing to to go through hard times with us.

Day 136: God’s Dark Comedy

Jeremiah 32:1-5

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. Now at that time the king of Babylon’s army was besieging Jerusalem. Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the king of Judah’s house.

For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, “Why do you prophesy, and say, ‘Yahweh says, “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will take it; and Zedekiah king of Judah won’t escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but will surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and will speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes will see his eyes; and he will bring Zedekiah to Babylon, and he will be there until I visit him,” says Yahweh, “though you fight with the Chaldeans, you will not prosper?” ’ ”

There’s a sense in which God has a dark sense of humor and I believe we are reading about one of those times in our passage today. The end of Jerusalem was at hand and Jeremiah had clearly shown himself to be a prophet of God. Here we learn that king Zedekiah of Judah didn’t like what Jeremiah was saying about him and the kingdom and decided to lock him up. That’s not funny at all, but what is funny is how God tells us about these things.

Doesn’t it strike you as a bit sarcastic that God would record in His book for all the world to see, king Zedekiah’s own words about the events. He clearly states Jeremiah’s message while explaining why he decided to lock him up. These words are so clear that you and I can read them and know exactly what happened. Jeremiah obviously did his job perfectly and king Zedekiah clearly understood his words enough to complain about them. All God had to do was record the king’s complaint. Now it serves as an obvious record that the king heard God’s word and purposefully chose to fight against it and even decided to persecute His messenger. God simply records the words and allows us to see that what Jeremiah said happened exactly as he said it would.

God hates faithlessness. The Bible tells us that He mocks the mockers and that’s what we experience as we consider this passage. God will also avenge those who take persecution for Him. It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious. Let this serve as a warning to us all. When God says something, let’s wise up and simply accept it, and when mockers think they are mocking God, they should beware because they are probably being used by God to destroy themselves.

Day 114: God’s Grace and Our Dedication to Sin

Jeremiah 26:1-9

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from Yahweh: “Yahweh says: ‘Stand in the court of Yahweh’s house, and speak to all the cities of Judah, which come to worship in Yahweh’s house, all the words that I command you to speak to them. Don’t omit a word. It may be they will listen, and every man turn from his evil way; that I may relent from the evil which I intend to do to them because of the evil of their doings.’ You shall tell them, “Yahweh says: ‘If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law, which I have set before you, to listen to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I send to you, even rising up early and sending them, but you have not listened; then I will make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.” ’ ”

The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in Yahweh’s house. When Jeremiah had finished speaking all that Yahweh had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, “You shall surely die! Why have you prophesied in Yahweh’s name, saying, ‘This house will be like Shiloh, and this city will be desolate, without inhabitant?’ ” All the people were crowded around Jeremiah in Yahweh’s house.

It’s pretty clear that Jesus thought quite a bit about passages of the Bible like this one. He even said to beware when all men think well of you because they did that to the false prophets. Jesus made it clear that real prophets get in trouble, and we get a great illustration of that right here.

Here we read that God made it very clear to Jeremiah that he was to go into the temple area and speak exactly what he was told to speak by God. It is very obvious that Jeremiah didn’t have a choice here other than to go against God and not do what He said. He was between a rock and a hard place. God puts us in these positions sometimes. I believe He’s trying to get us to see who is really worthy of being feared. Should our society be what scares us or should disobeying God scare us? Thankfully, Jeremiah demonstrated the appropriate action here. God is the one to fear and that’s the One Jeremiah chose, but God also allowed the people to retaliate against him.

This is a hard one for me too. Why would God tell us to do something knowing that we are going to get in trouble? I’m pretty sure that many who hear what I’m saying have an answer because many of you have gone through trouble for your obedience to God. It’s amazing how many people look back and thank God for bringing them through it. Still, I don’t believe it’s something that we choose to have happen to ourselves.

Another thing that strikes me here is the severely irrational behavior of the people. They all decided to kill Jeremiah for saying: “This house will be like Shiloh…” but that’s not what He said! He said that if they refuse to repent, that these things would happen. By attacking Jeremiah, they act as if it is impossible for them to repent and save the temple from destruction! Their behavior demonstrates their dedication to sin and that’s all it does. To add to their sins, they decided to attack God’s messenger. God said here that all He was trying to do was to warn the people so that they would repent and He could stop His plan to destroy them, but instead of repenting, they added a few nails to their coffins.

This is the state of mankind. By nature, we are irrationally and hopelessly dedicated to our sin. We attack the messengers when God attempts to save us. It is only through the intervention of God by His grace that we ever have a chance to see the light. Thank God He chose to break through to us and cause us to reverse our path because we would have surely killed all His messengers and died without God.