Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Amen. While we're standing, I have you standing. We're going to continue to pray. We prayed for this family, but let's pray for us and our family that God would speak into our hearts today. So, Father, we thank you as we are going to examine your word today. I pray that your spirit would examine our hearts, that you would speak into our lives, Father, that we would hear your voice, that. That we would, Lord, in this moment be comforted, but also challenged. That we would have an understanding heart, that we would have an open heart, that we would grow in our understanding of your ways, Father. And I pray that we would be people of faith and courage, Lord, that we would overcome the fears that are so naturally embedded into the human family. Father, ultimately, the greatest fear of all is the fear of death. But we're so thankful today that you have conquered that great enemy of humanity by coming and dying and rising from the dead and making a way for us to become overcomers, and so that death now no longer has the terror and the power that it once had. Father, as we put our trust in you, we know we're moving through death, and we move into life, eternal life, forever life with you. And we thank you for that. In Jesus name and God's people said, amen. Amen. You may be seated.
[00:01:30] So I've been doing a series from the book of Jeremiah, and let me just share. I was listening to lectures on Saturday morning from a historian by the name of Lynn Olsen, and Lynn was sharing in her series, the unsung heroes of World War II. She said, in the summer of 1940, the people of western Europe were in a profound state of shock. In just a few weeks, Nazi Germany, with blinding speed, had invaded and occupied six countries, one of which was Belgium. 17 days after german troops poured over the Belgium borders, its government surrendered. But one hero did not.
[00:02:15] Andrea Dejon, also known as Dee Dee Dee was a commercial artist by profession. But when Belgium was invaded, she started working as a nurse for british troops wounded in the fighting there. But what really motivated and triggered something inside of her was when she had never seen her father weep until that day. And he began weeping, and she said to him, don't weep. We're going to do something about this. Along with a group of friends and acquaintances, she began to smuggle injured british soldiers out of the german controlled hospitals and took them to nearby safe houses that she had set up for that purpose. Not long afterward, she traveled secretly to Spain, which during World War II was a neutral country. And there she met british officials, and she told them that there were many british servicemen that were still hiding in Belgium, and some of the soldiers, as well as airmen who had now been shot down in recent bombings, were now being hidden, and she could bring them out. In the past few months, she said, she and several of her friends had set up an escape line through Belgium and France to help these men get back to England. If the british government would give her money to help pay for the line, she could bring them out. And by the time the war was over, Dijon's escape network, which was called the Comet Line, would be the largest and most important escape line in occupied Europe. It would be credited with rescuing more than 800 british and american servicemen. That's an amazing feat. Being part of an escape network was probably the most dangerous form of resistance work in Europe. German officials were keenly aware of the value of these airmen to the allied bombing effort.
[00:03:57] And so if escape line members were caught, they faced torture, the horrors of the nazi concentration camp and or execution. It was particularly dangerous for the couriers. Most of them were young women, many of them still in their teens, who escorted the servicemen hundreds of miles across enemy territory. From the time of the comet line's creation in 1941, there had been numerous arrests of its workers. But Dee Dee herself managed to elude them for more than 18 months and had herself brought 118 servicemen through Belgium and France. After her capture, she was sent to a prison in Paris and then to the infamous Ravensbrook concentration camp, the only german camp designed specifically for women, and it was located north of Berlin. Of the 132,000 women and children sent there during the war, more than 70% died of starvation, torture, beating, hanging, shooting, horrific medical experiments. And beginning in November of 1944, in a newly installed gas chamber following the war.
[00:05:08] Let me just go back here, it says.
[00:05:12] She herself was close to dying, but by the time Raven's book was liberated in the spring of 45, she owed her survival. And she later said to the German, said to the. The reason why she survived, she said, was the german stereotyped view of women. Coming from a very traditional and patriarchal society. They viewed women chiefly in their conventional domestic roles, as mothers and wives. Therefore, when Dee Dee, after her capture, admitted to creating the comet line, she managed to avoid execution because the Germans could not bring themselves to believe that such a pretty, delicate looking young woman could have devised such an intricate operation.
[00:05:54] Thank God for certain prejudices, right?
[00:05:57] Following the war, she was awarded the US Medal of Freedom and the British George Medal, both of them high civilian honors. And for most of the rest of her life, she devoted herself once again to the saving of lives and the saving of others, working first as a nurse in a leper colony in the Belgium Congo and then at a leper hospital in Ethiopia. Isn't that an amazing story, by the way, her father and sister and many of her family were caught, and they did not survive the war. But this young woman know, from the day we are born till the day we die, we are all living in the shadow of death. We don't think about that, but it's true. Now, it may not seem so acute, or maybe the shadow is so large, as if we were living in a time of war or famine or plague or another crisis, but the reality is we're all living in the shadow of dEath. We know from the moment we're born we're going to die. There's no question about it. Generally, we're rightfully, I think, busy, engaged in this gift called liFe, intend not to Focus on the inevitable outcome of our lives. But death is always around, stalking and taking the lives of people, and we know that that's true.
[00:07:15] As we consider an unknown future. The thought came to my mind that when we walk through the shadow of the valley of dEath, we do not need to fear.
[00:07:27] We don't fear death as a child of God anymore. You go, why? Because Jesus addressed humanity's greatest enemy, and that's death itself. We know that that's true. We don't have to live in fear of it anymore, which is very powerful.
[00:07:47] DEAtH is problematic, but I believe fear is an even greater threat. It's not DEath. It's FeAR that's the greater tHreat. FeAR paralyzes people. It keeps them from moving forward. It keeps people from doing the right thing in life. Fear does that to us. It affects us in a negative way. Now, we've been looking at the book of JeRemiah and the challenges he faced in bringing God's message of impending judgment to an unreceptive nation.
[00:08:19] How many know it took continual courage for JeReMiah to remain both true to God and to the message God had given them to people who didn't want to hear it? How many know it takes courage to just keep doing the right thing? And I talked about that last week. People often reject the truth BecausE it's not what they want to hear. How many? Noah? That's true.
[00:08:40] Please don't tell me. Don't confuse me with the facts. Right? I don't want to know this stuff.
[00:08:45] While many just ignore the message, others are threatened by the message and become hostile to the messengers. Andrew Dearborn says fear does strange things to people. I think that's true.
[00:08:58] Some are almost superstitious in their avoidance of negative talk. It's ALmOST as if they believe that to silence the words means to avoid the reality to which those words probably point.
[00:09:09] That is, if you throw Jeremiah into the cistern, his message will not be heard and hopefully will not come to pass. And in the ancient world, that's what happened. There was a superstitious idea that if you kill the messenger, the curse or the message would not come to pass. And that's why you have some very fascinating stories in the scriptures.
[00:09:29] As a matter of fact, when we think about Jesus, Dearborn says, but better for Jesus to die, remember, the high priest said this, than for the people to get stirred up. So called gag orders are intended to keep someone from stating a truth publicly when it may prove to be injurious. In other words, it's a challenge, maybe to the way people are looking at life, but how do we handle opposition in our lives? Or how do we handle when people threaten us? Persecution is a very real reality to believers. Jeremiah was speaking directly against the establishment of his day. His matches was countercultural, and he had many opponents who wanted to silence him. He wasn't popular, but he was speaking on behalf of God. How are we to respond to God's message today? In Jeremiah 38, we discovered three responses towards God's message that some reject. While it's the only means of addressing our ultimate enemy, which is death itself, do you realize the message you and I have addresses humanity's greatest problem? Is that amazing?
[00:10:36] And a lot of times we're silent about it. We're not helping our fellow human beings deal with their greatest enemy, and that's death itself. Let's look at these three responses to God's message. The first is to act courageously. In other words, courageously communicate it, regardless of the cost to ourselves. It takes courage to do that. How many see Jeremiah just keeps doing it. He's getting into trouble, but he's still doing the right thing. He's preaching, even though at this season of his life in ministry, his message is widely know. I think many of us can relate to that. As many in our society do not understand the nature of God's message today of love and hope and how it deals with pain and sorrow and sin and oppression and ultimately death itself and the destruction of our culture. A lot of people TodAy don't understand the message. That's part of the problem.
[00:11:34] So what was JEReMIah's message? Let's pick it up here in JEReMIah 38 and verse one, SHEPHAThiel, son of MAitan. A few other folks, about three more, heard that JEReMIah was telling all the people when he said, this is what the Lord says. So here's JEReMIah's message. Whoever stays in the city will die by sword, famine or plague. But whoever goes out over to the BabylOnians will live. They will escape with their lives. They will live. So what is he doing? He's preaching a message. This is the way to life. But if you remain where you're at in your lives and you remain in your city, and you resist God's purposes and will, you'll perish. That's his message. Real simple.
[00:12:18] And this is what the Lord says. The city will certainly be given into the hands of the army of the king of Babylon, who will capture it. Now, we have to keep reminding ourselves, JEReMIah is not pro BabylOnian.
[00:12:30] He's pro God and his message. And God is using BAbylOn as a vehicle, as a means to discipline his people, because they've been in rebellion against God for centuries. God had warned and warned and warned, and they had ignored the warning. And when Jeremiah told them initially that Babylon, first of all, he just said there was a threat from the north, then he identified it as BAbylon. And, you know, they still didn't believe him until Babylon conquered them. And even after having been conquered by Babylon and they put the last king Zedekai, in place, they still could not seem to respond to the message. Isn't that amazing?
[00:13:09] It's being lived out in front of them, and still they're rejecting and rejecting, rejecting. We see that all the time with people.
[00:13:21] These officials were deeply upset. They were bringing severe charges against JERemIAh. As a matter of fact, this is a war situation, and they were accusing JEReMIah of treason. How many know? That's kind of a high charge in a time of war? And people that are resisting the BabylOniAns in the city, they'revolted, against them, they're rebelling against them. They're seeming to be patriotic, and Jeremiah seems to be undermining the people's confidence and willingness to fight against them. They see this as problematic. The morale is low, and they see his behavior as treasonous. Robert Davison says they condemn him out of his own mouth, quoting his own words against him. Verses two and three being virtually a quotation from Jeremiah 21. Verses nine and ten. They rightly demand from the king the death penalty for a man who's undermining the morale of soldiers and civilians, a man who, instead of working for the shalom or peace of his country, was doing his best to destroy it. Now, that was their approach, that was their charge. Yet the reality is Jeremiah was preaching for the peace of the nation. He said, if you do what God is telling you to do, your city will not be destroyed. I think he's preaching peace, but they see it as he's preaching treason. A little different understanding of what he's saying.
[00:14:44] You say, well, so how does this moment in time have any sort of bearing or application to our moment? Well, obviously, we're not being besieged by a bunch of Babylonians. That's not happening. But the necessity to turn God or face judgment is just as real right now as it was then. And that's something that I think is being missed in our culture today. We're not picking up on this. Let me just say this. If we turn to the book of revelation, where the seals are open, what do we read? War, famine, and plague will ride across the landscape.
[00:15:23] How many get this idea that war, famine, and plague are kind of these three words that God keeps bringing up towards covenant people? He said, if my people, which are called by my name, will do what I want you to do, then these things won't happen to you. But if you rebel against me, this is what's going to happen to you. That's the Old TEstament. In the New TEstament, God is still calling us to come to his provision of forgiveness in the person of Jesus. But if we refuse to repent and turn to Christ and continue to live autonomous lives, then we can anticipate in the future war, famine, and plague. They're going to ride across our landscape. Read revelation six and God's justice is going to come over all the injustices of humanity that he's going to address. Now, I know some of you have probably seen this movie sound of freedom, and we know that the trafficking, sex trafficking is huge today.
[00:16:18] There's probably more people now in bondage than there's ever been in our world.
[00:16:23] We still have slavery today. God's going to deal with this stuff, folks. You don't think God's going to judge our world for the way we're treating each other? Well, of course he is. Jesus, in speaking to his own generation, pointed out that God the father required repentance.
[00:16:40] As a matter of fact, he says it this way in Luke chapter 13 and verse four. This is trying to help the city come to grips with a tragedy that had just happened in the city of Jerusalem. One of the towers had fallen down and had killed 18 people. And Jesus says this, of those 18 who died when the tower of Salom fell on them. Do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? See, there were people saying, well, these guys, they had that coming to them. They must have been bad sinners to have that kind of a thing happen to them. Jesus says, no, that's not the case, I tell you. But unless you repent, you too will all perish. By the way, that's exactly what happened to Jerusalem. It didn't happen then. But if you go three decades later, 30 years later, the whole city was ravaged by the Romans under Titus, totally destroyed.
[00:17:32] Many people were dying of famine and plague, and the soldiers were destroying their city. You see, a lot of times we can't foresee what's about to happen. But if we're rebelling against what God, who is the creator of all humanity, we're rebelling against what he wants. We're going to suffer as a result of it. So while many are questioning today the validity or even the relevance of the Bible in our hour, and there's a lot of people doing that today, we need to understand that we're all accountable to God, our creator. While many live autonomous lives apart from God, we're still accountable to him for all of our actions. We can be rebels. But God says there's a day of accountability coming.
[00:18:17] Just like those living in Jerusalem during the siege of the Babylonians, or those living in the hour when Jesus was speaking to his generation, warning them of that judgment that I just mentioned under Titus. God is warning us today that sin always brings about death and destruction.
[00:18:35] We need to understand that you got to etch that in your mind. If we rebel against God, that's the end result, death and destruction.
[00:18:43] Just as Jeremiah, then Jesus, we too are being warned today to turn to him, for he's willing to extend mercy, grace, and forgiveness to us. Even though God's messengers are always faith, with courageous choices to do and say the right thing, I think we're living in that moment. It takes a little more courage today to talk. How many say that's probably true? A lot of times we don't share with people is because of what fear.
[00:19:09] And I'm going to try to show you today that fear is the opposite of faith.
[00:19:15] And if we're living in fear, we're living in defeat. We're living in disobedience.
[00:19:21] God is calling us to be courageous. God is calling us to be faithful.
[00:19:26] News of divine judgment is always bad news. Philip Rankin says it is unpleasant to hear that God punishes sin rather than overlooks it. That's what we'd like to believe, but it doesn't work that way. But the only thing that really matters is whether or not the bad news or divine judgment is true. And when the bad news is God's news, it needs to be heard. In other words, if God is saying, I'm going to deal with this stuff, then we better pay attention.
[00:19:52] Jeremiah was not just preaching judgment. He was also preaching grace and salvation. He was telling people, this is the way out of the problem. This is the doorway to peace. This is the answer to the problem. Turn to God and surrender to his will for your life. Wasn't he preaching that if they would have only listened, the city would not have been destroyed, but they refused to listen.
[00:20:17] While we might not be under siege from a foreign army, we certainly are under siege from sin in our lives and in our society. How many say that's the truth? Are we not under siege from sin? Can we not see how sin is dominating the landscape? We're being besieged by it. It's an enemy. It's like an army surrounding us. What makes the good news about Jesus so good is that Jesus takes the judgment upon himself. He takes sin upon himself. It becomes efficacious. In other words, it becomes, as I write here, applicable to us personally. It works for us when we repent and surrender to God, and we surrender to Christ, and we receive his forgiveness and his provision for our sins. How powerful is that? Let me move on to the second response to God's message, to reject it. And then we try to silence the message. I think our culture is trying to do that today. A lot of it, not all of it. In this example, we're going to see that those who were opposed to God's message wanted the messenger to be destroyed. It was kind of put out the gag order. We don't want to hear this anymore, right? So they charged him and they imprisoned Jeremiah in verse four. Then the official said to the king, this man should be put to death. He's discouraging the soldiers who are left in the city as well as all the people by the things he's saying to them. This man is not seeking the good of these people where they're ruined. How many say that was the opposite of the truth? He was actually seeking the good of the people and keeping them from ruin, but nobody would listen to him. Then here's the king's response. He's in your hands. King can do nothing to oppose you.
[00:21:54] Tremper Longman says, we may presume that these people were members of a pro egyptian political party, one that looked to Egypt for hope against the babylonian threat. They were not only disturbed by Jeremiah's message, but they actively sought his arrest and ultimately his death. The king's response tells us something about his fear of influence in the nation and his personal indecisiveness. Now, we got to remember something. He's a guy that's been put into power by the Babylonians, so he doesn't have the support of everybody in his city right now or in his nation. We got to understand that. John Thompson says the king's true position is revealed and he is his own critic. The real power lay with the officials who had Zedekiah under their control.
[00:22:38] He was, of course, a puppet king set up by Nebuchadnezzar after the exile of Jehoiachin and possibly not accepted by everyone in the nation as the true king. Many hope for the return of Jehoachin, who had been replaced and brought into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar.
[00:22:53] The fact that he was to support the Babylonians and had rejected that position and role, he was rebelling against the people who put him in power, the Babylonians. And he kind of was now catering to the patriotic group that wanted to rebel against them. He put himself in a very compromised position, is what he did. He made a bad choice. He went the wrong way. He misjudged the whole situation.
[00:23:23] And the reality is he was now living with great fear and uncertainty. That's what we need to learn about Zedekiah. He's living with fear and uncertainty. And when we live with fear and uncertainty, we're going to make terrible decisions. How many know he should have stood up for this, know Jeremiah did not deserve to be punished. He's the only one that was speaking the truth. But they didn't want to hear the truth, the Bible says. So they took Jeremiah and they put him in the cistern of Malachi, the king's son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah rye ropes into the cistern. It had no water in it, only mud. And Jeremiah sank down into the mud. So it's giving you an idea that the city's besieged. Their water supply is low. Even the cistern that was designed to hold water was now nearly out of water or out of water. And Jeremiah is now sinking in mud. And that's where they want to leave him, with no food, leaving him, hopefully, in their minds, to die. But then we read something. There's a rescue. And I like the word. I put the word. Kindly rescue verse seven. But Ebed Melek, a cushite, an official in the royal palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah in the cistern. While the king was sitting in the Benjamin gate, Ebed Melek went out of the palace and said to him, my lord, the king, these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have thrown him into a cistern where he will starve to death when there's no longer any bread in the city. Then the king commanded Ebed Malek, the Kushai, take 30 men from here with you and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies. It's an interesting twist in the story. Now the king has changed his mind because of this advocate, this intercessor that stood before him. Here is a foreign born servant who advocates on behalf of Jeremiah. His name, Ebed Melek. Melek in Hebrew is the word king. So Ebed means servant. He's the servant of the king. In a sense, he's the servant of king Zedekiah. But I believe, as we're going to see, he's the servant of the most high God. God is going to use this man in a beautiful way.
[00:25:39] He's a man who's put his trust in God and believes that Jeremiah is speaking on behalf of God. Tremper Longman explains his actions and what maybe motivated this man. He said, this is our first introduction to Ibed Malek, who is called an official in the royal palace and the Kushite. The former gave him access to the king. The latter indicates that he was ethiopian by birth or descent. The text at this point does not present any motivation for Ibed Melek's actions on Jeremiah's behalf, but we immediately assume that he's sympathetic towards the message that Jeremiah is delivering. This intuition is encouraged by a divine oracle. That happens in the next chapter 39, where God explains why Ebed Melek will survive the devastation by stating to him, because you trusted in me, I'm going to say something. We are saved judgment because of our trust in God. Isn't that a beautiful thought? And we see that in this man's life. In other words, Ebed Melek was a true worshiper of Yahweh and must have recognized that the prophet was speaking the words of his God.
[00:26:45] Now, it's interesting that the king says, take 30 men. I'm reading commentators, and some of them are saying, well, maybe that was just a scribal mistake. Maybe it was only three. I like the idea of, it's probably 30 men. And I agree with Philip Riken when he says he now seems to be acting independently.
[00:27:05] This goes back. This is what he does. So Ebek Melek took the men with him and went to a room under the treasury in the palace. He took some old rags and wore not clothes from there, and he let them down with ropes to Jeremiah and the cistern and Ebed Melek said to Jeremiah, put these old rags and wore not clothes under your arms to pad the ropes. Jeremiah did so, and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard. So it seems here that the king is acting independently of his officials. Whereas earlier he said he could do nothing to oppose their demands, now he changes his mind. It's an indication somewhat of his indecisive nature. The king had good reason to expect opposition, and he ordered a large number of guards to prevent interference from Jeremiah's enemies, because once they would discover he was being released, they might oppose it. So he sent enough people there to protect JEremiah. Interesting little story there. But how many can see that the kindness of this man, I mean, to think about getting rags to put under the arms of Jeremiah, it shows us something of his nature. And I just put down in my mind, the way we treat people is indicative of the work of God's grace in our lives.
[00:28:26] You may want to think about that. The way you and I treat people is actually indicative of what God's doing in us. Not only did he advocate for Jeremiah, he treated him with dignity and with respect, and he cared about his condition, and he did something about it. That's a very powerful thing. But let me move on to the final response to God's message, and that's finding excuses for disobeying the message.
[00:28:52] So why is it that so many people ignore or disregard what God has to say?
[00:29:00] Usually it's when we don't want to hear what's being said.
[00:29:05] We don't want to make the changes necessary in our lives. So we try to find excuses for continuing in the wrong direction in life.
[00:29:15] For others, it's simply that they're motivated by fear. We are unwilling to trust that what God has for us is exactly what we need. And what, once we embrace, we will ultimately desire and long for. What am I saying?
[00:29:34] When we're not doing the right thing and we're interested in remaining in rebellion against God, we don't want to hear the truth. Okay. But the moment we recognize, how would I say it? That this is not in our best interest to continue in this direction. And we recognize that God has something better for us. And the moment we embrace it and God fills us with the nature of his spirit in life, all of a sudden, we begin to realize this is what we've always longed for all of our lives. Isn't that an amazing thing, that when you do the right thing, later on you're going, I feel so good about doing the right thing. And when you've done the wrong thing, initially you may enjoy it, but eventually you realize how diminishing it is of yourself and those around you, and you realize the impoverishment that it creates in your life and then the people around you, it's very powerful. So here we see the king sending for the prophet again, verse 14. The king sends for Jeremiah, the prophet. He has him brought to the third entrance to the temple of the Lord, and he says, I'm going to ask you something and do not hide anything from me. Now, Jeremiah is a little bit put off by this king. How many know that no matter what you say to him, he doesn't listen anyway? So Jeremiah's response to him is, if I give you an answer, will you not kill me? In other words, if I tell you what you don't want to hear, you're not going to be happy with me. You're going to get rid of me, even if I give you counsel.
[00:31:00] On top of that, even if I do give you counsel, you're not going to listen to me anyways.
[00:31:06] This book is really an interesting book, because over and over again, you're going to find out Jeremiah does tell people exactly what God's telling them, and they go, no, God's not saying that.
[00:31:16] They don't want to hear it. That's not what I have in my mind. That's not what God is saying. We get like that.
[00:31:24] But King Zedekai swore the soul secretly to Jeremiah. Surely, as the Lord lives, who has given us breath, I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those who want to kill you. In other words, I'm not sending you back where you were. I won't kill you. I'll protect you. And then Jeremiah says to Zedekai, this is what the Lord almighty, the God of Israel, says. If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared and the city will not be burnt down, and you and your family will live. How many go? That's a beautiful personal promise to the king. God is saying to him, listen to me, do this and live right. How many hear it. Do this and live, and your family will live.
[00:32:05] That should be some motivation. Don't just do this for your sake. Do it. What about your family?
[00:32:12] But if you will not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, the city will be given into the hands of the Babylonians. They're going to burn it down. You yourself will not escape from them.
[00:32:25] Jeremiah has reason to believe that Zedekiah will not listen to his message from God.
[00:32:33] Here we see the king making these reassurances. But what we're going to discover is that fear is actually the real enemy of faith. And it is.
[00:32:45] Fear is often the underlying reason why people will not obey God and walk in faith. How many know that the opposite of faith is fear?
[00:32:54] Do you know that one of the things that keeps people out of heaven is fear?
[00:33:00] Go back and read revelation 21 eight. It says, the fearful and unbelieving, the fearful.
[00:33:06] Fear is not our friend. You go, yeah, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid to do the right thing. Fear is an adversary of faith.
[00:33:16] It takes courage to have faith. You say, well, I'm not courageous. Faith produces courage. We'll look at it that way. If you truly trust God, it'll create courage in your life. And I think that's what we all need today. Faith is what pleases God. Faith is the victory.
[00:33:34] This is the victory in our life, even our faith. Faith is what the enemy wants to erode in our lives. He wants to erode our confidence in God's word.
[00:33:43] Faith is what pleases God. Hebrews chapter eleven says, without faith, it's impossible to please God. What does it mean to have faith? It means I'm trusting and I'm acting on what God is saying. I'm doing what God says, even though I don't see the outcomes, even though in my mind it may not be what I think is the right way. But if God tells me to do it, I'm going to do it. I'm going to obey God.
[00:34:09] We gain an understanding of what's motivating this king in his continued disobedience to God's message. Here comes King Zedekai, said to Jeremiah, I'm afraid of the Jews. Now, you would have thought he would have said, look, the Babylonians put me in power and kind of afraid. I've rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar. I'm afraid of what he's going to do to me. He's not afraid of Nebuchadnezzar. He's not afraid of the Babylonians. He's not even afraid of the people that are the patriots or the pro egyptian political party that's underneath him. He says, what I'm afraid of are the Jews who have gone over to the Babylonians, for the Babylonians may hand me over to them, and they'll mistreat me.
[00:34:49] Very interesting. Why is he afraid of them? He's probably afraid of them because all along they've been telling him, why are you resisting? What God wants us to do? And he's afraid that these people have acted in obedience, that they're going to turn against him.
[00:35:08] Jeremiah says to him, I love this. They will not hand you over. So even if it's a real fear, the BabyloNiAns will not hand you over. JEremIah is making this promise. Obey the Lord by doing what I tell you, then it will go well with you, and your life will be spared. But if you refuse to surrender, this is what the lord has revealed to me.
[00:35:37] All the women left in the palace of the king of JUdah will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon. Those women will say to you, they misled you and overcame you, those trusted friends of yours. Your feet are Sunk in the mud. Your friends have deserted.
[00:35:55] They have. You know why they're talking like this? Is because they now know they're in trouble. They're probably saying to themselves, why did you listen to the wrong people? Why didn't you listen?
[00:36:08] It says, all your wives and children will be brought out to the Babylonians. You yourself will not escape from their hands, but you will be captured by the king of Babylon, and the city will be burned down.
[00:36:21] Walter Brugerman says, odly, Zedekiah does not even finch from or argue against this prophetic verdict. The situation of the king is complicated, and I put in little brackets, disobedience always creates deep complexities in our lives. Have you noticed that sin, if you keep going down that track, it just keeps multiplying the difficulties in life. It just gets worse and worse. It gets more complicated. Do you know what's amazing to me? People will live in sin for 30 years. Come and visit me and want me in 30 minutes to eradicate all the problems that they have accumulated over 30 years. It's like a sitcom or a movie. In 2 hours, it should all be over with, right?
[00:37:07] It took all that time to get into all that stuff. Listen, we need to learn how to repent, turn to God, and let him work his way of restoration over time in our lives.
[00:37:21] ZEdekIah does not fear the babylonian army or the government, as we might expect. Rather he fears his own people. And this response, he fears the pro babylonian party. Perhaps they're hostile to him because he's resisted too long in his submission to Babylon. The king is immobilized. He's politically incapable of doing what he knows theologically to be correct. How many people have I talked to and I've pointed out to them the right way? And they go, pastor, I know that's the thing I should do, but I'm not going to do it.
[00:37:57] Is that crazy?
[00:38:00] It is crazy to me. I go, why?
[00:38:03] What? Good.
[00:38:04] I can't, I won't. And a lot of it is just because they are locked into a certain mindset.
[00:38:14] Well, Jeremiah points out, this isn't just going to affect you, Zedekiah. It's going to affect everybody, the nation. It's going to affect your family. Do you know, our sins don't just affect ourselves. I get tired of people saying, the only person I'm hurting is myself. That is one of the biggest, fattest lies I've ever heard in my life.
[00:38:35] Because when you and I are not doing what God wants us to do, a whole bunch of people are going to suffer as a result. What about the people that you would have helped if you would have done what God wanted you to do? Yeah, I've already have one open. Yeah. Is that one already open? Yeah. Thank you.
[00:38:54] Sorry, guys. Thanks, George.
[00:39:01] So while their faith is not specified, Tremper Longman says the king would know what this meant. Enemy women in ancient near east times, when they were captured, were raped, forced into marriages or killed. Not a pretty picture. And you know, in the story, what happens is Zedekai is captured, and just before he's taken to Babylon, the last thing he sees is he sees all of his children murdered in front of his eyes, and then they poke his eyes out because they want him to. The last thing you saw in life is the death of those you loved. Is that painful.
[00:39:42] Rebellion leads to pain. But I put down fear does something else. It leads to deception. When we will not walk in the truth, we then embrace a lie. Afraid of what the officials in the land will think of his actions, Zedekiah resorts to lying in order to protect himself.
[00:39:59] You know, I'm going to tell you something. There are people today that would rather believe a lie than the truth. God says, okay, I'll give you a lie. I'll let you believe that lie, but it's going to take you out and it always does. Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, don't let anyone know about this conversation. Or you may die. That's a threat.
[00:40:20] If the officials here that I talked with you and they come to you and say, tell us what you said to the king, and what the king said to you, do not hide it from us, or we will kill you. Then tell them. I was pleading with the king not to send me back to Jonathan's house to die there. And all the officials did come to Jeremiah and questions him, and he told them everything the king had ordered him to say. So they said no more to him, for no one had heard his conversation with the king.
[00:40:43] Obviously, knowing that the officials would find out the king had talked to the prophet. He tells them, don't tell them all of the story. Jeremiah complies with the king's wishes, probably because it's not only advantageous to himself, but also to the king. The question then discussed by theologians is simply, did Jeremiah lie, or did he just withhold some of the truth? Did he have a right not to answer their questions fully? Was it justifiable? Is this an example of his humanity or weakness? This is one of the more difficult questions.
[00:41:20] I can't solve it. That's not the point of the sermon. The point of the message is that we are all walking in the shadow of death. It's cast upon the human family. Challenges are all going to come our way. Will we succumb to fear, or will we choose to walk by faith? It's easy to speak about ethics until we come to moments of testing. Isn't that true? How will we respond? Will we obey God regardless of the cost, or will we surrender to our fears? How will our lives be evaluated?
[00:41:52] I want to close out these few verses of scripture. Well, he remained in the courtyard. Ecclesiastes says this, a good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth.
[00:42:06] Now that's an interesting verse, isn't it? I'm going to speak on this tomorrow at a funeral.
[00:42:12] This is to suggest that death is the conclusion of life. Our journey in this life has come to an end. That's why the day of death is better than the day of life, because we've already gone through all the things that we had to run through at the beginning. When you start life, you have no idea of the course you're going to run, the obstacles, the sorrows, the difficulties that will come our way. Isn't that true? It happens. Death speaks of the conclusion of the race. What legacy are we leaving behind us?
[00:42:47] What kind of a character will be shaped within us by God's grace.
[00:42:54] I love what Paul writes when he comes to the end of his journey, and we're all going to come there someday. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. At the end of the day, that's all that matters. So I'm going to have a stand this morning as we close the service in prayer, everyone in this room, we don't think about it, which is okay, but there are moments we need to consider, and this is one of those moments.
[00:43:31] We're living in the shadow of death.
[00:43:35] Once in a while, I think about it, that last moment as you step into eternity.
[00:43:41] As a child of God, we have faith that our sins have been addressed.
[00:43:47] When we look at Jesus'face, we're not going to see a judge. We're going to see a savior.
[00:43:52] What a great moment that'll be. At that moment, all the things in this life will not matter.
[00:44:01] I'm really convinced of that. A lot of the things that we thought were big stuff down here won't mean a thing at that moment.
[00:44:09] I think that's the important moment of life. It's ironic, so often that we in life, we're trying to plan for what a few years called retirement, when we should really be planning for eternity. That's a lot longer. And we should be planning in such a way that we have lived our lives in such a manner that we've lived so that we've given eternity full thought. And we live in such a way that we're planning for eternity. We're investing our energies, time and life in the service of others. For the king of kings and the Lord of lords. That's what's most important. And as we're closed this morning, I just want to express gratitude to those people. We had over 100 volunteers on Wednesday serving our community. Let me tell you something, that's a beautiful thing. It impacts the city. It impacts people.
[00:44:58] I want our lives to make a difference. Notice I didn't say my life. I said our lives collectively, let's make a difference.
[00:45:06] Just with every head bowed this morning. We're all challenged in this world, and there are things that fear keeps us from doing. Let's be honest. Fear is a hindrance to doing God's purposes. We see this with the king. He's not willing to do what God's telling him to do because he's afraid.
[00:45:28] I want to pray today that you will no longer be afraid.
[00:45:32] That you will learn to trust God, that he will remove those fears that keep you from doing what God's asking you to do that. You will have the courage to do what's right. You'll have the courage to communicate with people and not worry about how they're going to respond. That's not our job. We just are going to be courageous, and we're going to help prepare people, because we're living in the shadow of death itself. But we have an answer to the great problem of death. Why don't we share it with others and give them a hope that transcends this world? So, Father, we come before you today. We recognize that fear is a very definite reality in many of our lives. And we know that it keeps us back from doing your will, and we don't want that anymore.
[00:46:18] We pray today that you would endue us with your spirit of faith and courage, that we would do what is right and pleasing in your sight. That we would be courageous with our lives, that we would expend ourselves not with the thought of, what am I going to get out of this earthly life, but what I can put into this earthly life in order to bring better eternity, not only for ourselves, but for others. And we just thank you for that, Lord, in Jesus name, amen. God bless you as you leave this morning.
