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Encouragement for the journey from God’s Word. Today's Scripture: Jeremiah 31:27-32:44 / Proverbs 25:20-22
Good Saturday morning, people of faith. I'm going to read to you some verses from Jeremiah chapter 32. I'm going to read verses 1 through 5, then we're going to talk about those for a little bit, and then I'm going to go to another passage for a short time, and then we're going to get some takeaways from those two passages together.
Jeremiah chapter 32, verses 1 through 5. The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. For then the king of Babylon's army besieged Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison, 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, Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it. And Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape from the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him face to face, and see him eye to eye.
Then he shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall be until I visit him, says the Lord. Though you fight with the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed. So we see here in this passage, first of all, why Jeremiah is in prison.
It's because Zedekiah doesn't like what he has to say. Of course, who would like a prophecy that the city over which, and the land over which you are king, is going to be taken by a foreign power, and you're going to end up dying in the capital of that foreign power, which is exactly what's going to happen.
But that's why Jeremiah is in prison, is because he spoke what God wanted him to say. And so, the question's going to be, is that the truth, or is that not the truth? Well, let's go ahead and look at Jeremiah chapter 52, and in chapter 52, we see this prophecy fulfilled.
Well, what prophecy was it that the Chaldeans would conquer Jerusalem, and that Zedekiah would try and flee, but he won't escape, that the Chaldeans will catch him, and that finally he will die in Babylon.
That's what it meant for the Lord to visit him from chapter 32. So in chapter 52, I'm going to read a couple of verses, and then I'm going to summarize another portion of it, and then read some more to you.
It says in verse 1, Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. And then skipping down to verse 2, he also did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
So we see that Zedekiah is not numbered amongst the good kings of Jerusalem, but he is numbered amongst the evil kings. And then it goes on to talk about how the Chaldeans built a siege mount and broke through the wall, and the men of war fled from the city of Jerusalem.
And we pick this up again, down in verse 8 of chapter 52, it says, but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and they overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. All his army was scattered from him, so they took the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he pronounced judgment on him.
Then the king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he killed all the princes of Judah in Riblah. He also put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and the king of Babylon bound him in bronze fetters, took him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.
So we see each part of that prophecy being fulfilled, the Chaldeans taking the city of Jerusalem, Zedekiah trying to flee, Zedekiah being caught, and then eventually that Zedekiah would die in Babylon, and that's exactly what happened.
So there's a couple of takeaways from this. First of all, from Jeremiah's perspective, he had an obligation to speak the truth, and that is what he did. Not unlike us, we have an obligation to speak the truth and to do so in love as we are commanded to do, but the consequences sometimes for speaking the truth are not happy consequences all the time in terms of what this life brings.
Jeremiah was shut up in prison and in very horrendous conditions for speaking the truth to the king. It could be that you or I would lose a friend or alienate a family member or perhaps even have our employment situation altered or changed because of speaking the truth.
Now, in light of that, we still have the promise that the Lord will provide for us. He will take care of us, and he has promised us a hope and a future. He's promised us a heaven that no eye has seen or what we could even imagine is beyond what is there for us, and heaven is beyond what we could even imagine in terms of the goodness that the Lord will have for us at that end.
So that's our final takeaway, is this, that if the Lord promises something, it is certain to come to pass. It may take a bit of time. It may take a day, a week, a month, a year, 10 years, 100 years, 1 ,000 years.
That is up to the Lord to fulfill that promise, but it is a certainty that the promise will be fulfilled. Let us rest on that promise in our hope of heaven this day as we go about the rest of our Saturday.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to you on the basis of what your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, has done for us in paying our penalty, that we are able to boldly approach your throne. And I come to you this day on behalf of each one who's listening, that they may rest in the promises that you have for us.
You say that you've given us a hope and a future, and our future certainty is in heaven. And help us to rely on that and to be faithful, to speak your word to whoever would hear today. It's in your Son's name, Jesus, we pray, amen.
Have a great rest of your Saturday, people of faith.