WWUTT 2444 The People Seek God's Help Too Late (Jeremiah 21:1-14)

WWUTT Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:01

The Babylonians are coming against Judah, and finally they decide, you know what, we should probably ask for God's help.

00:09

But the message that they receive is not of deliverance, but of judgment, when we understand the text.

00:16

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the

00:22

Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our

00:29

Q &A on Friday. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everyone.

00:35

In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we're picking up where we left off last week, so that puts us in Chapter 21.

00:42

But first, a quick recap. So in Chapter 20, Jeremiah had done everything that God had told him to do.

00:49

He prophesied against Judah. They had sinned against God, they had worshiped false gods, the

00:56

Lord was done with them, and he was going to bring them to destruction. So Jeremiah told them exactly what

01:02

God told him to tell them, and he did it in the way that God said to do it. But how did the people respond?

01:10

They did not receive Jeremiah's word as being from God, they were not cut to the heart, they were not convicted, they didn't repent, instead they persecuted

01:19

Jeremiah. So Jeremiah raised a complaint against God. In Chapter 20, verse 7, he said,

01:24

Oh Lord, you have deceived me. But he quickly changed his tune. By verse 13, he was saying,

01:30

Sing to the Lord, praise the Lord, for he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.

01:37

Jeremiah came to realize, God is not against me, it's this wicked people. If they're against God, if they've rebelled against God, then they're going to hate a messenger of God.

01:48

And so now Jeremiah is going to raise a complaint in the right direction. He is going to oppose those who opposed him.

01:57

Here in Chapter 21 that we're looking at today, Jeremiah confronts the kings of Judah, specifically the house of David.

02:05

And that's going to go through the beginning of Chapter 23. There in Chapter 23, he's going to confront false prophets.

02:12

Then in chapters 24 and 25, he's going to confront the people who have rebelled against God. And then in chapters 26 through 29, we have him confronting false leaders and more false prophets.

02:25

So let's read in Chapter 21 today. I'm going to start reading in verse one, hear the word of the

02:31

Lord. This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the

02:37

Lord. When King Zedekiah sent to him Pasher the son of Malchiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maseah saying, inquire of the

02:47

Lord for us, for Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon is making war against us.

02:53

Perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all his wonderful deeds and will make him withdraw from us.

03:01

Then Jeremiah said to them, thus you shall say to Zedekiah, thus says the

03:07

Lord, the God of Israel, behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands and with which you are fighting against the king of Babylon and against the

03:16

Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the walls. And I will bring them together into the midst of this city.

03:24

I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm in anger and in fury and in great wrath.

03:33

And I will strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast. They shall die of a great pestilence afterward declares the

03:41

Lord. I will give Zedekiah, king of Judah and his servants and the people of this city who survived the pestilence, sword and famine into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon and into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their lives.

03:58

He shall strike them down with the edge of the sword. He shall not pity them or spare them or have compassion.

04:04

And to the people, you shall say, thus says the

04:09

Lord, behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.

04:16

He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine and by pestilence.

04:22

But he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live and shall have his life as a prize of war.

04:32

For I have set my face against this city for harm and not for good declares the

04:39

Lord. It shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon and he shall burn it with fire.

04:48

And let's stop there. The next part is a message to the house of David. But you see here now we're finally getting to the

04:56

Chaldeans coming against Jerusalem just as had been prophesied.

05:02

Jeremiah had told the people, had called out their sin. They're worshiping false gods, even offering human sacrifices to those false gods, sexual immorality, lying, theft, all the other things that they were guilty of.

05:16

Jeremiah had called it out and had said to them that their judgment was going to come from the north.

05:22

And that was a reference to the Chaldeans who were going to come and lay siege to Jerusalem and carry off the inhabitants of Judah.

05:32

So this was told to them and now it has come to pass. The Babylonians are coming against the city.

05:39

As Jeremiah had said, they were coming. And so now you have the king and Pasher and Zephaniah, the priest, they're coming to Jeremiah and saying, inquire of the

05:52

Lord for us. You go speak to God for us. Maybe he will relent and he will deliver us from the hands of these enemies.

06:00

Let me read again verse one. This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord when King Zedekiah sent to him

06:07

Pasher the son of Malchiah and Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseah saying.

06:12

Now you might read that and go, wow, the gall of these guys, because weren't they the same guys that persecuted

06:20

Jeremiah in chapter 20? And now they're asking his counsel. Actually no, they're not the same guys.

06:27

Yeah, I know the names are the same, but they're not the same. It's not the same people. At the start of chapter 20, it says now

06:34

Pasher the priest, the son of Emmer. And here at the start of this chapter, it's Pasher the son of Malchiah.

06:41

It's a different Pasher. And though we've seen the name Zephaniah before, this is not in reference to the prophet.

06:47

It's Zephaniah the priest, the son of Maaseah. So this is on behalf of King Zedekiah.

06:54

And hopefully Jeremiah is going to go to God and he is going to appeal on their behalf.

07:00

Inquire of the Lord for us, it says in verse two, for Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon is making war against us.

07:07

Perhaps the Lord will deal with us according to all his wonderful deeds and will make him withdraw from us as God has delivered us from our enemies in the past.

07:16

Maybe he will deliver us this time. Now we've, we've jumped significantly. We've leapt across quite a gap here from the first 20 chapters of Jeremiah.

07:26

Now into chapter 21, we're right in the midst of the siege here. The Babylonians have come into the land and they are doing as God had said they were going to do.

07:36

And furthermore, the Babylonians are doing what God is appointing for them to do.

07:41

They are like a hammer in the hand of God who is issuing judgment against Judah.

07:48

Now judgment will come against Babylon a little bit later on because they likewise rebelled against God and persecuted the people of God.

07:56

So they should not think so highly of themselves. God would bring judgment upon them at the hand of the

08:02

Medes and the Persians. But for now they are serving God's purposes in bringing judgment upon a people who knew

08:09

God's righteous decree and went against it, rebelled against God and worship false gods, though they had seen

08:18

God's mighty works. They didn't listen to him in the day that they should have been listening to him.

08:25

And right here, you have these people saying, maybe the Lord will deal with us according to all his wonderful deeds.

08:31

Why were you not paying attention to those wonderful deeds before? Why does that only matter to you now that the enemy is at the gate?

08:41

And you have to know that based on the hearts of Judah, of the Jews, of everything that has happened even in the lifetime of Jeremiah, but in the decades, even more than a century before that, you know that if God did deliver them right here, if he delivered them at this point, maybe he would do like he had defended

09:03

Judah against the Assyrians. And he struck down the Assyrian King Sennacherib when an angel of the

09:10

Lord killed 185 ,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night. We all know of the way that God had delivered us from the

09:19

Assyrians. Maybe he'll do that with the Babylonians. But see, knowing that God had that kind of power and that kind of authority should have struck the

09:29

Jewish people with fear so that they would worship and honor God, that reverent fear that they were supposed to have, knowing how

09:37

God had delivered them in this way from their enemies. And it was against all odds.

09:44

The Assyrians were a massive army and were successful everywhere they went.

09:49

That was the very way that Sennacherib had taunted Judah when he was coming against them. He sent the

09:55

Rabshakeh, his messenger, to them and said, you know how we have conquered all of these lands all around you.

10:04

We're going to conquer you as well. And God is not going to deliver you from our hand.

10:09

So he taunted them. And what did God do? Sent his angel to strike down over 180 ,000

10:17

Assyrian soldiers in one night. But knowing about that, these guys are going, let's do that again.

10:23

Let's do that now against the Babylonians. They did not fear God in the day that they should have.

10:31

And so now, and only now, when God was bringing the enemies to their gate, were they ready to listen to the

10:39

Lord? But like I said, you know that if God had delivered them the way that he delivered them from the

10:44

Assyrians, they'd just go right back to their sin. You know that. You know that as you read the pattern of the

10:50

Jews and you know their hearts because you have been reading their history all the way up to this point. If God had delivered them, their hearts were so set against God, they just would have gone right back to their paganism.

11:01

And God knows that about their hearts. And so that's why he brings this judgment. Their sin has reached its fullness.

11:09

It is a stench in God's nostrils. And he is going to follow through on his word, bringing judgment against this people.

11:18

As God said to Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter one, I am he who searches mind and heart.

11:23

And that was something that he was saying to Jeremiah so that Jeremiah would know. Even though Jeremiah is looking at this people and hoping that they would be repentant,

11:31

God ultimately knows whether or not they would be. Jesus uses the same words in Revelation chapter three,

11:38

I am he who searches mind and heart. So turn from your sin and repent.

11:45

Same words that God uses with Jeremiah. So it's even the son of God that's talking here, right?

11:51

I am he who searches mind and heart as Jesus does also. So the promise is given through Jeremiah that destruction is coming.

12:00

Verse three, thus you shall say to Zedekiah, thus says the Lord. So he's telling these people who've come on Zedekiah's behalf as messengers for Zedekiah.

12:11

Jeremiah is a messenger of God. And so speaking for the Lord, he says, thus says the

12:17

God of Israel, behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands and not the weapons of war that are in the

12:26

Babylonians hands. You got to imagine what their reaction to that would have been when Jeremiah starts talking.

12:32

Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war. They're going, ah, yeah. Oh, amen.

12:37

Great. The Babylonians are going to be turned back. Jeremiah says, I'll turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands and with which you are fighting against the king of Babylon and against the

12:50

Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the walls. Already this response is not going well.

12:55

It's not going in their favor. And I will bring them together in the midst of this city.

13:02

They are going to get through the walls and they are going to come into the midst of you. I myself will fight against you, says

13:10

God with an outstretched hand and a strong arm in anger and in fury and with great wrath.

13:17

So you have to wonder if the thought was going through their head. We were hoping God would deliver us like he did from the

13:22

Assyrians, but it sounds like now he's going to be treating us like he treated the Assyrians. And I will strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast.

13:33

They shall die of a great pestilence, a plague sickness that will come upon them.

13:39

Afterward declares the Lord, I will give Zedekiah, king of Judah and his servants and the people of this city who survived the pestilence, sword and famine into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon and into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their lives.

13:55

He shall strike them down with the edge of the sword. He shall not pity them or spare them or have compassion.

14:03

There is not going to be any letting up here. The full force of the

14:08

Chaldeans is coming against the Jews. This is going to happen. And so verse eight and to this people, you shall say, thus says the

14:19

Lord, behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. Okay, so now

14:24

Jeremiah is saying to the messengers of Zedekiah, Jeremiah being a prophet of God, he himself is not going to go to the people.

14:34

He's already done that. What was their reaction to what Jeremiah said? They persecuted him. They hated his word.

14:41

And so even the prophet of God at this point is no longer going to be speaking to the people.

14:46

You lost your chance. You rejected the message that I came, that I came with for you.

14:54

And so now even the prophet of God is not going to speak to them. So it's God speaking to a prophet who's speaking to the messengers of the king.

15:01

And you're going to go tell the people, thus says the Lord, behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death kind of sounds like in the book, in the book of Deuteronomy, I set before you life and death, blessings and curses, different context now, though.

15:16

He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine and by pestilence.

15:22

But he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live and shall have his life as a prize of war.

15:31

So God in his grace is still giving them an out. If you trust that this is the word of God, here's how you're going to demonstrate that you believe

15:40

God's word. You're going to go surrender to your enemies. You're not going to stay in the city.

15:45

You're not going to try to fight back. You're not going to try to run away. You're going to go to the Chaldeans and give up.

15:52

You're going to surrender yourself to them. And if you do that, they won't kill you. But if you try to go about any other way, then you are going to come to destruction.

16:04

Sword, famine, pestilence will come against you. But he who goes out and surrenders will live and shall have his life as a prize of war.

16:14

Verse 10, for I have set my face against this city for harm and not for good.

16:19

Now that kind of phrase is going to come up again later, but flipped around.

16:26

I've set my face against this city for harm and not for good. Where have you heard in the book of Jeremiah, something that kind of sounds like that?

16:36

Jeremiah 29, 11, right? For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, a plan to prosper and not harm you, to give you a hope and a future, not for harm, but for good.

16:49

Right here, God is saying, I have set my face against this city for harm and not for good.

16:56

But later on to those Jews that survived and actually did go out with the exile, they did surrender themselves to the hands of the

17:05

Chaldeans. God says to them, I have a plan to prosper you, not to harm you, but for your good.

17:12

We'll come back to that later. But put a put a pen in this one, outline it or put a bookmark in there or something like that.

17:21

Then going on in verse 10, it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire, talking about the city.

17:29

And so now here is the message for the house of David that Jeremiah has.

17:34

This is the portion I haven't read yet. But verses 11 to 14 and to the house of the king of Judah say, hear the word of the

17:43

Lord. Oh, house of David, thus says the Lord, execute justice in the morning and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed.

17:53

Lest my wrath go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it because of your evil deeds.

18:00

Behold, I am against you. Oh, inhabitant of the valley. Oh, rock of the plain, declares the

18:05

Lord. You who say who shall come down against us or who shall enter our habitations.

18:12

I will punish you according to the fruit of your deeds, declares the Lord. I will kindle a fire in her forest and it shall devour all that is around her.

18:25

From there, we go to chapter 22 next week. And once again, the word of the

18:31

Lord is going to come against the king of Judah. But as we finish up chapter 21, let me conclude with this.

18:38

Let me mention two things here. First of all, if you are caught up in some kind of sin and you are continuing to practice this sin, it's a habitual sin for you.

18:50

Like you hardly ever think about it. You're really not even all that convicted over it. Maybe there's still something in your mind that is reminding you that this is wrong.

18:59

You know it's wrong. Why you conceal it from people. They don't know that you're doing this. It could be anything from an outworking passion of the flesh, like you're cheating somebody or you are stealing or you have a sexual immorality or something to that effect.

19:18

Anger that you don't control and you're lashing out at people. It could be something like that. Or it could be just some secret desire that maybe doesn't manifest itself outwardly, perhaps bitterness or a grudge you're holding against someone else or some sort of covetousness or greed, whatever it might happen to be.

19:36

If you are continuing in these sins and you're not even convicted over them anymore, you must hear this word now and be convicted in turn.

19:46

However much you have convinced yourself, I can stop at any time. I'll repent when the time comes for me to repent or God is just going to forgive me for this.

19:55

Whatever excuses you're making. How do you know that God won't just turn you over to a depraved mind to be consumed by your passions?

20:04

And then a day is going to come where either you're facing consequences or worse than that death, which is also a consequence.

20:12

The wages of sin is death, but it's consequences you can get over. Death is permanent.

20:17

Death is right here. And you're facing that day just as the Jews were facing their enemy that had come right to their gate.

20:24

And now you want to seek God to repent, but it's going to be too late and he won't be there.

20:30

And you'll be as Esau is talked about in the book of Hebrews. He sought repentance with tears, but he couldn't find it.

20:38

Don't put this off any longer. Repent. Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ.

20:45

And you will live. First John one, nine. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

20:57

So that's number one. Number two is that we cannot be afraid to call someone else out for their sin.

21:06

And that could be somebody that, you know, a family member, somebody in your own household, perhaps, or it could be just sharing the gospel with others.

21:15

And you're warning them of their sin and the judgment that is to come. Just like Jeremiah had warned the people of the judgment that is to come.

21:22

People are going to hate us when we call out sin and we call for righteousness or we tell them to repent and turn to Jesus Christ for forgiveness.

21:32

How dare you tell me that I need to repent that God doesn't already love me and approve of me in this place.

21:39

Just because people are going to hate us for the message that we share. We can't let that stop us from sharing the message.

21:46

Our obedience must be to God, just as Jeremiah was being obedient to the Lord. And remember the words of Christ.

21:53

If they hate you, they hated me first. The reason why they hate the message that we share is because they hate

21:59

God. But those whom God is going to convict of heart, he's going to use you to convict their heart and turn them from their sin to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

22:10

That's the person that needed to hear from you that day because you were faithful to the

22:15

Lord and did not fear man, did not fear what man would do to you.

22:20

But your reverent fear was of God. The fear of God will keep us walking in the path of righteousness.

22:29

And may we continue to do that until the day of Christ. As the Apostle Paul said in Philippians 1 .6,

22:34

I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it at the day of Christ.

22:43

Let's finish there with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read. And I pray that we're able to see the application here, either convicted of our own sin that we need to turn from or realizing that we need to call out sin.

22:56

We need to warn of the judgment that is to come. And the only way to be saved is to turn from your sin to the

23:01

Lord Jesus Christ and live. People will hate us for preaching that. But we must obey

23:07

God rather than be afraid of man. And so give us courage,

23:12

Lord, and lead us steadfastly in your truth that we may live godly lives upright before you in the present day.

23:20

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. This has been When We Understand the Text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes.

23:26

For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

23:33

.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

23:42

and let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word when we understand the text.