The Prophet Jeremiah Part 30

We are going to pray and we're going to get started as we continue our walk through the book of Jeremiah. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word, we ask that your Holy Spirit help us to rightly understand what you have revealed there so that we might properly believe, confess, and do according to your holy word.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

Okay.

Jeremiah 34: Zedekiah, the Siege of Jerusalem, and False Repentance

We have been working our way through the book of Jeremiah and up to 34, which means I've been a little bit more vigilant in walking through our biblical text than I normally am in the past. You'll note that I'm easily distracted by bright and shiny questions and things like that.

Yeah, I'm mixing metaphors here, if you know what I mean. So, all of that being said, Jeremiah 34 is now going to turn its attention with kind of laser focus on the king of Judah at the time that this was written.

That's King Zedekiah. And it's really a tragic account here because you'll note that God is legitimately offering him forgiveness, legitimately offering him a way to live, and it requires him to act in faith, to believe the words of God in the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah.

Now, Jeremiah, you can tell by what we've been reading, Jeremiah would have never appeared in a prophecy bingo segment, not even close. And the reason why is because he didn't sit there and just spout off the top of his head word salad.

You know, he didn't sit there and say, I feel, King Zedekiah, that the Lord is telling me down in my heart somewhere that you might be experiencing a suddenly, you know, and that you're going to be experiencing an accelerated transition from here to Babylon.

You know, this is not how he talked, okay? And said, note the specificity with which God is speaking through Jeremiah. So the word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, when Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon and all of his army and all the kingdoms of the earth under his dominion and all the peoples were fighting against Jerusalem and all of its cities.

So the situation's dire, you know. If this were a movie, you know, you would have an establishing shot showing the armies of Nebuchadnezzar encamped around the wall of Jerusalem. This situation doesn't get much worse, but it does get worse.

Once the wall is breached, it's all over. And so you can see that, you know, Zedekiah is in dire straits. You know, that do you surrender? Or as in the words of that one prophetic song, should I stay or should I go?

Never mind.

Okay, you know, pastor jokes, they are way worse than dad jokes.

Just saying.

Okay, so this is what's happening here. Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, go and speak to Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and say to him, thus says Yahweh, Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.

You shall not escape from his hand, but shall surely be captured and delivered into his hand. You shall see the king of Babylon eye to eye, and speak to him face to face, and you shall go to Babylon. Yet hear the word of Yahweh, O Zedekiah, king of Judah.

Thus says Yahweh concerning you. You shall not die by the sword. You shall die in peace, as spices were burned for your father, the former kings who were before you. So people shall burn spices for you, and lament for you, saying, Alas, Lord, for I have spoken the word declares Yahweh.

So then Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these words to Zedekiah, the king of Judah in Jerusalem, when the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and against the cities of Judah that were left.

Lachish, Azekah, and these were the only fortified cities of Judah that remained. The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh after king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to make a proclamation of liberty to them that everyone should set free his Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should enslave a Jew, his brother, and they obeyed all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant that everyone would set free his slave, male or female, so that they would not be enslaved again.

They obeyed and then set them free. But afterward, they turned around and took back the male and female slaves they had set free and brought them into subjugation as slaves. So this seems like a weird set of behaviors, but what's going on here is on some level, Zedekiah and the people of Jerusalem recognize that the evil that is about to befall them, the disaster that is at the gate, is due to their sins.

They know on some level that things are not right, and so they're trying to figure out a way to placate the wrath of God. Get rid of idols? No, I know. Let's offer God at least a, let's throw him a bone here.

All of the people that we've taken as slaves who are our own kinsmen, which the Bible forbids, we'll go ahead and set them free, all right? And maybe just maybe that'll be a good negotiation chip that we can put on the table and we can sort things out with Yahweh and maybe avert this disaster.

But you'll note that they really didn't have a lot of fortitude here, and this wasn't real repentance. Real repentance requires you to recognize that what you've done is wrong. They haven't confessed their sin.

They haven't lamented it. They have no remorse. They're throwing this out as, well, you know, we should do this and see if God starts to, you know, turn things around. This isn't true repentance. This is, you'll note that true biblical repentance makes you recognize you have absolutely nothing that you can bargain with when it comes to God.

You are guilty. You stand guilty and condemned. You are poor, penniless, blind, deaf, mute. You get the idea. You are all of these things, but they are looking at their slaves as some kind of an asset that they can then bargain with God on.

Not true repentance, but is it any wonder then that in verse 11, afterward they turned around and took back the bale and the female slaves that they had set free and brought them into subjugation as slaves.

They weren't repenting. They were trying to save their bacon, right? So the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah from Yahweh. Thus is Yahweh the God of Israel. I myself made a covenant with your fathers. When I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, saying at the end of seven years, each of you must set free the fellow Hebrew who has been sold to you and has served you six years.

You must set him free from your service, but your fathers did not listen to me or incline their ears to me. Now here's where we have to take a topic kind of head on. And you'll note that today's social justice warriors are very keen to point out, Christians are evil, wicked people because the Bible condones slavery.

But does it? Okay, now the reason I say but does it is because you'll note the rhetoric is that if we let those Christians really have more political power, if we listen to them and your children, they believe in Jesus.

They're going to be people who are going to want to enslave people. They are oppressors. The slavery of the Old Testament was basically the equivalent of welfare. Let me explain. And you'll note that it had limits as to how long it lasted, and it was specifically meant to be for a short amount of time.

So let's pretend that your Uncle Itzhak, your Uncle Itzhak, has made a really bad business decision, squandered his family's resources, and he's in debt up to his eyeballs. And he's not able to pay his debts.

And back in those days, they had a thing called debtor's prison, which really made no sense, okay? Because debtors in prison are not productive and they can't work their way out. So rather than debtor's prison, which is a cruel, cruel punishment, God came up with a different idea.

And the idea then is that when you have nothing left, you can sell yourself or your own family members that can be sold into slavery for a period of time. And the period of time is going to depend on what's called the Shemitah.

The Shemitah is a Sabbath year. So if you think of it this way, every seven days there is a Shabbat. That's a time where you rest. And every seven years, there's a Shemitah. And the Shemitah is a time when debts are canceled and things like this.

But, and that happens every seven years. And then every seven sevens, you'll come up with 49. And at the end of that, you come up with a Jubilee, which is a type and shadow of everything being restored, of the new heavens and the new earth and things like this.

All slaves set free, all debts canceled, all inheritances lost, restored. That's the idea behind it. And so what God came up with as a safety net then was that somebody who was in debt to their eyeballs, and note here that most often when somebody is in debt, it's a form of theft.

It's a form of theft when they're not able to pay their debts. That you'll note that other people then have lost money that this other person has used and squandered or misapplied. And as a result of it, the people who are incurring harm then when somebody is bankrupt are the people who loan the money to the person in the first place.

So justice demands that something be done in this situation. And the question is, how does one, let's say rightly experience consequences for mismanaging other people's money, all right, or even their own.

And then how do, and what's the length and term of such justice? And so slavery was set up as a safety net. So Uncle Itzhak is sold into slavery. And if it's the Shemitah year, then he will serve a maximum of six years in slavery.

If it is two years past the Shemitah, he will only be enslaved for five. If it is four years past the Shemitah, he will only be enslaved for three. You kind of see how this works, right? And during that time, yeah, it's true that he is owned by somebody else.

But when you read the fine print of the Mosaic Covenant, then you're gonna note then that debts then are going to end up being paid by the slave owner. It's a way of, you know, of them taking on their debts and that person having a way of working himself back.

And then when the Shemitah comes, he is to be set free. Now, if you listen to the wingnut wackerdoodles out there who talk about the Shemitah today, okay, I would think of Rabbi Jonathan Kahn, which I think his name is spelled improperly.

It should be C-O-N, you know, Kahn. But, you know, he currently spells it C-A-H-N. He's a big Kahn. Seven years ago from this year was a big Shemitah year. And he had written a book about the mystery of the Shemitah.

And so his claim is that God uses the Shemitah year to destroy economies around the world. Every seven years, God's going to destroy the economies because that was a year when debts were canceled. You'll note that the real Shemitah was gospel, all right?

It was really, truly gospel. Whereas Rabbi Jonathan Kahn, again, C-O-N, his Shemitah is really just all about God capriciously picking every seven years as a time to punish economies and nonsense like this.

And just so you know, we are entering into the Shemitah at the end of this month, okay? The first month of the Jewish New Year is coming up. We're in the season of Rosh Hashanah. So in a couple of weeks, we'll technically be entering into a Shemitah season.

But here's the thing. Have you noticed that the wrecked economy that we had showed up a year early? Have you noticed that?

It's still not getting better.

Okay, have you noticed how much gas costs this year, you know, and how inflation has hit? So this is just nonsense. So if you, I know there are people right now that it seems like their Facebook feed is filled with people talking about the Shemitah right now.

It's just, it's absolute gobbledygook and nonsense. And the other thing that's happening also right now is that you need to be prepared to survive the end of the world yet again. And let me explain. So the whole group of people right now talking about the so-called Shemitah and what they've calculated is that this year, this Shemitah will be the 70th Shemitah since the children of Israel entered the promised land in Israel.

And therefore being the 70th Shemitah, that means the rapture is gonna happen and Jesus is gonna return in the next few weeks. I am not making this up. So listen, I am a veteran of surviving the second coming of Christ.

I have literally survived about 19 second comings at this point. And I think I'm up to 20. As of, you know, in just a couple of weeks, I swear, I need to, like, you guys remember like those old blue chip stamps, how you can like redeem those things for like, you know, you know, merchandise and things like this.

I think I'm gonna put together, you know, an eschatological second coming blue chip stamp kind of thing where if you survive 20 returns of Jesus, then you can get like a free, you know, donut at Wendy's or something.

I don't know, just, you know. But, I mean, I remember years ago when everyone was talking about the so-called four blood moons. You guys remember that? That was a long time ago. We put together a t-shirt that said, I survived the four blood moons and all I got was this lousy t-shirt, you know.

So I'm off on a tangent. But all of this being said, it is absolutely true that under the Mosaic Covenant, and that's the important thing, under the Mosaic Covenant, slavery was used as welfare. It was used as a way of providing some sense of justice and a possibility for somebody who had gone bankrupt to work his way out of debt.

It required his owner to take on his debts and work towards paying them off. And the people who ended up becoming the slave owners, they incurred a lot of responsibility and usually oftentimes lost money on the deal as a result of it.

That's how this all worked, if you pay attention to the details.

It's not chattel slavery.

So, by the way, what'd you call it, chattel slavery? It's not chattel slavery. Chattel slavery is a whole other beastie. And you're going to note that Scripture absolutely condemns, in the New Testament, enslavers, okay?

People who hunt human beings for the purpose of enslaving them and taking away their ability to live as free human beings for the rest of their life. So the entire endeavor of slavery that was used in the United States history, chattel slavery, it's overtly condemned by Scripture and God.

It is a sin.

And nowhere in Scripture is chattel slavery held up as a virtue or something that God cares nothing about. The slavery that was used under the Mosaic Covenant was specifically, specifically designed for people who had run themselves into financial ruin.

And then you're going to note here, if you take a look at what God did, even regarding chattel slavery in the time of the Old Testament, you'll note that, let's say, women in slavery, there's this long time-honored, millennium-long tradition that women in slavery are oftentimes become the objects of sexual desire.

But that's, so they're treated improperly in that sense. God has made it clear that when a slave woman is treated as such, she receives marital rights. So God wouldn't permit that. So you'll note God is a great defender of those who are oppressed.

And so keep that in mind, keep that in mind. So ancient Israel slavery, not chattel slavery, is something very different, okay? Hang on a second here.

We have a waiting room set up.

I have to let people in, okay. All right, let's keep reading. So at the end of seven years, each of you must set free your fellow Hebrew who has been sold to you and has served you six years. This is God reminding them of the details of the Mosaic Covenant.

You must set them free from your service, but your fathers did not listen to me or incline their ears. You recently repented, kind of, and did what was right in my eyes by proclaiming liberty each to his neighbor, and you made a covenant before me in the house that is called by my name.

But then you turned around and profaned my name when each of you took back his male and female slaves whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them into subjugation to be your slaves.

Therefore, all right, thus says Yahweh, you have not obeyed me by proclaiming liberty every one to his brother and to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim to you liberty to the sword, to pestilence, to famine, declares the Lord.

So I declare that I'm gonna give you the liberty of the sword. You're gonna die this way, which is no liberty at all. So note, God here is speaking ironically. One might even say that God is kind of talking in a snarky way, all right?

This is generally how God talks to impenitent, idolatrous sinners who are hardening their hearts. He treats them, well, ironically, and he speaks to them quite snarkily. I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

And the men who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make them like the calf that they cut in two and pass between its parts. The officials of Judah, the officials of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who pass between the parts of the calf.

So apparently there was a big rigmarole in their creating of that covenant when they set all the slaves free, and it meant absolutely nothing. And I will give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives.

Their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. And Zedekiah, the king of Judah and his officials, I will give into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives, into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon, which has withdrawn from you.

Behold, I will command, declares Yahweh, and I will bring them back to the city and they will fight against it and take it and they will burn it with fire. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without inhabitant.

You don't mess with God.

How does the scripture go?

God is not mocked.

Right?

And they were mocking God here. So the obedience of the Rechabites. So the word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah. So note here, we've switched royals at this point.

Zedekiah is not mentioned in this chapter, at least in this portion of it, and the monarch of Judah is a fellow by the name of Jehoiakim who is extremely wicked. Go to the house of the Rechabites. You have to say it like that.

You have to roll your R.

Rech, rech, rech, Rechabites.

And you gotta get the rech in the back of your throat for that, okay? The Rechabites. And speak with them and bring them to the house of Yahweh into the chambers and then offer them wine to drink. You're sitting there, what?

Okay, a little bit of a note here. Rechabites do not drink wine. They do not drink wine. Not because of any moral reason per se, but because one of their ancestors chose not to and bound the rest of the family to this oath that they would not drink wine.

And so God is going to hold them up as a people who are capable of keeping their oath, right? That's kind of the point, whereas the people of Judah, not so much. So I took Jaazaniah, the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habazaniah, what a name, and his brothers and all his sons and the whole house of the Rechabites.

And I brought them to the house of Yahweh into the chamber of the son of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was near the chamber of the officials, above the chamber of Maasaiah, the son of Shalom, keeper of the threshold.

Then I set before them the Rechabites, pitchers full of wine and cups. And I said to them, drink wine. But they answered, we will drink no wine. For Jonadab, the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, you shall not drink wine, neither you nor your sons forever.

You shall not build a house, you shall not sow seed, you shall not plant or have a vineyard, but you shall live in tents all of your days that you may live many days in the land where you sojourn. We have obeyed the voice of Jonadab, the son of Rechab, our father, in all that he commanded us to drink no wine all of our days, ourselves, our wives, our sons, our daughters, and not to build houses to dwell in.

We have no vineyard or field or seed, but we have lived in tents and have obeyed and done all that Jonadab, our father, commanded us. But when Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came up against the land, we said, come and let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans and the army of the Syrians.

So we are living in Jerusalem. Then the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah. Thus says Yahweh, the God of hosts, the God of armies, the God of Israel. Go and say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, will you not receive instruction and listen to my words?

And that's, again, your problem. They're not paying attention to God's words. They refuse to be instructed by the Bible. The command that Jonadab, the son of Rahab, gave to his sons to drink no wine has been kept, and they drink none to this day, for they have obeyed their father's command.

I have spoken to you persistently, but you have not listened to me. The people of Judah, they're kind of like a three-year-old kid, all right? La, la, la, la, la, I can't hear you, Mom, right? That's where you take the child and you make his head spin, okay?

It must work.

Yeah.

Yeah, right?

They are being like that. I have sent to you all my servants, the prophets, sending them persistently, saying, turn now every one of you from his evil way. Amend your deeds. Do not go after other gods to serve them, and then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to you and your fathers.

But you did not incline your ear or listen to me. The sons of Jonadab, the sons of Rahab, have kept the command that their father gave them, but this people has not obeyed me. Therefore, thus says Yahweh, the God of armies, the God of Israel, behold, I am bringing upon Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the disaster that I have pronounced against them because I have spoken to them and they have not listened.

I have called to them and they have not answered. The fault isn't with God. No, God persistently, constantly, for decades and years sent prophet after prophet after prophet, la, la, la, la, la, we can't hear you.

We won't listen to you. We will not be instructed. We will not obey. We don't care if we're breaking the covenant. Let God do something. I'm sure he's powerless. He hasn't done anything yet. What makes you think he's going to do anything now, right?

But to the house of the Rechabites, Jeremiah said, thus says Yahweh, the God of armies, the God of Israel, because you have obeyed the command of Jonadab, of your father, and have kept all of his precepts and done all that he commanded you.

Therefore, thus says Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, shall never lack a man to stand before me. A family that is blessed with believers.

All the way down to this day.

Because God said he will never lack a man standing before me. There are descendants of the house of Rechab today somewhere in the world who faithfully hear the word of God, have their sins forgiven, receive the sacraments, trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.

And that has happened for generations and generations and generations and generations. God always keeps his word. Jeremiah 36.

We're doing good today.

All right.

Jeremiah 36: Jehoiakim Burns the Scroll

You want to talk about obstinacy, all right? So you'll know, God is legitimately offering them life, calling them to repentance. God has sent Jeremiah. Jeremiah is speaking the words of the true and only God.

And Jehoiakim, who I said was really evil, let's find out just how evil he is. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from Yahweh. Take a scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you against Israel and Judah and all the nations.

From the day I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah until today, it may be that the house of Judah will hear all the disaster that I intend to do them so that every man may turn from his evil way and that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.

Now, here's kind of an interesting point. And this is going to sound a little bit weird, but you kind of have to pull in another prophet in order to kind of make this connection. If you were to read the prophet Habakkuk, Habakkuk, right?

Habakkuk lived a few decades before Jeremiah. And he was complaining quite loudly that God was doing nothing about the increased wickedness. And idolatry that he was witnessing in his lifetime. And God told him to write down his vision so that people who read it would run for their lives, that they would see what was coming and avert disaster.

But they didn't. And what's really interesting is that when you read like halfway through chapter two and on into chapter three, in the prophet Habakkuk, the disaster of God sending Nebuchadnezzar, sending the Babylonians and the Chaldeans, the themes that get picked up in it is that it's a type and shadow of the end of the world and the man of lawlessness.

It's a very interesting type and shadow. And so the idea here is that it's easy for us in the New Covenant era to read something like this and say that it doesn't really affect us. But it does. Because the disaster that God was threatening Judah with is a type and shadow that points to the disaster that God is threatening all the nations with.

The return of Jesus in glory to judge the living and the dead. And the disaster that will befall planet Earth on that day for all who are impenitent believers and who have loved iniquity and unrighteousness and refuse to be forgiven by King Jesus.

It'll be a disaster beyond all disasters. And all the political machinations and stratagems and things that are happening, all the conspiracies that are apparently taking place and as the world is getting deeper and deeper, they'll all come to nothing in one day when Jesus says enough is enough and he destroys all the kingdoms of the Earth.

So you'll note that in this theme here, do not think that this merely only occurs or is pointing to Judah. The prophet Habakkuk makes it clear that the rise of the Babylonians is a type and shadow of the end of the age.

And there are some ways in which Nebuchadnezzar at that point is a little bit of a stand-in for the man of lawlessness. The one who ensnares nations, all of them, and takes them into subjugation. That's kind of the picture here.

So it may be that the house of Judah will hear all the disaster they intend to do them so that everyone may turn from his evil way so they may forgive their iniquity and their sin. So God's hope here, please repent.

I will forgive you. I'll even avert the disaster even at this late hour. Repent, all right? So Jeremiah called Baruch, the son of Nariah and Baruch wrote on a scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah all the words of Yahweh that he had spoken to him.

And Jeremiah ordered Baruch saying, I am banned from going to the house of Yahweh. I want you to think about this for a second. They had literally filed a restraining order against Jeremiah. He was not allowed at church.

Stop speaking truth, you idiots.

Okay. How weird is that? The true prophet of God is banned from the temple itself. That tells you just how wicked things are, right? I am banned from going to the house of Yahweh. So you are to go and on a day of fasting in the hearing of all the people in Yahweh's house, you shall read the words of Yahweh from the scroll that you have written at my dictation.

You shall read them also in the hearing of all the men of Judah who come out of their cities. It may be that their plea for mercy will come before Yahweh and that everyone will turn from his evil way for great is the anger and the wrath that Yahweh has pronounced against the people.

And Baruch, the son of Nariah, did all that Jeremiah, the prophet, ordered him about reading from the scroll the words of Yahweh in Yahweh's house. And do you think the people there were like,.

Wow, that's the best thing I've ever heard ever, man. Cool, I'm repenting.

Okay, let's see what happens. So in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, Josiah was a good king. Josiah was awesome. Jehoiakim, nah, not even close. Okay, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem and all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem proclaimed a fast before Yahweh.

Then in the hearing of all the people, Baruch read the words of Jeremiah from the scroll in the house of Yahweh in the chamber of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, the secretary, which was in the upper court at the entry of the new gate of Yahweh's house.

When Micaiah, the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, heard all the words of Yahweh from the scroll, he went down to the king's house, into the secretary's chamber, and all the officials were sitting there.

Elah Shammah, the secretary, Daliah, the son of Shammiah, El Nathan, the son of Achbor, Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, Zedekiah, the son of Hananiah, and all of the officials, and Micaiah told them all the words that he had heard when Baruch read the scroll in the hearing of the people.

Then all the officials sent Jehudi, the son of Nathanaiah, the son of Shalamiah, the son of Cushi, to say to Baruch, take in your hand the scroll that you read in the hearing of the people and come. So Baruch, the son of Nariah, took the scroll in his hand and he came to them.

And they said to him, sit down and read it. So Baruch read it to them. And when they heard all the words, they turned one to another in fear. And they said to Baruch, we must report all these words to the king.

Then they asked Baruch, tell us please, how did you write all these words? Was it at his dictation? Baruch answered them, he dictated all these words to me while I wrote them with ink on the scroll. Then the officials said to Baruch, go and hide you in Jeremiah and let no one know where you are.

So they went into the court to the king, having put the scroll in the chamber of Elishamah, the secretary, and they reported all the words to the king. Then the king said to Jehudi to get the scroll. They took it from the chamber of Elishamah, the secretary, and Jehudi read it to the king and all the officials who stood beside the king.

It was the ninth month and the king was sitting in the winter house and there was a fire burning in the fire pot before him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and then throw them into the fire in the fire pot until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the fire pot.