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Jeremiah received the Word of God, which he wrote down on a scroll and had it read in the presence of the king, but the king rejected
God's Word. And there are many today who still do the same at their own peril when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the
Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our
Q &A on Friday. Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we are on to Chapter 36.
And remember, we've stepped back in time a little bit. Previously, we've been reading about events that happened in the days of Zedekiah, but now these things are taking place in the days of Jehoiakim, who ruled
Judah before Zedekiah. Josiah was the last good king of Judah, and then his son,
Jehoaz, reigned in his place only for three months, and then Jehoiakim became king for 11 years.
Then there was Jehoiakim, who was about for three months as well. Zedekiah reigned for 11 years.
And there is a little bit of overlap between Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, but this is not during that overlap.
It says here at the beginning of Chapter 36 that this is in the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign.
And we see here the rebellion, the continued rebellion of the people of Judah against the word of God.
So let me begin reading here in Jeremiah 36. I'm going to go through verse 10.
Hear the word of the Lord. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the
Lord. 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 to them so that everyone may turn from his evil way and that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.
Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah and Baruch wrote on a scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah, all the words of the
Lord that he had spoken to him. And Jeremiah ordered Baruch saying, I am banned from going to the house of the
Lord. So you are to go. And on a day of fasting in the hearing of all the people in the
Lord's house, you shall read the words of the Lord 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 the Lord and that everyone will turn from his evil way for great is the anger and wrath that the
Lord has pronounced against this people. And Baruch, the son of Nariah did all that Jeremiah, the prophet ordered him about reading from the scroll, the words of the
Lord in the Lord's house. In the fifth year of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah 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 the
Lord. Then in the hearing of all the people, Baruch read the words of Jeremiah from the scroll in the house of the
Lord, in the chamber of Gemariah, the son of Shaphin, the secretary, which was in the upper court at the entry of the new gate of the
Lord's house. Okay, let me stop there. There's more that's about to unfold here in this chapter, but so far we've had
God once again tell Jeremiah what to write. God has been speaking to Jeremiah since the days of Josiah.
And now it's one of his sons who is on the throne, who of course is wicked and is leading the people in wickedness.
God had promised Josiah that he would spare him from what was going to come upon Judah in the days of his sons.
Josiah is even mentioned, he's even recorded in Matthew chapter one as being one of the ancestors of Jesus.
So he is blessed that he becomes one from whom the Messiah would come because of his faithfulness to the
Lord. God had blessed him in this way. And one of his sons who was wicked would likewise end up in that genealogy demonstrating how
God would draw something good even out of something bad. But nevertheless, Josiah was the last good king of Israel.
All of his sons are dealing wickedly here. And though Josiah had instituted such incredible legal reforms in Jerusalem and Judah in his day, yet the people's hearts remained wicked.
And this was why God said to Josiah that their sin is too far gone. So even though Josiah has been convicted of heart and repented and desired to do all things according to the word of God, yet the people, whenever Josiah died, they just went right back to doing all the pagan things that they had been doing before.
So God has been speaking to Jeremiah about the judgment that's going to come upon this people.
And he tells Jeremiah to take a scroll and write down all the words that I say to you.
Now this really is a picture of the writing of the Bible. So all of the words that we have in scripture, as said in 2nd
Timothy 3 .16, all scripture is God breathed. And as said in 2nd
Peter 1, all of prophecy, the way that Peter puts it, none of that came from the mind of a man.
It did not come from the thoughts of a person. It was the Holy Spirit guiding men to write down what the
Holy Spirit wanted men to write. This is the word of God. He did it through people, but it's not man's word.
This is God's word on the pages of scripture that we read. Even though the
Old Testament was written in Hebrew, New Testament was written in Greek, it's gone through translators. We have it in English. And of course there's going to be some preferences on the part of the persons who will translate the words, which is why we have different translations.
There are intentions to be as faithful to the text as possible, but still some bias gets in there and some words get translated a certain way based on certain preferences.
Nonetheless, what we have here in scripture is still God's word. And our desire is to know his heart and his direction for us according to what we read.
This is the only way to know God. There are people that know of God, of course, as talked about in Romans 1, the evidence of him is clearly seen in all that has been made so that men are without excuse.
But you cannot know God on a personal level, know God without the word of God.
Just like it said in John 6, 44, Jesus saying, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.
And then he quotes the scriptures from Isaiah in verse 45 and saying, and they will all be taught by God. How is it that God draws us to himself through the word, through the teaching of his word?
Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
So you can't know God unless, unless you have his word.
Just like you can't learn about somebody else unless word is given to you.
Either that person is telling you something about themselves or somebody else who knows that person is telling you something about them.
Still takes words to get to know somebody. And so it is with the word of God.
These are the words that are God breathed for us, that we may know him and we may see his purposes, all that he has done in the past.
So we know what he expects of us now and what he is going to accomplish in the future. All of this is given to us in the
Bible. So we have a picture here in Jeremiah 36 of the giving of the word of God. God is telling
Jeremiah to write things down in a scroll, just like he does with the prophets, just like he does with the apostles.
And then Jeremiah tells Baruch all the words that God said to him.
So Baruch works as a scribe as Jeremiah is dictating those things to Baruch.
And then Baruch is supposed to go and he's supposed to read the word of the Lord in the hearing of all the people. And he's doing this at a time of fasting.
He's doing this during a religious observance. These are religious people and they are hoping to be seen by God.
They are doing something they believe is worshipful before the Lord with this fasting that they are doing.
And Jeremiah is telling Baruch, read this to all of the men of Judah and it may be that their plea for mercy will come before the
Lord and that everyone will turn from his evil way for great is the anger and wrath of the
Lord that he has pronounced against his people. It's interesting that we're reading this here, Jeremiah 36, at the same time that we're also going through Acts chapter 2.
We just did Peter's sermon at Pentecost. And in that sermon, he's telling people to repent.
You've done wickedly. You crucified the son of God and judgment will come upon everybody who does not repent of his way.
The people are cut to the heart. That's what we're going to get to on Monday. So you have Peter there preaching the word of God to the people that are there for religious observance.
They are there for Pentecost. Now those people do repent. How do these people here in Jeremiah 36 respond?
Well let's keep going. Let me pick up in verse 11, when Micaiah, the son of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, heard all the words of the
Lord from the scroll. He went down to the king's house into the secretary's chamber and all the officials were sitting there.
Elishamah, the secretary, Deliah, the son of Shammaiah, Elnathan, the son of Akbor, Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, Zedekiah, the son of Hananiah, and all 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 Nethaniah, son of Shalamiah, 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 Neriah, took the scroll in his hand and came to them. And they said to him, sit down and read it.
So Baruch read it to them. 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 and Jeremiah and let no one know where you are.
So these men here have heard the word of God and they are truly convicted by it.
They know, they're in fear now because they know the judgment of God is coming upon them. They are telling
Baruch that he and Jeremiah need to go and hide because otherwise what's going to happen?
Well, the people who are not going to receive this word, they're going to want to kill Jeremiah and Baruch. They want to kill the messengers.
This is the word of God. But of course, killing the messengers means that they would be rejecting
God's word, which really is what it comes down to. They hate God's word and so they hate the people who deliver it.
Jesus said in Matthew chapter five, blessed are you when people hate you and revile you and persecute you and accuse you of all kinds of things falsely on my account.
Blessed are you rejoice and be glad for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
So we're blessed when people hate us because of the word, because we love the word.
The Roman Catholics hate all Protestantism and the one accusation that they make of us
Protestants the most, like if you were to narrow it down to one thing, why do the Roman Catholics despise the
Protestants so much? This is the one that I encounter all the time whenever Roman Catholics are hurling stuff at me online.
It's because we believe sola scriptura, that the highest authority is the word of God, the written word of God.
They hate that. And that's the one thing that they're constantly accusing
Protestants of. Oh, well, you guys are solo scriptura and look at all the problems that's caused you.
You guys just do your own thing and go your own way. When really it's the Roman Catholics that are all over the place with their doctrines, all kinds of extra biblical doctrines that they follow, though they claim that they've got it right because they trust the church.
We trust what God's word actually says, and we're hated for it. Mormons, same thing.
We'll also make fun of us for being sola scriptura because we trust the word of God. This is the common distinction that you will see between those who are true and those who are false.
The ones who are true love God's word and follow it. The ones who are false despise it. Exactly what
John said in 1 John 4, we are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us.
The apostle John says, whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this, we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
Whoever is rejecting scripture, rejecting God's word is rejecting God himself is not from God.
So we go on from here to verse 20. So they went into the court to the king, having put the scroll in the chamber of Ella Shama, the secretary, and they reported all the words to the king.
And remember, once again, the king here is, uh, Jehoiakim during the, what was the fourth year of his reign was what we read there at the very beginning of the chapter and verse 21.
Then the king sent Jehudi to get the scroll and he took it from the chamber of Ella Shama, 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.
Okay, that's important. Let's keep going. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire pot until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the fire pot.
Yet, neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words was afraid, nor did they tear their garments.
Even when Elnathan and Deliah and Gamariah urged the king not to burn the scroll, he would not listen to them.
And the king commanded Jeremiel, the king's son and Sariah, the son of Asriel and Shalamiah, the son of Abdeel to seize
Baruch, the secretary and Jeremiah, the prophet, but the
Lord hid them. And it was very shrewd of those men to have encouraged Baruch and Jeremiah to go to a place of hiding.
Don't even tell us where you're going. So the two of them would hide and they would be safe because they had a pretty good idea,
I think. They had a good idea that anyone who comes speaking the word of God is putting their life on the line.
But also that Jehoiakim was not going to listen to what it was that they had to say. And as the scripture is being read to them, as this word that has come from God is being read aloud, he's taking a knife and cutting it off and throwing it into the fire.
Now, Jehoiakim is literally doing this. We see lots of people do stuff like this.
They just want to cut this part out of the Bible that they don't want to listen to. I don't like that part. I don't like that part that tells me
I'm a sinner because I'm sexually immoral, just because I'm having sex outside of marriage or, or I sleep around with so many different people fornicating, committing adultery, whatever it might happen to be.
I don't want to hear it. Or even those like men sleeping with men, women sleeping with women.
Nope, cutting that part out of the Bible. I'm going to do what it is that I want to do, where the person who thinks
God just speaks to their mind, he tells me what to do. And I just follow.
I just trust God. I know he's speaking to me and he's telling me the right thing to do. Meanwhile, they're doing things that contradict the word of God.
Now, I'm not going to listen to that. The Holy Spirit is speaking to me. They will insist, even though they're doing things and justifying behaviors that are contrary to what
God's word says, it's, it's like mentally or spiritually, they're taking a knife and cutting those things right out of the
Bible, throwing them into the fire. And I don't have to listen to that. We see this kind of thing going on all the time. People don't want to listen to the word of God.
They would rather have their sin. But my friends, I say this to you, as you're hearing this being read, as we're considering through Jeremiah 36, that you may not be of that mindset.
Whatever God's word says, if the Holy Spirit is in your heart, he will convict you of sin. Turn from the sin.
Don't try to justify it. Don't try to write off God's word. Certainly don't be cutting it off and throwing it into the fire.
For you know what great judgment comes upon the person who has rejected the word of God. Verse 27, now, after the king had burned the scroll with the words that Baruch wrote at Jeremiah's dictation, the word of the
Lord came to Jeremiah. Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were on the first scroll, which
Jehoiakim, the king of Judah had burned. And concerning Jehoiakim, king of Judah, you shall say, thus says the
Lord, you have burned this scroll saying, why have you written in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land and will cut off from it, man and beast.
Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning Jehoiakim, king of Judah, he shall have none to sit on the throne of David and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night.
And I will punish him and his offspring and his servants for their iniquity. I will bring upon them and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem and upon the people of Judah all the disaster that I have pronounced against them, but they would not hear.
Then Jeremiah took another scroll and gave it to Baruch, the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote on it at the dictation of Jeremiah, all the words of the scroll that Jehoiakim, king of Judah had burned in the fire.
And many similar words were added to them. And that's a great testimony to Jeremiah's words actually being the word of God because Jeremiah could not have rewritten that himself, but that God would have given him the word that he gave him before.
And then other words that were added to it, speaking to Judah and warning them of the judgment that is to come and Jehoiakim would be, would be burned up or consumed right along with them.
Jehoiakim is burning the word of God and instead it's he who was going to be burned up, cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night.
There are grave consequences for those who reject God's word.
We must listen to it and obey it. You heard it when you came to faith in Jesus Christ, the gospel of Christ that was proclaimed to you, that you would turn from your sin to the
Lord Jesus Christ and live. But then it's also this word that tells us not just about our sin and need for a savior, but also how we may live as a delight to our savior who bought us by his blood that we may follow in his steps, looking forward to that day when we will receive eternal life with him, entering into glory and dwelling with him in his eternal imperishable kingdom.
These are the words of eternal life that we read here. So turn from your sin to Christ and live.
Heavenly Father, as we have considered these things today, I pray that we would not treat the word of God so disrespectfully, but what a privilege and what a pleasure it is to have this word that we may read it and know what you expect of us and do those things that are pleasing to you, convict our hearts as sons and daughters of God.
May we not continue on in that sin that would otherwise incur judgment, but we would repent, we would turn to the
Lord Jesus Christ and live. Lead us in your way, and may we follow
Christ all the days of our life, bringing us secure into your eternal kingdom forever.
It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes.
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