"We Three Kings of Wickedness Are " September 30, 2018 AM

Jeremiah’s Warning to the Kings of Judah

Look with me to Jeremiah 22. As we do reverence to Christ, as I read verses 10 through 30, I pray that we would hear this word from our Lord, beginning in verse 10, Jeremiah 22. Do not weep for the dead or mourn for him, but weep continually for the one who goes away, for he will never return or see his native land.

For thus says the Lord in regard to Shalem, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, who became king in the place of Josiah his father, who went forth from this place, he will never return there. But in the place where they let him captive, there he will die and not see this land again.

Woe to him who builds his house without righteousness and his upper rooms without justice, who uses his neighbor's services without pay and does not give him his wages, who says, I will build myself a roomy house with spacious upper rooms and cut out its windows, paneling it with cedar and painting it bright red.

Do you become a king because you are competing in cedar? Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness, and then it was well with.

Him?

He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy, then it was well. It's not that what it means to know me, declares the Lord. But your eyes and your heart are intent only upon your own dishonest gain and on shedding innocent blood and on practicing oppression and extortion.

Therefore, thus says the Lord in regard to Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, they will not lament for him. Alas, my brother, alas, my sister. They will not lament for him, alas, for the master or alas, for his splendor.

He will be buried with a donkey's burial, dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem. Go up to Lebanon and cry out and lift up your voice in Bashan, cry out also from Aberim, for all your lovers have been crushed.

I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, I will not listen. This has been the practice from your youth that you have not obeyed my voice. The wind will sweep away all your shepherds and your lovers will go into captivity.

Then you will surely be ashamed and humiliated because of all your wickedness. You who dwell in Lebanon, nested in the cedars, how you will groan when pangs come upon you, pain like a woman in childbirth.

As I live, declares the Lord. Even though Keniah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, wear a signet ring on my right hand, yet I will pull you off and I will give you over to the hand of those who are seeking your life.

Yes, into the hand of those whom you dread, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans. I will hurl you and your mother who bore you into another country where you were not born and there you will die.

But as for the land to which they desire to return, they will not return to it. Is this man Keniah a despised shattered jar or is he an undesirable vessel? Why have he and his descendants been hurled out and cast into a land that they had not.

Known?

Oh, land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord, write this man down childless, a man who will not prosper in his days for no man of his descendants will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in.

Judah.

This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

The Power and Clarity of God’s Word

Let me pray for us. Father, I thank you for the power of your word. Thank you for its clarity. I thank you for its timeless importance. We thank you that the scriptures that you have given to us are living and active and more sharper than any two edged sword and piercing deeply into us as if dividing bone from marrow, as if dividing soul from spirit.

You have things to say and they are true. And they go deep. Even if we don't like what you have to say. But you are God and we are not. You are creator. We are creatures.

You are savior.

How we need to be saved. We thank you for your salvation in Christ. It is for his sake that we pray, amen. Continuing our passage by passage, line upon line, study through the book of Jeremiah. And after spending a great deal of time in just nine verses, I propose we look at the next 20 all at once.

Part of it is just the flow of the story. Three kings. Three very wicked kings. And their woes, their problems, what they brought upon the land of Israel, upon the land of Judah, it's all related. My wife's great, or my wife's grandmother, my children's great grandmother, my wife's grandmother, Gigi, told me one the other day.

It was about Billy Graham. Billy Graham had to get to the airport and he was a little bit late, but he'd always wanted to drive the limo, so he asked his chauffeur if he could drive instead. And his chauffeur, I mean, what you're going to say, it's Billy Graham.

So he says, okay, sure, you can drive. And he sits in the back. He's glad to be chauffeured for once. He's always been the driver, but now he gets to be driven to the airport like Billy Graham. But Billy Graham, he's got a lead foot and he speeds along way too fast.

And he gets pulled over by the police officer who was very surprised to find Billy Graham behind the wheel of a limo. He confirms it's Billy Graham from his license and his insurance. And he's a little bit confused and he says, are you driving someone somewhere?

He says, oh yeah, I've got someone in the back. But don't worry, son, you just do what you need to. The police officer bewildered goes back to his cruiser and he calls his supervisor. He says, I don't know what to do.

He says, what's the problem? I said, I've got Billy Graham in a limo and he was speeding and I don't want to give him.

A ticket.

Besides, I think he has Jesus in the back. Don't want to give Billy Graham a ticket because of who he is. His status means you must treat him differently. We sense that. We sense that people have a different kind of status, deserve different kinds of treatment.

Do we sense that? Do we have that in our hearts? How does God deal with the kings of Judah? How does he deal with the people who live in Jerusalem? City of all cities, the holy city. How does God view them?

How does God address them? This is very important for us as we can sit, continue to consider the command of God to the house of David, the command of God to the kings of Judah to do justice, to do righteousness.

In other words, to treat and indeed to love other people rightly. And so these 20 verses are about, well, they sound like the succession of kings. This king, then that king, then this king, and indeed that's the case.

But it's also about their status, who they are, and even their trust and their own people's trust in who they are, in their status. It's also about scandal as we often have in any kind of royal lineage.

And it's also about God's sentencing upon them. And I think that these 20 verses are helpful for us, not only to get historical context for the book of Jeremiah, but also to give us theological context for loving other people rightly who begin with succession.

Jeremiah is something like a disgruntled historian, a jaded tour guide. And he's leading us through the non-accomplishments of three wicked kings of Judah. And we begin with Shalem, who reigned in 609 BC.

We read about him in verses 10 through 12. His royal name was Jehoahaz, but he only reigned for three months and so never had a chance for his name to get really established. He was the son of good King Josiah, Josiah who had brought so many reforms to the nation to cast out idolatry and thus end injustice and immorality in the land.

And yet, Josiah died in battle with Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt. And so, in the wake of his death, the people put Shalem on the throne. What kind of a king was Shalem? 2 Kings 23 says that he reigned for three months doing evil in the sight of the Lord.

According to all his fathers had done, not his father Josiah, but his fathers, those who had preceded Josiah, men like Ahaz, Manasseh, and Ammon. And Jeremiah says, do not weep for the dead. What does he mean?

Don't weep, oh people. Don't weep for Josiah, who has just died. Weep for what is going on now. Weep for the fact that Shalem, such a wicked king, that he is taken away in exile by Necho, Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

And that for the very first time, we have a king of Judah, exiled, who dies in exile. Weep for that. Look how low we have come, oh nation. And then there's Jehoiakim. Necho didn't like Shalem, and so he put another son of Josiah on the throne.

Shalem's older brother. Now, remember the people put Shalem on the throne to replace Josiah. Why didn't they put his older brother? They liked him a whole lot less. As bad as Shalem was, apparently Jehoiakim's character was far worse.

But Necho liked Jehoiakim. He found a collaborator in the person of Jehoiakim. He put him on the throne because Jehoiakim paid the tribute. Jehoiakim taxed the people. Took their silver, took their gold, and paid Necho off.

And as long as he paid Necho, Necho let Jehoiakim stay on the throne. And so, on the backs of his people, taking the wealth of his people, Jehoiakim purchased his ability to reign. Until world politics changed, and Necho fell before Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.

And Necho had to retreat his forces to Egypt, and Nebuchadnezzar became the new regional master. And Jehoiakim knows how the game works, and so he started paying tribute to him. But I think it became very difficult for Jehoiakim to keep up his ostentatious lifestyle while paying heavy tribute.

And so he decided to rebel. You see, all the while that he's paying this heavy tribute and taxing the people to pay off foreign kings, he's engaging in building projects. Building himself a new house filled with cedar, the best kind of wood in all the land.

The most opulent house he could build. He built for himself using forced labor. Not paying the people what they earned through their work. And so, he falls as well. We're not told exactly how he dies.

But 2 Kings 24 tells us that it was at the command of the Lord that disaster came upon Judah. To remove them, all those who were sinning in Jehoiakim's reign, from his sight. Because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done.

So Jehoiakim is continuing on with the sins of Manasseh, who reigned for 52 years in utter abomination. And also for the innocent blood which he shed. For he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord would not forgive.

And so, Jehoiakim dies in rebellion to Nebuchadnezzar. And immediately, Cuniah is put on the throne as his son. Jehoiakim's son, Cuniah, also known as Jehoiakim. He also only reigned for 3 months. And so, his royal name was also not very well established.

But Shalom reigned for 3 months in 609. Jehoiakim reigned from 609 to 598. Sometime in December. And he died. So Cuniah from 598 into the first 2 months of 597 was king. But he also managed to do a whole lot of evil and wickedness in his 3 month reign.

Just like Shalom. And Nebuchadnezzar, when he made it to Jerusalem, he put it under siege. And Cuniah saw the handwriting on the wall, knew it was hopeless. And so he and his mother and 10 ,000 of the best of Jerusalem all surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar.

Bringing with them the gold and silver out of the temple. Purchasing their lives. And Nebuchadnezzar left another son of Josiah, Cuniah's uncle, Eliakim, in charge. And he renamed him Zedekiah, who was the last king in Jerusalem.

Though Cuniah really was the last legitimate king in Jerusalem. And so, we have succession. We have Shalom, Jehoiakim, and Cuniah. The succession, however, is not the main story. It is the story of how things happened.

But I think the main story is about the kind of status that they claimed. And yet the judgment that God brought. What is Jeremiah, as our disgruntled historian, what is he emphasizing about these 3 kings of wickedness?

Shalom is the son of Josiah. He is the son of good King Josiah. Surely some of that goodwill that Josiah built up in his reign before the Lord should have mattered. But Shalom is exiled and he dies in Egypt.

By the way, how awful is it for a Jew to be taken back to Egypt and die in exile?

How awful is that?

So his status as the son of Josiah does not matter. He is judged. We think of Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim really enjoyed his royal status. He forced his subjects to build him a better, nicer building to live in.

His own quarters. So Jeremiah asks, and you can hear the disbelief in his language. Do you become a king? Are you actually reigning simply because you can build a house full of cedar? Is that why you're king?

Because you're elevating your status in front of the people that you have this wonderful place to live? Is that why you get to have authority? Because of the place you live? Jehoiakim must have seen, must have believed that.

And yet we see that it doesn't matter at the end. There will be no royal funeral for Jehoiakim. Not even a regular funeral. No one's going to mourn his passing. In fact, they're going to throw him out with all the other donkeys in the pile where they all rot after they die.

Now Cuniah. I mean, think about Cuniah. He's the last in the lineage of David to be able to sit on the throne. He's the only eligible king to really sit on the throne. So surely his position is secure because of his connection to David.

And yet his position is not secure, is it? Because he too is under the judgment of God and he is exiled. And he had no sons to take his place. All of his children were born in exile. And so thus it's the end of the lineage of David in the city of Jerusalem.

No matter what status they thought they had, ultimately this status did not keep them from God's judgment. And there is plenty of scandal to go around, as we've already been talking about. That Shalem was put in place by the people.

Why they would choose him over others, we're not quite sure. But he was a very wicked person. How is it that a son of Josiah, a good king Josiah, could be so wicked? That's scandalous. We think of Jehoiakim, a heartless tyrant living in splendor amid the misery of the nation.

Amusing himself with building palaces when the whole land was ground down by heavy taxation. We think of Keniah, he's barely there in the history books. But he bought his life and the lives of those he really cared about by the gold and silver of the temple.

And so we hear in the succession of the kings, no matter their status, their lives were full of scandal, full of wickedness. And this brought the sentence of God's judgment upon each one of them. God exposes the wickedness of these three kings, passes sentence on all of them.

And you see that the judgment is meted out against them in terms of both exile and extermination. If they're not exterminated, if they're not killed, then they're exiled. And this is the same kind of judgment that falls upon the whole nation.

When we come to verses 20 -23, we hear language that doesn't apply to any of the three kings, but to the city of Jerusalem. You have this instruction in verses 20 -23. Go up to Lebanon and cry out, lift up your voice in Bashan.

Cry out also from Abarim, for all your lovers have been crushed. Those four verses, all the pronouns and all of the languages in the feminine case, the feminine gender, meaning it's talking about a city, talking about Jerusalem and her woes as the judgment which falls upon the kings, falls upon her as well for her wickedness and her sin.

So we find exile for Shalom and Keniah. We find extermination for Jehoiakim. We think of Keniah, even though he could have been as close to God as a signet ring on the king's hand, yet God flung him off like so much cheap costume jewelry.

And the question is, is he some broken worthless piece of pottery? And the question is, is he some malfunctioning chamber pot? Why is he getting thrown out? The answer, of course, comes back to the wickedness of these three kings.

Such were the lives and times of Judah's rich and famous. These were the most powerful, the most influential people in all the land. These three kings, their attendants and those who lived in Jerusalem, and yet their status did not save them from judgment.

And indeed, they made excuses for themselves and operated based upon their understanding of their own status. Jerusalem herself, because of her special condition, thought that she should deserve something else other than judgment.

But she also is instructed to mourn for her coming doom. I want us to think about this passage in terms of this. I want us to think about the crucible of status and the need for a covering. The crucible of status and the need for a covering.

In other words, status, whatever we have in terms of our social status, and we think of in terms of Jerusalem, whether there be a king here or a beggar there. Whatever their status is, it's not a covering for them.

It's merely the crucible. It's merely the container in which their character is tested. It's a situation that God has given to them and it proves one way or another what kind of person they are. You can have a good king like Josiah or an evil king like Jehoiakim.

You can have a good prophet like Jeremiah or a bad prophet like so many of the others that proclaimed lies in his time. Let's think about the crucible of status and the need for a covering. The need for some covering before the gaze of a holy God, whose gaze pierces through all of the excuses and all of the things that we often offer up in hopes that we'll find favor with him.

Now verse 29 says this, O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord. Yes, this is a message against Shalom and against Jehoiakim and against Keniah. But everybody in the land is supposed to hear it.

It's a word for all the people.

It's a word for us.

It's vital that we learn the lessons of history. We not participate in the doom of repeating such judgment. I wonder if we have the same understanding as Proverbs about our status being a crucible, a testing ground for who we are, a proving ground for who we are.

The words of Agur in Proverbs 30 verses 7 -9. This will sound familiar to many of us. Two things I asked of you. Do not refuse me before I die. Keep deception and lies far from me. Give me neither poverty or riches.

Feed me with a food that is my portion that I not be full and deny you and say,.

Who is the Lord?

Or that I not be in want and steal and profane the name of my God. Do you hear the desire of Agur? God, I don't want a difficult crucible. If I have too much, then I will be very tempted to deny you. If I have not enough, I'll be very tempted to sin against you by stealing.

God, I prefer the crucible where I'm not tempted so drastically in either way. But our status is a crucible no matter what condition we're in. And it gives no covering. There's three things we need to remember from our passage.

And the first one is this. Social status does not determine our rights of possession. Social status does not determine our rights of possession. Jehoiakim thought that his social status as king gave him the right to take resources, time, and labor from others just because of who he was in society.

He accumulated wealth without righteousness, the passage says. He enriched himself without justice. He took from his neighbor without pay, without wages. He thought because of who he was, he could do that.

His status means that he could just take other people's stuff. But the truth is that God determines our rights of possession. Remember that he gave all the plants to Adam and Eve for food, denying them access only to a single tree.

And even though they were lord and lady of the earth, they themselves were not to determine what they got to possess. And so their status was a crucible, a test which they failed. When God gave the promised land to Israel, he determined the boundaries of each family's land and he forbade them from moving the boundaries, cursing those who stole the land from others in that way.

Do not move the ancient landmark or the ancient boundary which your fathers have set. What does that mean? It means that my family's field is up against this other person's field. You know, and well, we've had a rough time of it these last 20 years and you can see how prosperous they are and how meager our place is.

And, you know, they got better soil than we do. They've got better opportunity than we do. And, you know, that creek right there, if our boundary was just on the other side, we'd have a little bit of water for our livestock.

So that rock's not too big. I think we could get the ox over here and we could drag it across and we could move our boundaries just a little bit. They hardly come over to this corner anyway. And we'll just add to our land.

Do you see how easy that would be? Do you see how easy that would be? But God is the one who determines our rights of possession, not our situation, not our status. The truth is that God gives to all people life and breath and all things and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and boundaries of their habitation.

Paul's sermon to the wise men of Athens. Our status does not determine our rights of possession. It just determines what we're responsible for. No matter how high a person's social status, they are still subject to the righteous providence of God Almighty and whatever status we have serves as the crucible in which our character is revealed.

So we're wrong.

We're wrong to think that our social status determines our rights of possession. How many times do we hear of wealthy business partners and executives and politicians who have plenty end up stealing and embezzling and misappropriating funds?

Happens a great deal. Jehoiakim's reign of injustice is not at all unique in world history or even in today's situation. What is the problem? God says to Jehoiakim, verse 17,. Your eyes and your heart are intent only upon your own dishonest gain.

And that is not only the passions of the rich, but it's part of the depravity that afflicts all mankind. So we're wrong if we think this because we're poor relative to those around us, that we have a rightful claim on their possessions.

God knows the depravity of our hearts and that's why in his law, he has these verses sitting right next to each other. Leviticus 19 .13,. You shall not oppress your neighbor nor rob him. The wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning.

You pay him what you owe him when it's time. You don't keep him poor by not giving him what he deserves, what he has earned. Leviticus 19 .15, two verses later,. You shall do no injustice in judgment.

You shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly. Do you hear that? God knows our hearts. He knows how we swing the pendulum, how we overreact. And Paul reminds us,.

Let him who steals, steal no longer. Part of the old man. Greed is not only a rich man's sin, poor are greedy too. Theft is not only a poor man's sin, the rich are thieving too. Covetousness is bound up in the heart of man, but the righteousness of Christ will drive it far from us.

The way we get right is to put our attention upon Christ, who reigns at the right hand of the Father. And as we have in view His intercession for us, as we have His sacrifice for us in view, we confess our sins, not only looking for forgiveness, but also cleansing from all unrighteousness.

We lay aside the pride and the bitterness, which so easily sets us up for theft. This is how we live God's way. We locate our status, not in this world, but in Christ. We labor in His grace and we rest in His reign.

We are not in control. Do we know this? That we are not in control of our possessions and privileges? Do you think you control them? A person may labor very diligently according to the wisdom of Proverbs, and experience blessings of God, and to that end we are encouraged to strive, and yet a person's life does not consist of their possessions.

And we may have the integrity and the diligence of Job, and suffer his many deprivations. And we would confess, by the grace of God, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away,.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

We're not in control. In any case, social status does not determine our rights of possession, just our realm of responsibility. It's the crucible in which our character is tested. And social status does not determine our treatment of others.

Our treatment of others. And it's closely related to what we think about other people's possessions, isn't it? But it's worth emphasizing, for Jehoiakim as king, thought he should be able to heavily tax all the people, taking from them to pay off foreign threats, while at the same time instituting forced labor for his own benefit.

He thought his status removed moral restraints in his conduct toward others. Because of my status, moral restraint is removed from me. I can treat other people in all these different ways, simply because of my status.

How often is this the argument that we face today? I don't have to treat them rightly because I'm this and they're that. The truth is that God determines how we are to treat one another. As our creator, he calls us to love others rightly, and then he details what that looks like.

Time and again, how often did he, in instructing the people of Israel, he said, I am the Lord. Thus, treat these people and these people in these ways. It's based upon the character of the Lord. Our relationships certainly are not static, but God's righteousness is.

He is the Lord, and he does not change. We're wrong if we think we get to treat other people based on their status. James has a passage where he warns the church that when a poor man comes in and a rich man comes in, you don't give the rich man the best seat in the house and sit the poor man in the back.

We don't hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ in partiality. And the same is true the other way around, is it not? We're wrong if we think we get to treat the rich with contempt and disdain, because, oh, they're all crooks and oppressors.

And we're wrong if we treat the poor with contempt and disdain, because, oh, they're all crooks and worthless. And we're wrong if we justify stealing from others and oppressing others based on status.

And additionally, we're wrong if we think that our status determines our behavior towards others. And God makes that point so eloquently with Jehoiakim as he points to his father, Josiah. You think you're a king?

You think you're a king because you're building in cedar now? You're competing in cedar now? You think you've got a nicer place to live than Solomon? I imagine that Jehoiakim would have been part of one of those TV shows about, you know, redecorating.

Well, we were going to go for this, but we went ahead and splurged for this. Jehoiakim's house would have been featured. It would have been the season finale. And he thought that that's what made him king.

God says, did you not pay attention to your father? He was king too. He had the same status you did, but what did he do with what I gave to him? He ate, he drank, he was king. He lived like a king, but you know what he did with his kingship?

He did righteousness and he did justice. And when it called for it, he stood up for the oppressed. He stood up for the innocent. And it was well with him. It was well with him. Isn't that what it means to know me, God says?

It's well with you when you have these relationships in their proper order. It is not our status that determines how we treat others, but our hearts. What was the difference between Josiah and Jehoiakim?

Josiah had a heart for God. Jehoiakim did not. Our correction comes as we put our attention upon Christ. When our eyes and heart, notice what he says in verse 17 again. God points at the problem of Jehoiakim.

Your eyes and your heart are intent only upon your own dishonest gain. On shedding innocent blood, on practicing oppression and extortion. Getting ahead to get what you want. To make things the way you want them to be.

That's what Jehoiakim's eyes and heart were. But what are we called to do? We are called to not set our eyes upon things here on earth. But to put our attention and fix our gaze on things that are above where Christ is.

Seated at the right hand of the Father. Our attention must be on the one who laid aside his divine privileges. The one who humbled himself and sacrificed himself for us. So that we would confess our pride and lay aside our many offenses.

And our vats of bitterness to follow Christ. Knowing his forgiveness and sanctification. Our spiritual status is what determines how we treat others. Not our social status. It's important to say that because the hunger for justice these days.

Hunger for justice not satisfied in Christ's cross and coming. Hunger for justice not satisfied in Christ's cross and coming. Quickly turns into thirst for revenge. So we've got to put our attention upon Christ.

And remember that Paul when he's writing to Jews and Gentiles. Whose history and racial divide is deeper than anything we know in current times. He's writing to Jews and Gentiles who are in the same church together.

Who had centuries worth of bitterness towards each other.

He says this.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you.

Along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other. Just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. And walk in love just as Christ also loved you.

And gave himself up for us. An offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. Until you put your attention upon Jesus Christ. And the Jesus Christ of the scriptures. The one who died upon the cross.

A bloody death as a sacrifice before God. His life being poured out as a sacrifice pleasing to God. Until we put our attention upon Jesus Christ as revealed in the scripture. Centered upon his sacrifice for us upon the cross.

We're not going to understand how to love each other rightly. How to treat one another rightly. And finally, our social status does not determine our relationship with God. Our social status does not determine our relationship with God.

Shalom may have been king of Judah. But that didn't make him any closer to God than others in Jerusalem. It did not justify him before God. Kuniah could have been the signet ring on God's right hand. But that wouldn't have kept him from judgment.

The truth is that just because we're poor. Just because we are rich. Or just because we're perfectly middle class. God doesn't love us more. God doesn't love us more. There are many false assumptions about this in each age.

And the false assumption in Jesus' day was that those who were rich were closer to God. After all, they had more stuff. That meant that God loved them more. And the rich were closer to God and closer to getting into heaven than anybody else.

And if you were poor, you probably deserved it. And that was the basic assumption. Which is why Jesus in Matthew 19 verse 23 says to his disciples. Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Easier for the largest moving thing you've ever seen to go through the smallest opening you've ever seen. Than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Now listen to the disciples. When the disciples heard that, they were astonished and said. Well then, who can be saved? Do you hear their assumption? The rich were the closest to God. And if it's that impossible for the rich to be saved, then nobody can be saved.

And looking at them, Jesus said to them. Well with people, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible. And so of course, Jesus' point was not to say. You fools, the rich are the furthest from the kingdom.

The poor are the closest. That's not his point. His point is that salvation is impossible for man. It's impossible for man. It's only possible for God to save the likes of all of us. We are wrong if we claim that health and wealth are signs of God's approval of our faith.

We are wrong if we claim that God loves the poor and sets himself against the rich. We're wrong when we take anybody's social status to be the measure of their righteousness. Or the degree of God's favor upon them.

Status is a crucible. It's not a covering. And we need a covering. We need a covering. Because otherwise we're going to stand naked in a shame before God. Like the king who had no clothes. Or like Jerusalem.

Notice her shame in Jeremiah 22 verses 21 and 22. He says, I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, I will not listen. This has been your practice from your youth, that you have not obeyed my voice.

The wind will sweep away all your shepherds and all your lovers will go into captivity. And then you will surely be ashamed and humiliated because of all your wickedness. No answer before God.