Jeremiah 37 King James Version (KJV)

Jeremiah 37 King James Version (KJV)

37 And king Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah.

2 But neither he, nor his servants, nor the people of the land, did hearken unto the words of the Lord, which he spake by the prophet Jeremiah.

3 And Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Pray now unto the Lord our God for us.

4 Now Jeremiah came in and went out among the people: for they had not put him into prison.

5 Then Pharaoh's army was come forth out of Egypt: and when the Chaldeans that besieged Jerusalem heard tidings of them, they departed from Jerusalem.

6 Then came the word of the Lord unto the prophet Jeremiah saying,

7 Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel; Thus shall ye say to the king of Judah, that sent you unto me to enquire of me; Behold, Pharaoh's army, which is come forth to help you, shall return to Egypt into their own land.

8 And the Chaldeans shall come again, and fight against this city, and take it, and burn it with fire.

9 Thus saith the Lord; Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us: for they shall not depart.

10 For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire.

If we are not following hard after the Lord in true holiness, a lot of things can go a lot of ways, and things can appear to be going in a lot of directions. One thing is for certain however, and that is regardless of how things look, nothing is going in a good direction unless we repent of our folly and get on the straight path of God's Spirit. God had commanded Judah and Jerusalem to surrender to the army of Babylon and be taken captive by them into Babylon. Jeremiah had preached this message of God's judgment on his people for a number of years, and they had for the most part not hearkened to the word of the Lord. The misguided prophets of the land had consistently assured the people that God would not by any means send a heathen nation against his people, and demand his own people to give up themselves and God's city to a heathen king (Jer. 29). In fact the king previous to Zedekiah had actually had a roll of Jeremiah's prophecy burned before him (Jer. 36:20-23). It was a very unpopular message that Jeremiah had been given, but God's patience with his people had run out, and judgment was all he had left for them. But as is usually the case, most of the people believed the erring prophets rather than the one who actually had the word of the Lord for them. So as the 'prophets of victory' continued to promise the people peace and prosperity, it was very easy for them to reject Jeremiah's message of judgment. Ezekiel, who prophesied as a captive in Babylon during this same time, told that story very clearly: "They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The Lord saith: and the Lord hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word. Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination, whereas ye say, The Lord saith it; albeit I have not spoken? ... Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace" (Ezek. 13:6-8,10).

So while the people of Judah and Jerusalem were drunken on the false prophesies of the lying prophets, Pharaoh's army came out of Egypt and chased away the besieging army of Babylon. It really looked like the Lord was confirming the words of the prophets who prophesied contrary to Jeremiah, and I'm sure the people really 'felt the victory.' The problem with that was that Jeremiah had been telling the truth, and what appeared to be going the way of the prophets and the people who believed them, wasn't going their way at all. It just looked like it. God's people had been opposed to him for so long in so many ways, that they no longer knew which end was up. As we see in our text passage, Jeremiah assured Zedekiah that as long as he and Jerusalem refused to follow God's command of surrendering to Babylon, it didn't matter one hoot what things looked like or seemed like; things were going to go badly for himself, as well as for Judah and Jerusalem. Nothing has changed since then, not with God and not with man. It's still all about following the Lord's ways and doing his will in our lives, and nothing apart from that formula is going to work out well for us. 'Feeling the victory' is not going to get it done for us if sin is present with us, or with those we are in fellowship with. The apostle Paul made this point abundantly clear to the congregation at Corinth, who were continuing to 'shout the victory' with a brother present who was going onward in a sin, being unchecked and not judged: "Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth... But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner... Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person" (I Cor. 5:6-8,11,13).

So as Paul told them, their 'glorying [was] not good." Things were not going in a good direction in Corinth, though the people were unaware of that. Being unaware of something is not good when we should be aware of it. To say that "a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump," means that everyone in the congregation was accountable for this mans' sin because they were not judging that sin. They kept right on 'giving God the glory,' but God wasn't interested in their glorying. He wanted that sin judged, and that wasn't getting done. Brings to mind an ancient proverb: "To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice" (Prov. 21:3). The same apostle Paul told the same congregation of Corinth, in the same letter, something more about these things: "Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged" (I Cor. 11:27-31). So again he was letting them know that worship and 'feeling the victory' cannot be accompanied by sin and disobedience, and still produce blessing. It didn't in Jeremiah's day, it didn't in Paul's day, and it doesn't today. It's that simple. God simply cannot and will not accept disobedience from his people, neither will he bless them if they continue therein. Someone can be living lackluster before God, and still have things that seem to be going well for them. Those things can appear to be blessing, even as it appeared that the army of Egypt had been sent by God to deliver Jerusalem from the Babylonians. He had not, and it is not.

Jesus gave the messenger of the congregation of Laodicea a rude awakening on this very subject: "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see" (Rev. 3:15-18). This minister was generally displeasing to God, yet he thought things were really going well for him because things appeared to be going well. He was wrong, and he was in trouble with God, though he was unaware of that. I could continue with many biblical accounts like these to confirm the point, but I think the point is sufficiently confirmed by now. The bottom line is that we can't measure where we're at with God by the way things seem to be going. The only accurate way to measure that we are in good standing with God, is if our conscience is clear of any sin, and our heart feels God's peace in the middle of it. If we're free from sin in our lives, which is what Jesus died for us to be, then things are going well for us even when it appears that things are going badly; and that is not an uncommon circumstance either. The lesson to be learned is to not substitute deceiving ourselves into thinking things are well because they may seem to be going well on the surface, for needed repentance from sin. Just as surely as Jeremiah said that a wounded remnant of the Babylonian army would rise up and smite Jerusalem for their lack of repentance, so the judgment of God is eminent upon us if we go onward with sin in our lives. Period. Amen.