Jim Styles - Class 6: Zedekiah - the King without a Backbone

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Actually, in the book of Jeremiah, there's probably more written about Zedekiah's time than there is anything else. Really, you look back and you put all the pieces together. There's a lot recorded about this whole period. And by the way, for those of you that in the exhortation wondered in the end, what was the connection between the Kenites and the Rechabites?

2. 0:18

   I forgot to give you the key passage in 1 Chronicles 2 at verse 55, I think it is, where it actually, in the chronology, it links the Kenites at the end of the family of Caleb and the end of Judah, it links the Kenites with the Rechabites. And that's the passage you have to have to make that connection.

3. 0:36

   But it's fun to go back and look at how it all started way back in the beginning with Moses' father-in-law. It helps you appreciate the fact that when Moses went over to Midian, and he gets connected with Hobab, and he ends up marrying Zipporah, that family actually knew something about Yahweh. There was something there in that family.

4. 0:54

   And then you start going back in history and trying to figure out, well, how did that ever happen? You know, where was that from? Was that from like people that had scattered from the times of Abraham or what? And it's just interesting to note that there were others in the earth at that point who knew about Yahweh.

5. 1:08

   So, when you look at Zedekiah, Zedekiah is our king without a backbone. And again, the focus for this class will be those chapters at the end, and you can see how many of them there are. There's quite a few chapters in the book of Jeremiah that connect with Zedekiah's lifetime. And I blew it up in a slightly different way for you to see it.

6. 1:27

   And you can see that most of the chapters deal with these key years of Zedekiah's reign. The first one, of course, is the good and bad figs, which makes sense, because at the very beginning of Zedekiah's reign, what had happened is the Babylonians had come down again. Nebuchadnezzar had invaded and took away captives again.

7. 1:46

   So, off goes Ezekiel at this point and gets carried away captive. So, many of the good figs had disappeared at that point. So, you have the whole issue about the good and bad figs in Jeremiah 24, actually comes out of the first year. But then you've got, in chapter 4, Zedekiah seems to organize a possible rebellion in the fourth year.

8. 2:06

   That pulls out of Jeremiah 27. And then that's when Jeremiah is told to put the yokes and the bonds on. Remember that chapter where he had to wear yokes and go around with the yoke? He was carrying around the yoke? That's because God was, like, trying to counter Zedekiah's attempt to rebel at that point.

9. 2:20

   And Jeremiah sends the yokes out to all the nations. It had come into Jerusalem and says, don't rebel. Don't go along with the plan. And it's possible that somewhere in there that Zedekiah had been called back to Babylon at that point as well. And that King Nebuchadnezzar wanted to talk to him. Anyways, that's the possibility.

10. 2:37

    It seems like something was going on because, in the end, Zedekiah had to send a delegation back to Babylon. He may not have actually gone with them. But that's when Jeremiah sends a note back and tells the captives to build houses and plant and marry and have kids because you're going to be 70 years until you come back.

11. 2:53

    So you might as well settle in up in there. That's all in Jeremiah 29. So there's these whole sections that fit together all into that fourth year. And part of that message that went back up to Babylon at that point was he sends up a fellow and he says, look, when you get there, read these words.

12. 3:08

    And then, you know, tie the book, tie a stone around the book, throw the whole thing into the Euphrates River. And thus will Babylon sink, predicting the day in which Babylon would be overthrown, that the 70 years would actually come to an end. And then all the rest of those chapters you can see down there at the end, they all link in to the final invasion.

13. 3:27

    So when you're going through Jeremiah's prophecies, all of this really, and Lamentations, is all about the period at the end. It's that last 18 months. Lasted about a year and a half. And there's chapters in Ezekiel that are about that period. And a lot in Lamentations is written about that period. And you can see that what ended up happening is the Babylonians came in in the 10th year, sort of like halfway through the 10th year.

14. 3:50

    And by the halfway through the 12th year, Jerusalem had fallen. So Zedekiah, you'll see in chapter 37, he's going to send Jehuchal and Zephaniah to Jeremiah, so he'll pray for us. And you get things like that happening. Really, Zedekiah starts to realize this is bad. This is getting really bad. And Jeremiah got shut up in the court of the prison at that time.

15. 4:10

    That's when he redeemed Helmiel's field, which we looked at this morning, when he went and redeemed the field and couldn't even figure out why. And then you have this whole incident about the covenant to free the Hebrew slaves, and Zedekiah breaks the covenant right away. That's all that period when the Egyptians came up from the south and pushed the Babylonians out temporarily.

16. 4:28

    But it didn't last very long. So then Jeremiah goes out, as you can see, some of these things are going to ring a bell. Remember that just in general what happens is that once the Babylonians pulled back and the opportunity was there, then what Jeremiah does is he goes out to look at the field he bought.

17. 4:45

    Why not? If you're free to leave the city at that point, he figures he'll go check out the field. And that's when Uriah comes in and claims treason. He's leaving. He's deserting to the Chaldeans. And then Jeremiah's in trouble. And from there on in, then he's locked up. And the people call him a defector at that point.

18. 5:02

    So again, you have this whole incident at the end there about the princes wanting to kill Jeremiah. And that's when you go through that whole period where Zedekiah, he has them put into prison. And Zedekiah pulls them out of the prison. And you know, don't tell anybody I got you out, but what is the word of the Lord?

19. 5:16

    And that's the kind of king Zedekiah was. Pretty sad to see. So all those things are going to happen here at the end. I do really think that it's when you look at the concept of really in the end, the book of Jeremiah as we have it today, that the final compilation was probably to influence Zedekiah.

20. 5:33

    That makes a lot of sense to me. And you look at the things that went on in Zedekiah's life. If you go back and look, like in 2 Chronicles 36, you'll find that there really isn't a whole lot written about Zedekiah in Chronicles or Kings. It really doesn't tell you much about his life.

21. 5:47

    But Jeremiah fills in all those gaps. And that's how we know a lot about Zedekiah. You find out in 2 Chronicles 36, verse 12, that he did evil in God's sight, and he didn't humble himself before Jeremiah, when Jeremiah spoke the word of the Lord. That we know. You see that all over in Jeremiah.

22. 6:03

    We also know that he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, and he broke his oath. Now you're going to see that in relation to the exhortation this morning about faithfulness. What ended up happening, probably as a result of Daniel's influence, is that when Nebuchadnezzar came down, he made Zedekiah take an oath in the name of Yahweh that he would not rebel.

23. 6:27

    And in the end, God held him accountable for the fact that he broke the oath that he had made. That actually shows up in Ezekiel's prophecy, if you ever check that out. But he's chewed out for the fact that he didn't keep his oath. The leaders transgressed, you'll see in verse 14, and they defiled the house of the Lord.

24. 6:44

    And it describes the siege and Zedekiah's capture in 2 Chronicles 25. But really, you're not told a whole lot about it. But Jeremiah's prophecies are going to tell you a lot about Zedekiah. You'll get to see what happens in his life. So if you start in Jeremiah 24, Jeremiah 24 is right in the beginning of Zedekiah's reign.

25. 7:04

    So Zedekiah takes over, and the reason he takes over is because the previous king that had been there, Jehoiachin, he had been removed by Nebuchadnezzar, and Zedekiah was put in place. He's a puppet king put in there by the king of Babylon. And he was put there so that he would do whatever the Babylonians wanted him to do.

26. 7:24

    So you'll see that in Jeremiah 24, verse 21, the Lord showed me two baskets of figs, and they were set before the temple of the Lord. After Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had carried away captive Jeconiah, so that's Jehoiachin, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah with the craftsmen and the smiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.

27. 7:50

    So now a lot of these people had taken off and gone to Babylon, joined Daniel up there, and really when Jeremiah looked around, a lot of his friends that he had, a lot of people that he sort of counted on, like the Daniels and the Ezekiels, and people that he could connect with, they were disappearing.

28. 8:07

    It would have been pretty discouraging for Jeremiah to see his friends disappearing out of the land. And so God says that, look it, they weren't taken out because they hate them. You look down in verse 5, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, like these good figs, so I will acknowledge those who are carried away captive from Judah, whom I have sent out of this place for their own good into the land of the Chaldeans.

29. 8:32

    And God lays out for all of the people at that point, don't worry about them, I'll take care of them up in Babylon. I took them away for their own good. What you worry about is the people that are still left. That's going to become a problem, because this siege is going to get really bad at the end, and God saw this coming.

30. 8:49

    So that's what people had to worry about, and Zedekiah was definitely one of those bad figs, and in the end he was going to go. And it is a good warning to all of us that, you know, God does stuff in your life as well. He moves things around. He brings incidents into our lives, diseases and troubles that we have to deal with.

31. 9:05

    And a lot of times we don't know why at the time, or we think we're being punished by God, like these good figs would have thought. They're going away captive, and their natural reaction is just to think, oh, God's angry at us, and he's carrying us away captive. And really, that wasn't it at all.

32. 9:21

    God was angry at the nation, at the unfaithful, but what he was doing for the faithful was trying to help them understand that the only way for you to have your children and your grandchildren carry this on is for me to get you out of this land, clear out the land and get rid of all this idolatry, take you up to Babylon and bring you back without the idols in your hearts.

33. 9:42

    And you know, it worked. I really believe it worked when you look in the scriptures and you see God's plan and how it laid out, because then for the next 400 years up to the coming of Christ, when Jesus comes on the scene, is idolatry ever a problem again in Israel? And it isn't.

34. 9:58

    I mean, God knew what was best, just like he does for our lives. He knew how to knock the idols out of their hearts. And it worked. It really did work. The problem is, the other things came into play. And of course, then you had the swing of the Jews that went all over to the law and the Pharisees that developed and all this legalism that came along.

35. 10:18

    And then, you know, the Apostle Paul and Jesus have to deal with that instead. But it wasn't the idolatry that they were dealing with back here. It's just the game changed. And now the problem was a little bit different, but there still were problems. Now, in Jeremiah 27, this is the one that comes a little bit later on.

36. 10:33

    Jeremiah 27. And you really do have to do a slight correction to your Bible here in Jeremiah 27. Some of your Bibles may have a note here that in verse 1, it certainly appears that the copyists made an error when they were copying that section. And it talks about, in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, that really that should be Zedekiah.

37. 10:54

    And some of you may have a note about that because you can see down in verse 3 that all of these different kings of Edom and Moab and Ammon and Sidon and Tyre, they all had come to Jerusalem by messengers who came to Jerusalem to Zedekiah, the king of Judah. So this is really in Zedekiah's reign, not Jehoiakim's.

38. 11:15

    Although it is true that Jehoiakim probably had rebelled at some point as well if we didn't get a chance to look at that earlier on. So it looks like what Zedekiah did is he sort of got the nations together all around Israel, brought in some leaders, some representatives, and had a little discussion with them.

39. 11:30

    What do you think? Do you think we can pull this off? What if we all get together? Do you think we can rebel from the king of Babylon? And so Zedekiah is making his own plans. He's a schemer. And he schemes with the other nations. And that's when this whole incident then comes up about the yokes and stuff with Jeremiah.

40. 11:48

    So you get these five nations that are coming in there. And a lot of people think they were probably planning a rebellion of some kind. And so Jeremiah's mission then becomes that he's supposed to explain to the nations that Yahweh owns the land. And that's really the key today. When you watch the arguments between the Jews and the Arabs about Jerusalem, and we get all caught up in like who owns the land, our tendency sometimes is to like side with Israel and say Israel owns the land when really God owns the land.

41. 12:19

    And he will give it to whoever he wills, which is what Daniel was trying to explain up there to Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. That's the key. It's God who owns the land. The Jews don't own the land. The Arabs don't. Neither one of them own the land. The land belongs to God. And that's what solves the problem.

42. 12:37

    That's really the real answer to use. That's the answer. I think it's Jephthah that uses in the Judges. And he says, look it, you can have all the argument you want about who owns the land, but let's face it, the land is owned by one of our gods. And right now, whose God gave the land out?

43. 12:52

    Our God did. Yahweh gave it to us. And that's Jephthah's argument. And it makes a lot of sense. So that's his basis then for arguing with the Ammonites at that point. And it really is the answer for today as well. So in verse 11, you see that the nations that serve Babylon, and this would be really interesting.

44. 13:08

    So this is a message going out to the nations. This is how Jeremiah becomes a prophet to the nations. So he sends a message back with these leaders. And he says, look at the nations that are willing to serve under the king of Babylon. Those nations, I will let them remain in their own land, says the Lord, and they shall till it and dwell in it.

45. 13:28

    And then he also spoke to Zedekiah, the king of Judah. So again, it's Zedekiah. It isn't Jehoiakim at this point. And he argues the case and says, look it, bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him and his people and live. I mean, that's a simple idea.

46. 13:45

    Just serve him. And God says, if you do, then God will let you live. He'll let you stay in the land and let you live. Basically surrender to him, which is what God had said through Jeremiah all along. So that's the appeal that he makes to Zedekiah down in around verses 12 to 15.

47. 14:01

    So at first, he appeals to the nations. He goes on and appeals to Zedekiah personally. And then he appeals to the people down in verses 16. You'll see, I spoke to the priests and to all these people saying, do not listen to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you saying, behold, the vessels of the house of the Lord will now shortly be brought back from Babylon for they prophesy a lie to you.

48. 14:23

    This is what was happening amongst the false prophets. They were just saying, oh yeah, a lot of people got carried away to Babylon, but you know what? A year or two, everybody's coming back. Everything's going to come back. You know, in fact, they actually, Jeremiah had used that as a test case at one point and just said, you know, if the vessels, let's make a deal.

49. 14:41

    I say the vessels are leaving. You say they're going to stay. And Jeremiah said, if the vessels take off and they get carried away, then you'll know I was right, you were wrong. But then once it happened, they just modified their game plan and they just said, oh yeah, they left, but they're coming back.

50. 14:53

    They're coming back pretty soon. So this is what Jeremiah was trying to accomplish. So down in verse 18, that was his challenge to them. He said, all right, look it, here's our test. Because you wonder like, how did the people really know which prophet was saying the truth? And God uses prophecy to back up a prophet.

51. 15:12

    He gives them a way of explaining that here's a prediction. This is what I say is going to happen and we'll find out whether or not it actually does occur. So there's his argument, right? In verse 18, but if they are prophets, these false prophets, and if the word of the Lord is really with them, let them now make intercession to the Lord of hosts that the vessels which are in the house of the Lord and the house of the king of Judah and at Jerusalem do not go to Babylon.

52. 15:35

    Some of them are gone. Some from the temple are gone, but we still have a few left. And if these people really are prophets, let's set up a test case. Let your prophets ask their whatever and make their prediction and ask that the vessels not go. And Jeremiah says, what I say is that they're all going.

53. 15:53

    And then we'll find out who's right. For verse 19, thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the pillars, concerning the sea, concerning the carts, concerning the remainder of the vessels that remain in the city. So these are all the things that are left. Jeremiah says, all right, which Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, did not take when he carried away captive Jeconiah, that's Jehoiachin right there, the son of Jehoiachin, king of Judah from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem.

54. 16:20

    Yes, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels that remain in the house of the Lord and in the house of the king of Judah and of Jerusalem, they shall be carried to Babylon and there they shall be until the day I visit them. And then I will bring them up and restore them to this place.

55. 16:38

    So that's the test case. That's what Jeremiah sets out. God, you know, gives him an opportunity to run the test. And what God's trying to do is separate the people between those who believe, those who have the faith that Jeremiah is right, and those who didn't and wanted to follow the false prophets.

56. 16:53

    So if you had been alive at that time and you really weren't sure who to follow, now you had a test case to look at. Let's watch and see what happens to the vessels. And in the end, off they go to Babylon. So that's the test that was set up. Now, if you go over Jeremiah 28, you can see that at this period of time in Zedekiah's reign, Jeremiah 28 is actually in the same year at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah in the fourth year and the fifth month.

57. 17:22

    So we were in this same period at the beginning of Zedekiah's reign that this was Hananiah's message. Hananiah, the son of Azur the prophet, who was from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the Lord in the presence of the priests and all the people saying, thus says the Lord of hosts.

58. 17:38

    Now, here's a lie, but here's the kind of thing that the false prophets did. And the people had to discern who's telling the truth. So thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, thus he speaks, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two full years, I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the Lord's house that Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, took away from this place.

59. 18:02

    See, he's going to bring them all back. And I will bring back to this place Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah. So this is Jehoiachin. He says, not only are the vessels going to come back, but so is Jehoiachin. He's coming back too. And with all the captives of Judah who went to Babylon, says the Lord, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.

60. 18:23

    All right, this is his prediction. And so now we've got a test case as to who in the world's telling the truth. You know, and you can imagine how frustrating it was to Jeremiah. How do you convince the people that Jeremiah is right and their false prophets are wrong? You know, how do you get that across to the people?

61. 18:41

    So then in verse five, Jeremiah spoke to the prophet Hanani in the presence of the priests and in the presence of all the people who stood in the house of the Lord. So all the people who heard Hanani's prophecy, Jeremiah now comes to them and says, all right, like here's the deal. The prophet Jeremiah comes in and he says, amen, the Lord do so.

62. 19:01

    And the Lord perform your words which you have prophesied to bring back the vessels of the Lord's house and all who were carried away captive from Babylon into this place. Totally sarcastic. Very much like Mikey I am when he was doing that in 1 Kings 22 to Ahab. Nevertheless, hear now this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people.

63. 19:23

    The prophets that have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries and great kingdoms of war and disaster and pestilence. As for the prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet comes to pass, the prophet will be known as the one whom the Lord has truly sent.

64. 19:42

    It's easy to prophesy war, right? But the one who prophesied peace, ooh, that's different. So, Hananiah's prophesying peace. Let's see whether that's going to happen. So, Hananiah, the prophet, he takes the yoke off of the prophet Jeremiah's neck and he broke it. The yoke that Jeremiah had been wearing around his neck he'd been carrying around trying to explain to the people when all the little kids would ask and other people say, oh, look at this guy, look at it, he's carrying, he's got this joker on his neck.

65. 20:08

    Ha, doesn't he look funny? What's he doing? And people would ask that question and Jeremiah would tell him that it was a way of trying to appeal to the people. A lot of similar things to what Ezekiel would be doing. He's laying on his side and people would come in and he'd talk to him about why he's acting these things out.

66. 20:23

    They were enacted parables to get the people's attention. They'd have text messaging and Twitter and all those kind of things back then. So, you'd wear a yoke, you just put the yoke on and everybody would see that. So, what Hanani does, he comes in and he says, in verse 11, and actually in verse 10 there, he took the yoke off the prophet Jeremiah's neck and he breaks it.

67. 20:43

    He breaks the yoke. And Hanani spoke in the presence of all the people saying, thus says the Lord. I mean, he comes in and says, here's what Yahweh says and he's going to speak the word of Yahweh. Even so, I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, from the neck of all nations within the space of two full years.

68. 21:01

    And the prophet Jeremiah went his way. Isn't that interesting? You think about our ecclesial discussions sometimes that we have and we say our peace and we have brethren sometimes and there's no way they're going to leave the meeting until everybody agrees with them. That's not what Jeremiah did, is it? It's really interesting when you look at what goes on here.

69. 21:21

    And this is what you learn about how to deal with the ecclesial and family life. You have to let God take care of things sometimes. Our responsibility is to go and do what God says. We explain what we believe is the truth. But then at some point when other people can't buy into that or whatever is going on in our families and our ecclesias, at some point you have to walk away from it and let God take over.

70. 21:45

    And that's how peace comes in situations. So Jeremiah does that. As much as he might have wanted to sit there and argue it out, Jeremiah the prophet went his way. He walked away from that situation. And then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from the neck of the prophet Jeremiah saying, and now he says, alright, you go back.

71. 22:05

    And God tells him to go back. You go back and tell Hananiah saying, thus says the Lord, you have broken yokes of wood but you have made in their place yokes of iron because of what you did. You just busted up pieces of wood. I'm going to put iron yokes on you guys.

72. 22:24

    For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon and they shall serve him and I have given him the beast of the field also. Oh, Daniel, right? That's, I'm going to listen to that.

73. 22:41

    This is to the extent that God was willing to give it all over to Nebuchadnezzar. He's given him the whole land and the animals, everything. And the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you but you make this people trust in a lie. Therefore, thus says the Lord.

74. 23:04

    Now this is God now speaking and telling Jeremiah what to say. This isn't just like Jeremiah having an argument with him. So now God steps in and says, Behold, I will cast you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die because you have taught rebellion against the Lord. And Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month.

75. 23:27

    So that's the end of it for Hananiah at this point. So he had done his thing. He spoke his words. And here's his family line. When you look at Hananiah, he's the son of Azar. And you're going to see that Shalamiah, Zedekiah, Jehuchal, Uriah, these different characters, they show up in this story.

76. 23:44

    And I think Jehazaniah is the one who shows up in Ezekiel 11. So this family line, Azar's family line, just like Shaphan had a good family line, this family line was totally against Jeremiah. They always were against Jeremiah and fought him all the way. And Hananiah is one of the first who stands up and actually gets involved.

77. 24:05

    So that's the end of it for Hananiah. And, you know, he dies later on that same year. What happens after that is the family gets mad at Jeremiah and points the finger at Jeremiah and says, you killed him! You know, it reminds me of like the story when the earth opened up and swallowed Koran in his rebellion.

78. 24:22

    And the people come to Moses the next day and say, Moses, you killed all these people! And it's like, what? I didn't open up the earth. What are you doing saying I killed them? This is God that took care of this, not me. But they, forever, they held Jeremiah responsible for the death of Hanani, their big chief prophet that they had at that time.

79. 24:41

    And it's just, it's sad to see, but this is the way real life really is. So Hananiah, in the end, he breaks his yoke. Jeremiah says, you're going to die because of it in the end. But I do think it's fun to watch how God took care of the issue. And there are times, brothers and sisters, in a collegial life and in our family sometimes where we don't have to battle it all out to the end, to where everybody is so wiped out and worn out.

80. 25:04

    What you can do is honestly speak what you think is the truth. We go in and you have your opportunity to say, we lay out what we believe is the truth and then you can walk away and wait and see what God does in the future. Sometimes we forget God cares about the community.

81. 25:19

    He cares about what happens in our area and he will influence people's lives. He will take care of things if we've done our job. And our job is not to always carry it to the end and make sure our way got through. That isn't always the case. And sometimes you just have to let go and let God and let him take care of it.

82. 25:40

    And he certainly did in this case. Now, Jeremiah 29 would have happened right around this same period when Zedekiah ends up sending a message. He sends a delegation up to the king of Babylon. Probably because the king of Babylon at this time heard word of all these people coming together in Jerusalem and wonders, sends a message down and says, Zedekiah, what's going on down there?

83. 26:04

    You've got all these different messengers coming in from the other kingdoms. And what's this stuff about yokes and he probably heard about Jeremiah? I wouldn't be surprised if Daniel was talking to him as well about what's going on with Jeremiah and the land and what Yahweh intends to do. So Zedekiah has to send a delegation up to Nebuchadnezzar at this point probably to assure him that he's not going to rebel.

84. 26:25

    And so Jeremiah uses this occasion in Jeremiah 29 to send an encouraging letter to the good figs. He realizes they're frustrated. They're feeling like, oh, he got yanked out of the land. These were people who were committed to the way of God and were hoping Jerusalem would last and they would still have their temple and their way of life and that God would still work with them.

85. 26:46

    And instead, they got yanked out of their comfort zone, taken up to Babylon, and now he has to tell them, stay there, have families, build houses. 70 years, we're looking at. That generation is going to die off and somebody else is going to come back. So it would be good for him to send an encouraging letter to them, and he does.

86. 27:03

    You can see the letter in Jeremiah 29, and you'll notice he sends it in verse 3 by the hand of Elisa. Elisa, who's he? The son of Shaphan. See, who you got to trust with the letter? You trust the family that you know you can count on. And so here we got Elisa, the son of Shaphan, and he sends the letter with him, and Gemariah, the son of Hilkiah, who may possibly have been Jeremiah's brother, this Gemariah.

87. 27:30

    This could be Hilkiah the priest in this case. So he's sending it with some people he could trust. Zedekiah, the king of Judah, sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, saying, and here's the letter. You know, build houses, plant gardens, take wives, have children, and seek the peace of the city.

88. 27:52

    In verse 7, where I have caused you to be carried away captive. Oh, whatever happened to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And now you're telling us to seek the peace of Babylon? This was like all new stuff to these people. This was really out of their comfort zone. But God says, this is what we have to do to solve the problem.

89. 28:12

    And it may not be what you wanted, it may not be what God wanted, but he's got a plan that he guarantees will work. So I've carried you away captive, and pray to Yahweh for Babylon. Pray about this place, because this was all his plan. And thus says the Lord of hosts in verse 8, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets and your diviners who are in your midst deceive you, nor listen to your dreams which you have caused to be dreamed.

90. 28:39

    For they prophesy falsely to you in my name, and I've not sent them, says the Lord, because 70 years in verse 10, 70 years are going to take place, and then I'll visit you and perform my good word toward you and cause you to return to this place. Because in verse 11, yeah, I do have thoughts of peace for you, not of evil, and I want to give you a future and a hope.

91. 29:01

    But this is how we're going to get that future and hope. It's going to take all of this to pull it off. And finally, you know, you will when you finally call upon me, and when you pray to me, I'll listen to you, and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

92. 29:17

    And this was the promise God had made. He would make a new covenant with that new generation, and they would be faithful in the land. And you know, you read the story of Ezra, at the beginning of Ezra, Ezra 1 to 6, and you can see that is what happened. They came back under Ezra and Zerubbabel, they came back, and God did something the community hadn't had for years.

93. 29:39

    Unity. Isn't that interesting? You ever thought of that? He not only knocked idolatry out of them going up to Babylon, he finally united the community. That kingdom had never been united like that, even in the days of David. Some of them were just waiting to rebel, and it happened right away. Now there's Saul.

94. 29:58

    You go back to the period of the judges, and you could see in the tribes, they were always jealous of one another. Jephthah goes out and wins a war, and the Ephraim is like, what's the problem you didn't invite us? And this is what the judges were doing, and they're all worried about it, and there's fighting, and all this stuff going on, and God couldn't knock it out of them.

95. 30:17

    But Babylon did. It takes strong medicine sometimes, things that we don't anticipate, we don't want, but if you pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and you pray for the unity, you better be ready for what it costs to bring it about. And I don't think some of these people anticipated this at all, but when they came back from Babylon, you'll see in Ezra 1, Ezra 2, they came together as one man.

96. 30:44

    Nehemiah says the same thing. Finally, God had knocked out of them that spirit of division, that divisive spirit, and they came back as a united kingdom, and it was a forerunner of the age to come. This is what's going to happen with Israel in the kingdom age. Fun to watch, interesting to see, but oh, was it expensive.

97. 31:03

    It cost them, and it cost them in order to bring this about. But God said, I'll do it. I will do it. I'll solve the problem of idolatry. I'll solve the problem of unity, but you got to trust me, this is what it's going to cost. And so he did have good intentions of bringing them back and having a future for them.

98. 31:21

    So in verse 15, when you look in this letter, you now look what he says about these false prophets. All right, the Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon. This is what they said. Now, they're not talking about Ezekiel. They're talking about the false prophets that they had up in Babylon.

99. 31:38

    So there were false prophets up there. There were false prophets down in the land. And he says, because you have said the Lord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon, therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king who sits on the throne of David and concerning all the people who dwell in this place and in this city, that would be Jerusalem, and the king there would be Zedekiah.

100. 32:01

     So he's singling them out, making it very clear who he's talking about. And concerning your brethren who have not gone out with you in the captivity, thus says the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will send on them the sword, famine, pestilence, and make them like rotten figs that cannot be eaten. They are so bad.

101. 32:23

     So the bad figs got left in the land. Now Jeremiah is looking around and realizing, wow, I'm with the bad figs. And look what's in store for you. While the ones who have the Babylon are being told, sure, build houses, have wives, plant vineyards, enjoy life, pray for the peace of your area up there and enjoy it.

102. 32:43

     The ones that are left down in the land now, sword, famine, pestilence, rotten figs. And I will pursue them with the sword and famine and pestilence and deliver them to trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth to be a curse and an astonishment, a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I've driven them because they have not heeded my words.

103. 33:05

     Which says the Lord, which I sent to them to be my servants, the prophets, rising up early and sending them, neither would you heed. Therefore, they're going off to captivity and all this trouble is going to happen to them. Now, look what happens down in verse 21. Now he singles out specific false prophets.

104. 33:25

     For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab, the son of Coliah, and Zedekiah, the son of Messiah, who prophesied a lie to you in my name. Now, this Zedekiah was probably Jeremiah's cousin. He was one of these false prophets. They prophesy a lie and they say, behold, I will deliver them, this is what God says, I'm going to deliver them in the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and he will slay them before your eyes.

105. 33:51

     Here's the prediction. So God's now starting to single out and say, I'm going to show all of you that these are really false prophets. We're coming to the end and people have to make some choices. And so the good figs are gone and the ones that are left, he's going to give them utter proof that you should not be believing these false prophets.

106. 34:09

     And because of them, a curse shall be taken up by all the captivity of Judah who are in Babylon saying, the Lord make you like Zedekiah and Ahab. So any time in the future now, when you really want to go after somebody and tell them how bad you hope their future will be, you go to that person and you say, oh, I hope you get days like Ahab and Zedekiah.

107. 34:29

     That's how bad their life is going to be. whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire. Oh, doesn't that remind you of what was going up in Babylon right now with his image going up there and the fire for the three friends? He was known for like all the melting that they did and evidently people got put in those fires and they were roasted in the fire and that's what happened to these two false prophets because they have done disgraceful things in Israel and have committed adultery with their neighbor's wives and have spoken lying words in my name which I have not commanded them.

108. 35:00

     Indeed, I know and am a witness says the Lord. So that's going to take care of Ahab and Shemaiah. They're not going to see all the good that God's going to do for Israel. And then when you look at the message, I guess, oh, you can finish this section off. He goes on down and talks to Shemaiah right there and he talks in verse 24 and mentions Shemaiah.

109. 35:24

     Now, Shemaiah was actually Jeremiah's, was a relative down there. When you look at Shemaiah the Nethal, oh, he wasn't one of the relatives, sorry. We'll look at another case of another one who was. But to Shemaiah the Nethal, he says, speak the, here's what the Lord of Hosts says about you. You sent letters to the people in your name, to all the people who were at Jerusalem and to Zephaniah, the son of Maasai, the priest, and to all the priests, saying, now, what he did is he says, here's, you know, we're going to put pressure on all you guys in Jerusalem.

110. 35:54

     You ever seen people that do that? They won't take care of an issue themselves, but they try to pressure you into taking care of the issue. This was an intimidator. And so, he sends messages down to the priests and all the priests, saying, the Lord has made you priests instead of Jehoiada the priest, so that there should be officers in the house of the Lord over every man who is demented and considers himself a prophet, that you should put him in prison and in the stocks.

111. 36:21

     So, you know, what he's saying is that, look it, Yahweh has put you in charge now. He replaced the other priests and now you're the priest, but you know what? He put you in that position so that you could take care of these demented people, these people who are crazy. And, what's the problem?

112. 36:39

     Why haven't you taken care of Jeremiah? Why didn't you get rid of him? He's one of the people you should go after. Verse 27, now therefore, why have you not reproved Jeremiah of Anathoth who makes himself a prophet to you? You know, so the message is coming down now, intimidating these guys that, look it, you got put into this position so you could take care of people like Jeremiah.

113. 36:59

     So, let's go. You know, for he's sent to us in Babylon saying, this captivity is long, build houses, dwell in them, and plant gardens and eat their fruit. So, Shemai is up there dealing with the fact that Jeremiah sent this letter up here and Jeremiah says, live up there, plant in there, have family, it's going to be 70 years.

114. 37:17

     And Shemai sends a letter back down to these priests and says, what's your problem? Why haven't you guys taken care of this man and shut him up? And that's what's happening. And so, now Zephaniah the priest in verse 28, 29 there, he read the letter in the hearing of Jeremiah the prophet. He reads the letter.

115. 37:35

     And then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, send to all those in the captivity up there. Thus says the Lord concerning Shemai and the Nehemiah because Shemai has prophesied to you and I have not sent him and he has caused you to trust in a lie. Therefore, says the Lord, behold, I will punish Shemai and the Nehemiah and his family and he shall not have anyone to dwell among his people nor shall he see all the good that I will do for my people because he has taught rebellion against the Lord.

116. 38:05

     So, that's what happens to some of the false prophets at this point. They get sent back, they get told in the end that they're going to get punished and God will take care of them and you would think then the people would witness this and they would come around and respond but very sadly, most of them somehow wrote it off as these events took place.

117. 38:23

     So, the message that went up with Saria, the message that got carried, there's actually more written about this message in Jeremiah 51. In Jeremiah 51, when you look at part of the message that Saria was going to carry up there, this was the message from earlier. The word of the Lord which Jeremiah the prophet commanded, Saria the son of Neriah, the son of Maasaiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign and Saria was the quartermaster.

118. 38:56

     So, Saria would be like the brother of Barak in this case and this was his position. This is in Jeremiah 51 down at verse 59. So, Jeremiah says to Saria, when you arrive in Babylon, see it and read all the words of this and then it shall be in verse 62 because he's going to give this prophecy and speak all against it and then when you're finished reading the book you shall tie it to a stone.

119. 39:18

     That's where this incident actually comes up. You tie it to a stone, throw it into the river Euphrates and then you shall say thus Babylon will sink and will not rise. So, this was going to be testimony to the captives in Babylon that God is going to take care of Babylon one day.

120. 39:35

     He is going to send you back and he will take care of you and all you gotta do is trust him. Believe and accept what you're going through right now and one day God will make it right. He's gonna because he intends to do good for you. Now, this Saria, this fellow who actually carries the letter, like I said, he's probably Barak's brother.

121. 39:54

     You found that out from chapter 45 at verse 1 and it probably happens at this period of time where Nebuchadnezzar wanted to question Zedekiah. This is also when we think at least that Zedekiah was made to swear the oath and there's the relationship up there of Saria with Baruch and you can see they were connected right in here and they were both the son of Neriah.

122. 40:16

     So, there really is some families in there that you could trust better than others and in this case Saria and Baruch were coming from a better family than many of these other characters in the story of Jeremiah.

123. 40:30

     Now, as far as the siege goes, when you get to chapter 34, have a look at chapter 34 because we're moving further on now into Zedekiah's life. Jeremiah 34 happens when Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and all his army and all the kingdoms of the earth under his dominions and all the people fought against Jerusalem and all its cities saved.

124. 40:53

     So, what had happened right now when you get to Jeremiah 34 is now a few years have gone by and now the siege is finally coming. This is the end that Jeremiah had talked about. This is when the fire breaks out that will not be quenched and when the woman has her baby and you cannot stop it.

125. 41:10

     So, what happens in this period is Jeremiah comes in and he educates Zedekiah and he says, Zedekiah, here's what God says in verse 2. Thus says the Lord, behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon and he shall burn it with fire and you shall not escape from his hand but shall surely be taken and delivered into his hand.

126. 41:32

     Your eyes shall see the eyes of the king of Babylon. Oh, isn't that interesting? And he shall speak with you face to face and you shall go to Babylon. Now, if you had been listening to that and you were Zedekiah, would you really anticipate everything that's in store for you? I don't think he did.

127. 41:56

     I think Zedekiah heard that and made a decision that, well, that doesn't sound too bad. You know, it looks like Zedekiah, I'm going to, you know, king of Babylon is going to come in, he's going to respect me as the king of Judah, I'm going to see him, talk to him face to face and I'm going to go to Babylon.

128. 42:11

     I mean, that's like the worst that could happen, right? And he has no idea why God says so clearly that your eyes will see him and your eyes shall see the king of Babylon and he's going to speak to you face to face and then you're never going to see anything again. He didn't know that at this time.

129. 42:28

     So, yet, here, the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah, king of Judah, thus says the Lord concerning you, you shall not die by the sword, but you shall die in peace as in the ceremonies of your fathers, the former kings who were before you. So they shall burn incense for you and lament for you saying, alas, Lord.

130. 42:46

     See, they didn't do that for Jehoiakim. Well, I have pronounced the word of the Lord, I have pronounced the word, says the Lord. All right, and so I really believe that what happened here is that this sort of like cemented in Zedekiah's mind that whether, you know, the Babylonians won or whether they got taken away, it really doesn't matter in the end, I'm going to be okay.

131. 43:05

     And that's sort of the way he looked at the end of his life because there seems to be like no pressure on him. He doesn't feel any pressure to do anything. Jeremiah comes, he says, Jeremiah, what's going on? What do you have to tell me today? And then he tells him and then Zedekiah talks to the princes and they influence him a different way and Zedekiah was more afraid of the princes, I think, than he was of the king of Babylon.

132. 43:25

     I get the feeling he really didn't think this was too bad and this is all part of how, you know, in a sense, God had set him up for this end and this is what God intended to do. So in Jeremiah 37, if you just skip over there because what we're going to do is try to put the pieces together chronologically right here and you really got to flip through a couple of chapters to see what happens.

133. 43:44

     So in Jeremiah 37, after the Babylonians have come in, now Zedekiah knows that he's going to see the king of Babylon and the city's going to be taken. What happens then in Jeremiah 37 in the first four verses is Zedekiah, the son of Josiah reigns instead of Caniah and neither he nor his servants nor the people of the land and so on, you know, he did the word of the Lord.

134. 44:06

     But look at verse 3. Zedekiah the king sent Jehuchal, the son of Shalamiah and Zephaniah, the son of Masai, the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah saying, pray now to the Lord our God for us. Now, he's probably asking because the Babylonians had surrounded the city at this point and he realizes things are bad and he asks, he's trying everything he can.

135. 44:28

     You know, Jeremiah, will you pray for us? He's already cut a deal with Pharaoh and said, Pharaoh, will you come up and help us out? So Jeremiah was coming and going among the people for he had not yet been put in prison. Then Pharaoh's army came up. Do you see that? You know what's actually happening right here?

136. 44:45

     So where we are right now, this Jehuchal that we're talking about back here in verse 3, this Jehuchal, see where he's related to Hananiah? He's the grandson son of the Hananiah, the prophet, who Jeremiah said within two years you're going to be dead and he was dead later on in the seventh month that year.

137. 45:03

     And so this family forever blamed Jeremiah for what had gone wrong in their family and they had obviously taken a stance against Jeremiah. So this is Jehuchal, the son of Shalamiah right there, who comes and Zephaniah, the son of Masaiah, and they're coming in now, pray to the Lord, our God, for us.

138. 45:19

     But they're not really serious about this. They think they've got this backup plan with Pharaoh's army. So you'll see that that's what happens next in this whole story.

139. 45:30

     So Pharaoh's army then, what he does, he comes in and Pharaoh's army is coming up then from the south and he's going to come in and what happens at that period then is that Pharaoh's army is going to come up from the south because they're there and they put pressure on the Babylonians, the Babylonians at that point are going to pull back, not all the way to Babylon, but they pull off of Jerusalem and for the moment the siege stops.

140. 45:55

     So at that exact moment when this is happening right here, this is when Jeremiah 32 actually takes place. In Jeremiah 32, we looked at this morning in the exhortation a bit, this is when God tells Jeremiah to go and buy the field. Now we find that in verse 1 of Jeremiah 32, we're in the 10th year of Zedekiah.

141. 46:15

     This is perfect timing, this is when it actually happened. In the 10th year of Zedekiah, after the siege had been going for at least six months, the Pharaoh came up in the south, the Babylonians pulled back from Jerusalem for a moment of time, you know, and this is where, you know, all these things were going on, you know, Zedekiah had done his deal with the covenant with the slaves, and for the moment things were looking good for them.

142. 46:37

     And so Jeremiah decides, all right, what he's going to do is we're going to take off and we're going to go see this land that I had bought. So you'll see like in verse 2, for when the king of Babylon's army had besieged Jerusalem. And Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison at that time, which was in the king of Judah's house.

143. 46:57

     For Zedekiah, the king had shut him up saying, why do you prophesy and say, thus says the Lord, behold, I will give the city into the hand of the king of Babylon and he shall take it. So this is what had happened and why Zedekiah had locked him up at this point. So Zedekiah had shut him up in the court of the prison, tried to silence Jeremiah at this time.

144. 47:15

     And it gives you a feeling at least for Zedekiah himself at least, that although he wanted Jeremiah to pray for him, he really didn't want Jeremiah talking to the people. You ever seen somebody like that where publicly they have like one, you know, one face that they show the public, but privately behind the scenes they're doing something else going on.

145. 47:35

     And in this case, behind the scenes, he's asking Jeremiah to pray for him, but publicly, he doesn't want to present that to the people. Publicly, he wants to present a whole different side. You know, shut up Jeremiah. You know, we're going to depend on Pharaoh and that's what he would do. So in verse 7 of this chapter, this is when Jeremiah finds out that Hanamiel, the son of Shalem, your uncle, will come to you saying, buy my field, which is Anathoth, for the right of redemption is yours.

146. 48:02

     And he wants Jeremiah to buy the field. And you know, you'll get this whole story. It's possible this guy came from Anathothoth. He could have actually been connected with the people that originally came and wanted to kill Jeremiah. You know, back in the Jeremiah 14 that we looked at yesterday. But anyways, God tells Jeremiah, look it, you redeem the field.

147. 48:19

     You buy the field. This field's useless right now. It's worth nothing at this point in time. You know, you're going to go buy the field. So what happens then is that, you know, he talks to God. He bought the field like God said in verse 9. He did exactly what God said. But Jeremiah is still a bit puzzled about why do you want me to buy this field?

148. 48:39

     So there's Hanamiel up there. He's the guy that would be Jeremiah's uncle up there in Jeremiah's family line just so you can see like where he's coming from. So now, you got to picture what's happening. The Babylonians have come down. The siege has started. The Egyptians haven't come up yet. They're not quite there.

149. 48:54

     But all this is going to happen right at this point. So the Babylonians have come down. They've surrounded the city. Hanamiel now, his field is available. God says to Jeremiah, go buy the field. And Jeremiah realizes the field is useless. Nobody wants it. Why in the world would I spend money on a field?

150. 49:11

     Right now, we should be saving our money to buy bread, to buy food. We need that more than I need this land. And God, you know, he has to answer Jeremiah, but Jeremiah is praying for help. He wants to understand why. But Jeremiah still went and did what God had said. He still went and bought the field.

151. 49:30

     And then you can see in verse 16 of this chapter, Jeremiah then goes to God and he prays to him and he said, Oh Lord God, behold, you've made the heavens and the earth by your great power and your all stretched arms. There's nothing too hard for you. You show your loving kindness to thousands.

152. 49:45

     You repay the iniquity of the fathers and the bosom of their children after them. The great and mighty God whose name is the Lord of hosts. You're great in counsel and mighty in work. See, he looks back at how powerful God is, how kind he is in his family and how his counsel is wonderful.

153. 50:00

     You've set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt in verse 20. You did all these things, right? You brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt. You've given them the land which you swore to give to them, right? And they come in and they took possession of it in verse 23.

154. 50:15

     But they've not obeyed your voice or walked in your law and you haven't done all the things that you asked and commanded them to do. You know, and he's trying to figure out why. Look at the siege bounds, verse 24. You know, I can see them. Don't you see them? Look at what's happening.

155. 50:29

     They've come to take the city and we're worried about a field? You can understand Jeremiah's predicament. It's like, what do you want me to do here? I'm a little more concerned about some other things and you're telling me to go buy a field? Verse 25. You've said to me, oh Lord God, buy the field for money and take witnesses.

156. 50:50

     Yet the city has been given into the land of the Chaldeans. And I just think it's fun to look at that concept to see that about Jeremiah for all of us. Because God brings things into our lives. He asks us to do things for him. And there are times we don't understand why.

157. 51:05

     We don't know why he's done this. We don't understand the situation at all. Because we don't see the big plan. We are so focused on our lives and our moment, our city, our family, our ecclesia. We're so focused on it, we don't understand God's big picture plan. And you sometimes have to step back from your life and look at it and wonder like, how does all this relate to the big picture of what's going on here in relation to God's game plan?

158. 51:35

     And we don't know that. It's like the writer of Ecclesiastes, Solomon, the wisest man on the earth. And he says, you can try to figure it all out in Ecclesiastes 8. And even a wise man can claim to figure it all out. Solomon says, no way. You can't understand the big game plan.

159. 51:51

     You don't know how it works. You don't know all the different components God has in mind. That was God's discussion with Job when Job didn't realize what he was going through. And God tells him all about the animals of the world and how he's doing a bigger picture than Job ever imagined. And Job just was like, wow, I didn't realize all that was going on.

160. 52:09

     And that's our problem, brothers and sisters. We've so focused on my life, my family, my Ecclesia sometimes, we don't see the big picture. And it's not totally our fault, but it's not a case of fault. It's more a case of a realization and an understanding. When you can't see the big picture, this is where faith comes into play.

161. 52:30

     This is where we have to believe God's in control. He knows what he's doing. And we have to cooperate with his will and trust that if we follow through with what he's asked us to do in raising our families and working in our ecclesias, he will bring about the good. And he says he'll take care of those things.

162. 52:47

     But that's faith. And at this point, Jeremiah is just like, he just doesn't understand it. You know, and so God responds back to him. You can see the assurance that he gives him in verse 27. I'm the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me? You're like, Jeremiah, do you really think I don't see the siege miles over there?

163. 53:04

     Do you think I don't realize what's going on? I've got things in store for you way beyond what you could ever imagine that I'm going to hope to do with this community. But I just can't tell you everything right now. You don't get to know it all. But God's goal is that, yeah, you know, we're going to eventually pull this off.

164. 53:21

     Someday, this land is really going to be worth something. And someday, that piece of property you bought, that deed, that deed will stand. It will be faithful to that time period. And now, you will have redeemed that land and it will be redeemed in your family. And God says, you just got to trust me, Jeremiah.

165. 53:38

     It's just going to take years to pull that off. And so, he did. In Jeremiah 34, we looked at a bit in the exhortation this morning, right at this period then when the Egyptians came up from the south, this is right around the same period where the covenant was made. So, what Zedekiah did is he knew he had made an appeal to the Egyptians and he knew, at least he hoped they might come up from the south, but he wasn't sure.

166. 54:03

     And so, what he does then is he decides in Jeremiah 34, all right, what we're going to do is we realize we're going to become slaves. The king of Babylon surrounded the city. We're going to become slaves. What we better do is at least make sure we treat slaves properly because that's the way we want to be treated.

167. 54:19

     And he makes a covenant and makes all the people stand to it to set free all their slaves because they hadn't been keeping the law. And so, he pulls this off at this period right now and they make their covenant to free the slaves, but then Pharaoh comes up right then, the Babylonians pull back and then they just took back all their slaves and reneged on their covenant.

168. 54:41

     And that basically is what happens in Jeremiah 34. You can look back in Leviticus 25 and you can see where God had set up rules about slavery and how slaves should be treated. And what Zedekiah does is he makes his covenant, he does it right there in the temple, he makes them stand to a covenant in the temple in the house of God and just in a few, what, weeks, months, days, whatever it was, they turn their backs on the covenant they had just made and they didn't keep the covenant down in verse 15 and 16 and God says, look it, you haven't kept the covenant, you haven't been faithful to my covenant, you can't even keep a covenant for, what, a few days or weeks, you can't even do that and you think I'm going to let you live?

169. 55:23

     No way, this is it, Jerusalem has had it and he goes on to describe like down in verse 19 when he says to the princes of Judah, the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf, these were all these folks who had made a covenant to set their slaves free.

170. 55:40

     He says, I will give them into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their life, their dead bodies will be meat for the birds of heaven and for the beasts of the earth. See, what you did when you cut a covenant, brothers and sisters, like Abraham back in Genesis 15, is you cut the animal in half, you'd separate the parts of the animal, you walk between the two parts of the animal representing your commitment of the covenant, and then you preserved it.

171. 56:07

     You kept the animals, the beasts, and the birds from coming down and eating the parts of the animal. This is what Abraham did back in Genesis 15. This is what they did right now. They had promised to keep this covenant, and God now says, well, because you didn't, now your bodies are going to be there, and the beasts and the birds are going to come in and feast on them, because you wouldn't keep this covenant.

172. 56:30

     This is faithfulness, and like I said this morning, God views faithfulness high on the top of the list, and he's testing us in our life right now to find out if we will be faithful. So in verse 17 of this chapter, you know, after they had proclaimed liberty, this is another one of these sarcastic ones, only this time it's God coming in, because they had proclaimed liberty back in verse 8 to the slaves.

173. 56:52

     Now God comes in in verse 17, and he says, therefore thus says the Lord, you have not obeyed me in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother and every one to his neighbor, behold, I'm going to proclaim liberty to you. See, God just throws it right back at him and says, you said you were proclaiming liberty, well I'll give you the kind of liberty you were willing to give them.

174. 57:14

     Behold, I'll proclaim liberty to you, says the Lord, I'm going to proclaim liberty to you, liberty to the sword, liberty to the pestilence, I'm going to set you free for famine, and I'm going to give you over to all these different things and deliver you to trouble among the kingdoms of the earth because they had transgressed his covenant.

175. 57:31

     It's interesting to watch how God would handle that situation, but a lot of times in the Bible, God does say that. He says, the very way you treated others, now I'm going to treat you the same way. You're basically going to get done to you exactly what you had done to them. So when the Chaldeans pull back at this point in time, Jeremiah for a moment, he's free to go, and that's what he tries to do.

176. 57:53

     He tries to, when the Babylonians pull back, Pharaoh had come up in the south, right at this moment when all this is taking place, in Jeremiah 37, he tries to get out of the city for a moment, and he wants to go see his land. And you watch what happens right here. The Chaldeans pull back, he gets freed from the court of the prison, and Zedekiah probably thought, oh, it really doesn't matter if he goes free right now because nobody's going to believe him anyways.

177. 58:17

     The Babylonians have pulled back, and so Jeremiah had a moment of freedom. So what he wanted to do is he wanted to go out and see this land God had him buy. You know, you can understand why. He probably wanted to know, like, why did God care so much that I bought this land?

178. 58:33

     So what he does in Jeremiah 37 right here at verse 12, and it tells you that, by the way, in verse 11, it happened when the army of the Chaldeans left the siege of Jerusalem for fear of the Pharaoh's army. So you know these pieces are being put together properly, and this is what really happened.

179. 58:50

     That Jeremiah went out of Jerusalem to go to the land of Benjamin to claim his property there among the people. And when he was at the gate of Benjamin, so he's on his way out, he's going to go to Benjamin, he's going through the gate, and who happens to be there but Uriah, the son of Shalamiah, the son of Hananiah, the same guy, Jeremiah, had prophesied that within two years he would die.

180. 59:15

     And Uriah is sitting there at the gate, and he watches Jeremiah walk through the gate, and he riles everybody up and says, you're defecting! And we got a defector over there! And he gets everybody all excited. Jeremiah's a defector! He's a defector! And the people jump on him at that point, and they seize Jeremiah at that point.

181. 59:33

     He seized him, and he brought him to the princes in verse 15. The princes were angry with Jeremiah. You know, like nobody asks him, like, what are you doing? They don't listen to his story. They just assume, oh, I know why you're doing that. And that's where a lot of our troubles come from, brethren and sisters, in real life.

182. 59:49

     We assume about why people are doing things instead of talking and communicating. And you look at the altar that the tribes had built on the eastern side of the Jordan, on the western side of the Jordan, worried that their families wouldn't be included in the community. And after seven and a half years of fighting together, the community, Israel, the Jews back then, they had fought together for seven years, and the other tribes go back, and they build that altar there, and immediately the people assume that they're going to worship other gods.

183. 1:00:19

     And they say, get your weapons, let's go kill them. And they're ready to go kill their own community. I mean, that is really sad. That's really sad as to how we are by nature, but it's a warning that this is what we fight. Our nature wants to assume we know why other people are doing what they do, and it can be totally wrong.

184. 1:00:38

     They should have talked to Jeremiah and find out what in the world are you doing? So Jeremiah, at this point, he enters the dungeon and the cells. They throw him in the prison in the house of Jonathan in verse 15. And when Jeremiah entered the dungeon and the cells, Jeremiah had remained there many days.

185. 1:00:53

     Many days. He just gets dumped. And you imagine how Jeremiah's down there meditating about, like, what in the world is going on? This is terrible. You know, but this is, this is your agent right there. That's the fellow who's the grandson of Hanani, and he's seeking revenge. He figures it's his big chance to get Jeremiah.

186. 1:01:10

     And so he claims that he's defecting at this point, and that was his approach at this point to try to get him. He charges him as being a defector. So you've got to remember, Jeremiah, he's now like 50, 60 years old. He probably got left there for a few months, and it wouldn't surprise me if Jeremiah just thought it was hopeless.

187. 1:01:25

     You know, this is it. The city's going to be taken anyways and just going to be left there to die. And that's what he thinks is going to happen. But then Zedekiah decides, well, Jeremiah, I want to hear what you've got to say. And so Zedekiah, in verse 17, he secretly takes him out and he brings him to his house.

188. 1:01:40

     Any word from Yahweh? What's he got to say? Well, this really happened. And this is the king of the land talking to Jeremiah secretly, trying to figure out what in the world is going on. But at the same time, Zedekiah wasn't willing to do a thing about it. That's why we call him the king without a back bulb.

189. 1:01:57

     He just wouldn't do anything. He wanted to know, but he didn't really want to do anything. So he checks in to find out what God's plan is, but he doesn't want to change. And Jeremiah appeals to Zedekiah, you know, down in verses 18 to 21 there. He says, look, I haven't done anything wrong.

190. 1:02:14

     Don't send me back to the dungeon, please. Don't leave me back there. And so he puts him in the court of the prison for a while. But this is the warning to us, brothers and sisters. This was Zedekiah's weakness. He cared about the future. He wanted to know what was going on, but he didn't want to change his life.

191. 1:02:29

     I really worry that some of us as Christadelphians can do this with Bible prophecy. We can get all into Bible prophecy, all about the events. We watch the news. We get stuff coming to us by email. We read all these different things so that we know what's going to go on about Bible prophecy.

192. 1:02:44

     But if that mechanism isn't really helping us to inform to the image of Christ, then don't trust in the mechanism. Just doing that isn't going to make you a member of God's family. And that's a problem. This is like Zedekiah. He's very curious about what's going on. Bible study can be like that.

193. 1:03:02

     Bible study in general. We can feel really good about our Bible study. We can study up and we can mark our Bibles. We can know all these different things. But if that mechanism isn't changing our behavior, we've missed the boat. We really have. I really think when you look at the weaknesses of the Jews in Paul's day and when Christ came along and you watch Paul write to the Romans in Romans 2 and 3 and he argues the case to the Jews and he says, you Jews that have your law and you think so much about your Bible and following your Bible and everything, if these Gentiles come along and they don't keep the sacrifices, they don't do the feast days, they don't do your little mechanism right there, but you know what?

194. 1:03:41

     In the end, they have the love of God and they understand what God's doing and they are conforming their lives to the image of Jesus Christ. Do you really think God's not going to save them? Do you really think they've got to go back now and do all these sacrifices and all this stuff and be circumcised and all that?

195. 1:03:58

     No, because they got there a different way and oh wow, that was tough, that was really hard for anybody to accept that there was another way, there was a different, and it wasn't all this stuff we were doing that God cared about, what he really cared about was the finished product? Wow, that isn't what I thought, but you know, this is what the New Testament writers dealt with over and over again and I really think the warning to us is that it can come to our ecclesias too.

196. 1:04:26

     So I'll leave you with that today for the end of Jeremiah because I really believe that when you look at the Bible that's one of the great warnings that's left for all of us. That idea of thinking that all the stuff we go through, all the classes we attend, all the Bible study I do and the readings that I do and all the formal religion that we have as Christadelphians, our greatest challenge today is we end up thinking that that's what saves us and it isn't.

197. 1:04:55

     That's the mechanism to the end and if other people are getting there another way, following God's rule, if that stuff that we're doing right there isn't helping us to get to that final end, we've got to stand back, brothers and sisters, and examine ourselves and try to figure out what's going wrong. What do we need to change before the end comes so that we will learn to treat one another in love and in kindness and get along with one another and display the fruit of the Spirit and realize that mercy triumphs over judgment as James said.

198. 1:05:30

     If those mechanisms aren't getting to that point, then we've missed the spirit of the Apostle Paul and the spirit of Jesus Christ when he delivered his message and hopefully the story of Jeremiah will help all of us to re-examine where we're headed in life because we don't want to end up like a Zedekiah and a Jehoiakim and like all those bad figs that got left behind when God took his good figs to another land and re-grew his community in a whole different position and finally faithfully kept his covenant when he brought them back to the land.

199. 1:06:03

     Thanks very much. It's been a lot of fun this weekend and I hope you've all enjoyed Jeremiah like I do. I think there's a lot of good practical lessons in there and you've been a great audience. Thanks. Thanks.