Day 605: The full message - Jeremiah 32 vs 1 - 5

1-2 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah,  which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah. 

3 For Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying, “Why do you prophesy and say, ‘Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am giving this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall capture it; 4-5 Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye. And he shall take Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall remain until I visit him, declares the Lord. Though you fight against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed’?” Jeremiah 32:1-5 (English Standard Version)

This Chapter takes place shortly before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonian army. The man named Zedekiah had been King in Jerusalem for ten years. During that time he had frantically looked for allies and for ways to escape the spreading reign of King Nebuchadnezzar. But it got to the stage where siege works were set up, food shortages would have begun to take their toll, and the mood of the city would have been very low. Where was Jeremiah? (vs 1-2)

While he wasn't in a dark and dingy dungeon, he was certainly under a form of house arrest and being closely guarded. The King saw him as a traitor because of what we read in vs 3. Jeremiah had told the King and people the message God had given him to speak. And that message was that Babylon would destroy Jerusalem. In fact, the message was even more personal for the King. Look again what the King accused Jeremiah of saying in vs 4-5.

Jeremiah’s message came true, but with a sad twist of irony. In the Old Testament book called Second Kings, we read in vs 6-7 of Chapter 25 that after Zedekiah was captured “he was taken to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where sentence was pronounced on him. They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.” So Zedekiah did see the King of Babylon face to face, as Jeremiah prophesied, but then Nebuchadnezzar cruelly had Zedekiah blinded. It was the sort of things that Kings did in those days.

Jeremiah's faithfulness in telling the King and the people of Jerusalem what God's message for them was should be true of Christians today when we get opportunities to tell others about the gospel. When the apostle Paul was on his way to Jerusalem, where he knew he might be arrested, he stopped by the city of Ephesus and spoke to the leaders of the Church that he had helped to establish, and this is what he said.

“I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes. I had one message for Jews and Greeks alike - the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus. Now I'm bound by the Spirit  to go to Jerusalem. I don’t know what awaits me, except that the Holy Spirit tells me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead. But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work given to me by the Lord Jesus - the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God. I know that none of you to whom I have preached the Kingdom will ever see me again. I declare today that I have been faithful. If anyone suffers eternal death, it’s not my fault, for I didn’t shrink from declaring all that God wants you to know.” (Acts 20:20-27)

May God help us to have courage to tell people the whole message of the Bible. That there is a terrible destination called hell, as well as a wonderful place called heaven. May we not try to be politically correct and not tell them all that God's word teaches.