Christmas at the Castle – Part 5

Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of Old Testament studies from Jeremiah 37-39.

“Zedekiah son of Josiah was made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; he reigned in place of Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim. Neither he nor his attendants nor the people of the land paid any attention to the words the Lord had spoken through Jeremiah the prophet. King Zedekiah, however, sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah with the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah the prophet with this message: ‘Please pray to the Lord our God for us.’

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Now Jeremiah was free to come and go among the people, for he had not yet been put in prison. Pharaoh’s army had marched out of Egypt, and when the Babylonians who were besieging Jerusalem heard the report about them, they withdrew from Jerusalem. Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet: ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of me, “Pharaoh’s army, which has marched out to support you, will go back to its own land, to Egypt. Then the Babylonians will return and attack this city; they will capture it and burn it down.”

This is what the Lord says: Do not deceive yourselves, thinking, “The Babylonians will surely leave us.” They will not! Even if you were to defeat the entire Babylonian army that is attacking you and only wounded men were left in their tents, they would come out and burn this city down.’ After the Babylonian army had withdrawn from Jerusalem because of Pharaoh’s army, Jeremiah started to leave the city to go to the territory of Benjamin to get his share of the property among the people there.

But when he reached the Benjamin Gate, the captain of the guard, whose name was Irijah son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah, arrested him and said, ‘You are deserting to the Babylonians!’ ‘That’s not true!’ Jeremiah said. ‘I am not deserting to the Babylonians.’ But Irijah would not listen to him; instead, he arrested Jeremiah and brought him to the officials. They were angry with Jeremiah and had him beaten and imprisoned in the house of Jonathan the secretary, which they had made into a prison. Jeremiah was put into a vaulted cell in a dungeon, where he remained a long time.

Then King Zedekiah sent for him and had him brought to the palace, where he asked him privately, ‘Is there any word from the Lord?’ ‘Yes,’ Jeremiah replied, ‘you will be handed over to the king of Babylon.’ Then Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, ‘What crime have I committed against you or your officials or this people, that you have put me in prison? Where are your prophets who prophesied to you, “The king of Babylon will not attack you or this land”?

But now, my lord the king, please listen. Let me bring my petition before you: Do not send me back to the house of Jonathan the secretary, or I will die there.’ King Zedekiah then gave orders for Jeremiah to be placed in the courtyard of the guard and given bread from the street of the bakers each day until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.

Shephatiah son of Mattan, Gedaliah son of Pashhur, Jehucal son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur son of Malkijah heard what Jeremiah was telling all the people when he said, ‘This is what the Lord says: “Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine or plague, but whoever goes over to the Babylonians will live. He will escape with his life; he will live.” And this is what the Lord says: “This city will certainly be handed over to the army of the king of Babylon, who will capture it.” ’

Then the officials said to the king, ‘This man should be put to death. He is discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city, as well as all the people, by the things he is saying to them. This man is not seeking the good of these people but their ruin.’ ‘He is in your hands,’ King Zedekiah answered. ‘The king can do nothing to oppose you.’ So they took Jeremiah and put him into the cistern of Malkijah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern; it had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.

But Ebed-Melech, a Cushite, an official in the royal palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern. While the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate, Ebed-Melech went out of the palace and said to him, ‘My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have thrown him into a cistern, where he will starve to death when there is no longer any bread in the city.’

Then the king commanded Ebed-Melech the Cushite, ‘Take thirty men from here with you and lift Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.’ So Ebed-Melech took the men with him and went to a room under the treasury in the palace. He took some old rags and worn-out clothes from there and let them down with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. Ebed-Melech the Cushite said to Jeremiah, ‘Put these old rags and worn-out clothes under your arms to pad the ropes.’ Jeremiah did so, and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.

Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah the prophet and had him brought to the third entrance to the temple of the Lord. ‘I am going to ask you something,’ the king said to Jeremiah. ‘Do not hide anything from me.’ Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, ‘If I give you an answer, will you not kill me? Even if I did give you counsel, you would not listen to me.’ But King Zedekiah swore this oath secretly to Jeremiah: ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who has given us breath, I will neither kill you nor hand you over to those who are seeking your life.’

Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, ‘This is what the Lord God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared and this city will not be burned down; you and your family will live. But if you will not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be handed over to the Babylonians and they will burn it down; you yourself will not escape from their hands.” ’

King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, ‘I am afraid of the Jews who have gone over to the Babylonians, for the Babylonians may hand me over to them and they will mistreat me.’ ‘They will not hand you over,’ Jeremiah replied. ‘Obey the Lord by doing what I tell you. Then it will go well with you, and your life will be spared. But if you refuse to surrender, this is what the Lord has revealed to me: all the women left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officials of the king of Babylon.

Those women will say to you: “They misled you and overcame you—those trusted friends of yours. Your feet are sunk in the mud; your friends have deserted you.” All your wives and children will be brought out to the Babylonians. You yourself will not escape from their hands but will be captured by the king of Babylon; and this city will be burned down.’

Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, ‘Do not let anyone know about this conversation, or you may die. If the officials hear that I talked with you, and they come to you and say, “Tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you; do not hide it from us or we will kill you,” then tell them, “I was pleading with the king not to send me back to Jonathan’s house to die there.” ’

All the officials did come to Jeremiah and question him, and he told them everything the king had ordered him to say. So they said no more to him, for no one had heard his conversation with the king. And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard until the day Jerusalem was captured.

This is how Jerusalem was taken: In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it. And on the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, the city wall was broken through.

Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came and took seats in the Middle Gate: Nergal-Sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-Sarsekima a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officials of the king of Babylon. When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled; they left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and headed toward the Arabah.

But the Babylonian army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They captured him and took him to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced sentence on him. There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes and also killed all the nobles of Judah. Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.

The Babylonians set fire to the royal palace and the houses of the people and broke down the walls of Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard carried into exile to Babylon the people who remained in the city, along with those who had gone over to him, and the rest of the people. But Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people, who owned nothing; and at that time he gave them vineyards and fields.

Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had given these orders about Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard: ‘Take him and look after him; don’t harm him but do for him whatever he asks.’ So Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard, Nebushazban a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officers of the king of Babylon sent and had Jeremiah taken out of the courtyard of the guard. They turned him over to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him back to his home. So he remained among his own people.”

So far shall we read. This is the Word of the Lord.

Now in this last session, we turn to a narrative block, Jeremiah 37–39, in part, obviously, it relates to the fall of Jerusalem. In fact, I don’t know if some of you have, before coming up here, read right through the book of Jeremiah, maybe a couple of times, to get a feel for the whole thing. In which case, you may have been surprised, sometime, by the sequencing of things. The fall of Jerusalem is related here, transparently, but it’s also related in the last chapter, chapter 52.

Sometimes, Jeremiah follows chronological sequence, and sometimes he groups things into various topical displays. The structure of Jeremiah is one of the hardest things about this book. What is clear, here, however, in this account of Jerusalem’s fall, is not only the fall itself. It tells us how Jeremiah is treated and how he continues to keep delivering God’s Word all the way down to the very end. Then, it points ahead, as we’ll see in a few moments.

I think it best to begin by making sure we have the narrative straight in our minds before we conclude by teasing out some final lessons for us today. This block of three chapters is structured by three private interviews between Zedekiah the king, the last king, and Jeremiah. Interspersed among these interviews are various beatings and imprisonments for the prophet. These are imposed by various officials and, clearly, there is a tussle for power in the political courtyards.

It’s not clear the king has much power. It’s not clear the officials have much power. They’re tussling away as the whole culture and society crumble under the pressure of the siege. Now, recall the setting. Here it’s important to remember a bit of the history once more. Jeremiah 37:1–2: “Zedekiah,” we’re told, “son of Josiah was made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. He reigned in place of Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim.”

Now remind yourself of some of the things that had happened to bring us to this place. In 605 BC, Pharaoh Necho was defeated at the battle of Carchemish. That’s way to the north of Israel. So Egypt has swept through Israel, and then right in the northern outpost at Carchemish, was defeated by the Babylonians. Nebuchadnezzar then harried Egypt back to their own border.

Jehoiakim, who was then the king in 605, and others, submitted to Babylon as a vassal state. Then later that year, Babylon marched against Egypt some more, but met surprising resistance. Because he met surprising resistance, back in Jerusalem, Jerusalem was encouraged to think, “Well, maybe the Egyptians are going to win after all.” So he switched loyalties. Do you remember at this point, Israel is a buffer state? It’s between these two regional superpowers all the time. He had been forced to submit to Babylon because the Babylonians won at Carchemish.

Now it looks as if the Babylonians are being pushed back by the Egyptians, so he changes allegiance over to the Egyptian side once more. Babylon withdrew. It was too hot. But what Babylon did was pump more money from the treasury into the army and build up the troops again. In 598, in December, came back, and from 598 to 597 BC, in March of that year, Jerusalem was under siege.

While it was under siege, the king, Jehoiakim, this one who had switched sides two or three times, died. His son, Jehoiachin, came to power. But immediately, then, he reigned only three months. Then the city was taken by Nebuchadnezzar in 597, and a lot of the artisans and the aristocracy were transported.

Jehoiachin himself was taken off, as well, to Babylon. He never did come home. He eventually died there. Eventually, the royal Messianic line came down through him. He was still viewed by many Jews as the king. He did have some kids, and eventually, the Messianic line that comes down to Jesus came down through him, Jehoiachin.

Meanwhile, what the Babylonians did was appoint his uncle, Zedekiah, the last, the youngest son of King Josiah, the reforming king who started this whole sequence off.… They appointed him as king. Zedekiah reigned, then, for 10 or 11 years, from 597 all the way down to 587 when Jerusalem is finally destroyed.

What happens, then, is there is ongoing struggle during this period of time, but, eventually, a new pharaoh in Egypt, Pharaoh Hophra, decides to push back. Once again, Zedekiah, having learned nothing from his father or from his nephew, changes sides again. He switches allegiance to Egypt. Babylon can’t stand this any more, so in 588 they bring in the troops, and they’re going to level Jerusalem to the ground.

Hophra, the pharaoh of Egypt, begins to move his forces north to relieve Jerusalem. So Babylon, then, breaks off the siege from Jerusalem and begins to push back against Egypt. By this time, Babylon is the world superpower. There is no way Egypt is going to stand up to it. But the folks in Jerusalem are thinking, “You see, God is working it out after all. Jerusalem isn’t going to fall. Egypt’s going to push back. We were right to switch.”

Even though Jeremiah had been saying, “Don’t fight against Babylon. They’re going to win. If you submit, you’ll survive.” Meanwhile, Zedekiah and his lot were saying, “Oh, no. This is great, you know. Just as 100 years ago, under the reign of King Hezekiah, we were surrounded by the Assyrians, and then the Egyptians attacked, the Assyrians went off, and we survived. It’s happening all over again! This is absolutely terrific!”

Now that’s the setting for this chapter. Unless you understand it, you’re not going to make much sense of the interchanges between Zedekiah, this last king in the last year of his life, and Jeremiah. It must have been quite dramatic, after all. Zedekiah, at this point, is 32 years old. He’s a young man. Jeremiah, for his part, is in his early 60s. He’s been preaching, now, for 40-odd years.

Jeremiah is as close as you can get to the ancient goddess Cassandra in the Greek world. Do you remember her? Cassandra was the goddess who always told the truth about the future, but was never, ever believed. It’s a bit like Jeremiah. He keeps telling the truth, and he’s just never believed or never believed enough that people act on what he says.

So understand the flow of the drama, then, before we see what the text says to us today. What you have is an interview, then trouble for Jeremiah, then an interview, then trouble for Jeremiah, then an interview, then, finally, the city falls. Follow the sequence.

1. The first interview with King Zedekiah

Jeremiah 37:1–10. Sometimes when people get into real trouble, even if they don’t like the religious people too much and they’re not too keen on prophets, they’re not keen on Christian leaders.… They get into real trouble, then they start looking around for spiritual help. Have you noticed that? It happens in times of war, economic downturn, or there’s a drought in some part of a big country, and they’re calling the churches to get together to pray, and whatever.

It’s not that there’s any real, deep repentance. It’s all pretty superficial. That’s what’s going on here, too. There’s trouble. The background is still verse 2: “Neither he nor his attendants nor the people of the land paid any attention to the words of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah the prophet.” But Zedekiah, nevertheless, does send some emissaries who are named in verse 3 to say, “Jeremiah, we’re under siege, now.” This is at the beginning of the siege, before King Hophra has pushed out from Egypt. “Please pray to the Lord on our behalf.”

Now, Jeremiah was at this point free to come and go, but pharaoh’s army now has marched out of Egypt. When the Babylonians who were besieging Jerusalem, 588 BC, hear about this, withdraw to go and confront Pharaoh Hophra, coming up from the south. Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, and this is what he sends back after this request back for prayer.

This is what he sends back to the king. Verse 6: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel says: Tell the king of Judah who sent you to inquire of me, ‘Pharaoh’s army which has marched out to support you will go back to its own land, to Egypt.’ ” They’re going to see that they’re outclassed, outgunned. They’re going to be outfought, and they’re going to retreat. “The Babylonians will return and attack this city. They will capture it and burn it down. Don’t deceive yourselves, thinking, ‘The Babylonians will surely leave us.’ It’s not going to happen.”

2. The officials arrest and beat Jeremiah.

Chapter 37, verses 11–16. Once these Babylonians pull off for a little while, then the siege is lifted, people can go in and out of the city again. They can go back home, get some more food supplies in. Bring in some more animals. Jeremiah is one of the ones who slips off. He’s planning on traveling a few miles north, to Anathoth, where he lives, up in the territory of Benjamin to get some property of some sort. We don’t even know what sort.

But he’s arrested, instead, at the city gates because now there is intense pressure from the officials, saying, “No one leaves. That’s going to be viewed as treachery. If you leave now, you’re abandoning the city. We need every able-bodied soldier. We need people who are going to keep the kitchen fires going. We need people who are going to prepare the food. Nobody leaves.”

Meanwhile, Jeremiah has been saying, and he continues to say through his messengers, even from prison, “If you leave now, you’re going to live, but otherwise, if you stay here, this city’s going to be razed to the ground and you will die.” So a lot of people have been leaving. In one sense, the officials were right to blame Jeremiah for that. Some of the common people were believing it. But Jeremiah himself was not leaving, except to get some property. Now he is arrested and thrown into jail. He’s put into some underground dungeon.

We don’t know anything about it, but if it’s an underground dungeon, it can’t be pleasant. Undoubtedly, it’s moldy and dark, and perhaps wet, and he’s not doing very well. Later, he says he could die if he’s going to stay there. He has probably come down with the flu or tuberculosis. Who know what, but it’s not pleasant. Zedekiah, for his part, is clearly ambivalent and weak. There’s no way he doesn’t know what is going on, but, nevertheless, he doesn’t try to interfere. So Jeremiah is imprisoned in the underground dungeon in a scribe’s house.

3. The second interview with King Zedekiah

The first time round, Zedekiah sent emissaries to ask the question, “Please pray for us.” Now, chapter 37, verses 17–21, he actually has Jeremiah brought out of the dungeon and brought into his presence. There’s a personal meeting this time: the 32-year-old king and the 60-something-year-old prophet after 40 years of ministry.

The outcome? It’s remarkable. The king asks quite explicitly, “Is there any word from the Lord?” “Yes, there is. You will be handed over to the king of Babylon,” verse 17. But while he’s got the king’s attention, he says, “And meanwhile, I have something to pick up with you, too. Why am I in a dungeon? What have I done to actually harm you or the city or the officials? Is this fair? If I must be arrested, why can’t I be kept in the normal guard house?”

So the king at least does that. Jeremiah says, “Do not send me back to the house of Jonathan where the dungeon is, or I will die there.” So verse 21: “King Zedekiah then gave orders for Jeremiah to be placed in the courtyard of the guard, given bread from the street of the bakers each day, until all the bread in the city had gone.” He’d be put on the same food ration as everybody else.

4. The officials arrange to kill Jeremiah.

By this time, of course, the city is now besieged again. The officials, in the fourth paragraph, chapter 38, verses 1–13, arrange to kill Jeremiah. Apparently, he’s still speaking to the people through his emissaries, in verses 2 and 3, and he’s saying, “Listen, if you slip out and give yourself up, you’ll survive. If you stay here, this city’s coming down.” So there is a plot against him.

What the officials say to the king is, “Don’t you realize how badly he’s undermining the confidence of the troops who are left? He’s undermining their authority. He’s undermining their confidence.” This time, Zedekiah, weak, indecisive, saying, “Oh, there’s nothing I can do to stand up against you. I guess if this must be, it must be.” Completely useless as a decisive ruler. He says, “Go ahead. He’s in your hands.” So they dump Jeremiah this time into a deep cistern in the home of Malkijah.

Now Malkijah is one of the sons of Zedekiah. If Zedekiah was only 32 at this point, Malkijah’s probably only, what, 16, 15? He’s a kid, but he’s throwing his weight around. He’s got some property, no doubt, because he’s royalty. He’s got this cistern with the water out. It’s deep enough that they can’t just throw him in. They have to lower him in by ropes. There’s slimy mud at the bottom, and they drop Jeremiah in. He just sinks in it. They’re not going to feed him. They’re going to leave him to starve to death. That’s looked after him.

But there’s a foreigner around, a young man called Ebed-Melech. His name literally means servant of the king so it might be a nickname. We’re told he’s a Cushite. That’s is to say, almost certainly an Ethiopian (maybe not from as far south as our modern Ethiopia, but Upper Egypt all the way down to Ethiopia, probably an African), a foreigner who does think highly of the prophet, and makes a petition to the king.

The king vacillates again, and Ebed-Melech, if you recall, is actually pretty careful how he goes about things. He gets some old rags, some old clothes, and makes sure when they haul him out with ropes, the ropes are nicely padded under the old man’s armpits, and so on. They pull him out. It’s really quite dramatic, isn’t it? Even in how they rescue him, there’s a certain amount of courtesy and respect for the old guy.

5. The third interview with the king

 Chapter 38, verses 14–28. Similar questions. “Tell me the truth. Don’t hide anything from me. What’s going to happen?” Here, Jeremiah is leery of saying anything because he knows not only will the king not listen to him, but the king could easily vacillate again and just bump him off. So he says, “What’s the point of saying anything to you? If I give you an answer …” Chapter 38, verse 15. “… will you not kill me? Even if I did give you counsel, you would not listen to me.”

King Zedekiah swears he will not hurt him. He will not hand him over to anybody. Jeremiah then gives another long oracle. What he says at this time is, “Listen, despite all the threats, and the promises God has given that Jerusalem is going to fall, even now, if you repent, if you listen to what God says, if you surrender to Babylon, you’ll survive. The city will be taken, but you’ll survive. The city won’t be burned down; you will survive. That’s what you must do. That’s what the Lord says.”

Zedekiah takes a deep breath and says, “Yeah, but, if I surrender, do you know what could happen? The Babylonians might actually hand me over to the Israelites who have already got out there. They could hate me so much at this point, seeing me as a failed ruler, they could mistreat me. They could beat up on me.” Jeremiah says, “That’s not what’s going to happen. If you do what the Lord says, you will survive. If you don’t, you will be killed.” It’s a straightforward question at this juncture. “Are you going to believe the word of God, or not?”

Moreover, Jeremiah’s digging in a little bit, too. After all, at this point, he has already said, “What about your own prophets, huh? All those other prophets you have listened to? They told you Babylon would never even attack the city, but clearly, it has. You should learn by now that you can’t trust them. They’re not giving you the word of the Lord. If this is the word of the Lord, you must understand that unless you do surrender, you are going to die.” But Zedekiah vacillates, vacillates.

6. The fall of Jerusalem

Chapter 39. At the very end, Zedekiah tries to escape toward the Arabah, that is, the Jordan River in the south. He tries to do that, but they catch up with him. They take him to Nebuchadnezzar’s headquarters, and before Zedekiah’s eyes, all of his sons are killed, including Malkijah, in whose courtyard was the pit Jeremiah had been dumped into and left to starve. Malkijah and all the other sons of Zedekiah are actually slaughtered in front of his eyes. It’s the last thing he sees. Then his eyes are popped out and he’s transported in shackles to Babylon, not to be heard of again.

The city is burned. Then the walls, of course, which can’t be burned? They bring in tens of thousands of troops and take it apart brick by brick. They just tear it right down. All the wealth of the temple, the gold shields, the swords, the plate, the silver, the bronze.… They transport all of that to the treasuries of Babylon. The temple itself is taken down, stone by stone, hard labor as the troops just raze the city to the ground. Here’s the failure of a leader and the fall of a city.

The aftermath is described in chapters 40–44. I don’t have time to unpack them all. Eventually, a governor is put in place, a chap called Gedaliah. The poorest of the poor are left to look after the ground and till it. But because of constant internal wrangling, even within the small numbers who are left behind, Gedaliah himself is murdered. Then some of the army troops that are left, lower echelon people, from the Judean army, go and kill the people who had killed Gedaliah.

Then they come to the prophet again, Jeremiah, and they say, “Jeremiah, listen. At this point, we really want to hear the word of the Lord. We have made so many mistakes. We have not listened. What do we do now? Do we stay here? Might not the Babylonians come back and crush us because we have killed their governor. Now not us, personally, but some of us have? Now we’ve killed them, but still, the governor has died. Might not the Babylonians come back? Or should we simply escape down to Egypt and just live there as aliens, foreigners, in the land of Egypt. At least it’s relatively safe there.”

Jeremiah says, “Hear the word of the Lord. I’m going to tell you what you should do, and I also tell you, you will not listen to me. You swear you want the word of the Lord, but even now, after all of the evidence God speaks the truth, you will not listen. You must stay here. The Babylonians will not hurt you. They will understand it wasn’t you who killed Gedaliah.” But the troops won’t hear of it, despite the fact they wanted this word from the Lord. They don’t like what is said.

So they force all the remainder of the people, including Jeremiah, down into exile, into Egypt. There Jeremiah gives more words from the Lord, and says, “Don’t you understand? The Babylonians are going to attack Egypt one more time, and they’re going to come and get you.” That’s how the book ends. The failure of a leader, and the fall of a city. Well, this is a cheerful way to end a Bible conference, isn’t it? Let me draw some concluding lessons together.

1. There is nothing more tragic and more damning than a refusal to listen attentively, faithfully, and obediently to the word of God.

Of course, in one sense, that’s been running through the whole book, hasn’t it? Oracle after oracle where Jeremiah has been ignored, but it’s particularly acute in these two chapters. In fact, I didn’t throw in chapter 36, as well, but there are some parallels between chapter 36 and chapters 37 and 38 we have just surveyed.

In chapter 36, which takes place 11 or 12 years earlier, the previous king, King Jehoiakim, is also facing some tough decisions. Then in 37, 38, it’s King Zedekiah. In chapter 36, it’s the city of Ashkelon that is surrounded by the Babylonians. Here in 37 and 38, it’s the city of Jerusalem, about a dozen years later. In both cases, the word of the Lord is given to the king. In the case of King Jehoiakim, it’s actually read. This is the scroll that has actually been written out at Jeremiah’s dictation by the hand of Baruch.

As it’s actually read out to the king, that’s when he takes that page that has been read, tears it up, and throws it up in the fire. Then another page is read to him. It’s taken out and ripped up and thrown into the fire, until the whole scroll is gone. In other words, the king refuses to listen to God’s word and tries to destroy the message. Then a dozen years later, Zedekiah refuses to listen to the message and tries to destroy the messenger, through his officials. But in no case is anybody actually listening to what God says!

There is nothing, finally, more tragic, more shameful, more wretched, more damning than that. This is part of a big theme in the Bible. It’s huge. Do you remember the strange passage in Deuteronomy 17? Deuteronomy 17 looks forward to a time when one day there will be a king in Israel. This is still in the time of Moses, before the people have entered into the Promised Land. But one day, God says through Moses, there will be a king.

Then we’re told, verse 18, when this king eventually comes, when he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law taken from that of the priests who were Levites. Deuteronomy 17:18–20. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

Do you hear that? One of the Davidic monarchs comes to the throne, Zedekiah perhaps. What’s the first thing he’s supposed to do? Audit the books of his predecessor? Appoint a new cabinet? Make sure he has a conference with the leader of the military? Nope, nope, nope. The first thing he’s supposed to do is to hand-write a copy of the book of this law. That either means Deuteronomy or all of the Pentateuch, longhand, with a quill pen.

This is not a question of downloading from a CD onto a hard drive without it passing through anybody’s brain. Then you’ve got it on your computer. You may not know anything about it, but it’s on your computer. No, no, no. He’s to copy it out by hand. That’s the first thing he’s supposed to do, so clearly that that becomes his daily reading copy. He’s to have his devotions from the copy that he hand-writes, because in those days, after all, there was no printing.

That is supposed to be his reading copy for the rest of his life in order to learn to revere the words of the Lord God, and not, despite the fact that he’s king, to think of himself as better than anybody else or to swerve to the left or to the right from all God has said. That’s what he’s supposed to do. If only those three verses had been obeyed, just those three verses, all of Old Testament history would have been different. But instead, the deepest part of the problem was people began to ignore the Word of God.

The same lesson has to be learned by Joshua when he takes over from Moses. What does God say to him, first off? “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth …” Joshua, chapter 1. “… but you shall meditate on it day and night. Then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success.” He’s leader of all of these people in the desert about to start a military campaign to take over the Promised Land, and he’s supposed to fill his mind so much with Holy Scripture he meditates on it day and night. That’s what he’s told.

Or Psalm 1: “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night.” We used to have an old homiletics teacher, a teacher of preaching, at the seminary who was a bit of a wag and had endless one-liners he threw out.

He’s long gone now; he’s probably still cracking one-liners in heaven. But he had some good ones. “You’re not what you think you are. But what you think, you are.” That’s what Proverbs says, isn’t it? “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” One of the reasons we read the Word of God is to think God’s thoughts after him. “His delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night.” Isn’t that what Paul says in Romans 12? He says, “Don’t be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Because you are what you think.

So the reason for reading and rereading and rereading the Word of God, and for conferences such as this, so as to understand it, and then thinking about it, then rereading Jeremiah when you leave to make sure it’s well and truly imbedded in your mind is to learn to delight in the Word of God, to revere his words, not to swerve from the left or from the right, to think God’s thoughts after him. Because you’re not what you think you are. but what you think, you are.

It’s a lesson at this juncture none of the hierarchy understands. Even though they’re still going through the formal procedures of the temple, they’re still offering their sacrifices, they still observe High Holy Feast days, and so on. They’re doing all the religious things. From an outsider’s point of view, they’re still in the religion of Yahweh, but there is no delight anymore in Bible study. There’s no hunger anymore for the Word of God.

People want to hear the Word of God in some sort of magical way. The same way you want to hear a word from the astrologer or the necromancer, the fortune-teller in the hope you’ll have some guidance for daily life. Then, of course, if you don’t really like what they tell you, you can go and do something else, in any case, because you don’t take it all that seriously.

That’s why even on the night he is betrayed, Jesus, as he prays for the disciples whom he sees will be coming in, in the wake of his death, prays to his heavenly Father, and he says, “Sanctify them through the truth. Your word is truth.” There is no sanctification without greater conformity to the truth. There is no greater conformity to the truth without knowledge of the Word. That’s the first lesson. It is striking in Jeremiah. There is nothing more tragic and more damning than a refusal to listen attentively, faithfully, and obediently to the Word of God.

2. God is amazingly longsuffering.

He is patient we’re told so many times in the Old Testament, slow to anger. When we read through the book quickly like this, we hit across all those passages that talk about how God’s wrath will not be turned aside and how he’s going to pour out his anger on Jerusalem and how the women will be ravished and the men will be put to death and on and on. We think, “Boy, oh boy. This is really one angry dude.”

But you put it in the historic sequence, when there have been warnings, now, that the sins are multiplying in Jerusalem for centuries, when the northern tribes have already been transported because of their sins and idolatry, serving as an object lesson. That was 85 years earlier, when Jeremiah begins his ministry. It’s about 140 years, now, when Jerusalem actually falls, from when it actually began.

People haven’t learned anything from history. They haven’t learned from their own holy books. They haven’t listened to God’s threats. If he delays the judgments, the say, “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. God’s prophets talk like this, you know. You don’t take them too seriously.” And that, of course, it picked up in the New Testament as a model for how people view the end. There, too, we’re told God is longsuffering, slow to anger. He is forbearing, Romans 2 tells us.

That’s why he hasn’t come back already and simply ended everything and brought in the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness, with all the finality of hell. He is forbearing. But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t depict judgment, which is why Revelation 14 was read this morning. I know it’s powerful apocalyptic imagery, but do you hear what the imagery is saying?

In the ancient world, in vast vineyards, the grapes were dropped into huge stone vats. At the bottom of these stone vats, there were little holes, and at the bottom of each hole, there were channels that took the grape juice and ran it off into cisterns and pots and so on, where it was collected and eventually turned into wine. So they put in the grapes, and then the servant girls would kick off their sandals and pull up their skirts and squish down the grapes. That’s what they would do. The juice would run out and be collected.

But in the imagery God himself chooses to depict the final judgment, people are thrown into the vat of God’s wrath. They’re squashed until their blood rises to the height of a horse’s bridle for a distance of 300 kilometers, 200 miles. It’s imagery, but it’s pretty frightening imagery. It’s not as if God hasn’t told us. Jesus speaks of hell. Paul does. Luke does. Peter does. And when people start sneering, even in Peter’s day, “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where’s the promise of his coming? Yeah, yeah. We’ve heard that one before.”

Peter carefully spells out, “You know, you have to understand. God’s timing isn’t just like ours. He’s eternal. For him, a thousand years are a day. There’s not much in it.” But the reason for his delay is his yearning for people to be saved. But don’t ever think, not even for a moment, judgment isn’t coming. We will stand before God. We will give an account on the last day. We’ll either plead the blood of Christ or we’ll be in desperate state.

In other words, Jeremiah is part of a long pattern in the Old Testament that shows, finally, there’s no help, finally, in the law or in the prophets, in the oracles. There’s the law with its promises. “If you do this, you’ll live. If you do that, you’re cursed.” And some people go and look at the book of Deuteronomy with its promises of blessing and cursing and say, “Do you see? It was God’s intention people would be saved by just doing the law. Isn’t that a good thing? You can save yourself by doing the law. If you do this, you’ll be saved. If you don’t, you’ll be cursed.”

Grace was invented later, they say. Don’t they read the book of Deuteronomy? How does the book of Deuteronomy end up? After all of these promises of blessing and curse, Moses himself doesn’t get into the Promised Land. That’s how the book ends up. The promises of blessing and curse are all there, and nobody actually fulfills the promises adequately.

Then you come to the prophets. Oh, and yes, there is such promise in this new kingdom, this Davidic dynasty that’s coming along. God will preserve it; he says so. God himself provides this tabernacle, then the temple as the meeting place between God and human beings, with sacrifices God himself has prescribed. And everything, everything, over time, is corrupted. It becomes idolatrous, it becomes pagan-ridden, it becomes merely formal.

The hearts of the people.… They might keep up the formal appearance of religion, but they’re not really with God, except for a small remnant. In one sense, all of this bleakness drives us to something else. It drives us to recognize there is no hope, finally, in just more revelation, telling us what to do. There’s no hope, finally, in a whole lot of law that tells us how to live. That’s not where the answers are at all. There’s no hope here. God still, through all of these years, is amazingly longsuffering.

3. Judgment is not the last word.

Jeremiah points us to Christ. Judgment is not the last word. We’ve seen these glimpses of hope, pretty often, where God has said, “I’m going to bring you back from exile.” Yeah. Hence there are post-exilic prophets and post-exilic books like Ezra and Nehemiah and books like Haggai and Zechariah and Malachi that talk about what happens to the Lord’s people when they return.

There are glimpses of hope. There are promises of restoration. There are even promises of a time when God’s people will be made up of than Jews from the south and Israelites in the north, but will bring in Babylonians and other people as well. There are promises to the nations. But above all, we saw yesterday, the promise of a new covenant in which people’s sins are genuinely forgiven. God’s law is not merely in books; it’s written in the hearts of the people. There is transformation.

Finally, we’ll only be consummated when Christ comes at the end of the age, but, already, it’s happening now. But in some ways, Jeremiah himself, as a man, points ahead. Here is someone who faithfully gives God’s word in hard times and is disbelieved. He suffers; he’s a weeping prophet. How analogous, in some ways, to Christ who gives God’s word and is massively disbelieved by his own people and who suffers. There is no passage in the Bible, not one, that ever records Jesus laughed. I’m sure he did, but there’s no passage that says so.

We see him weeping at Lazarus’ tomb. We see him weeping over the city. Then the prophet Isaiah foretells the coming of a servant who is known for his grief and his tears. We look at Jeremiah, and we think, “Boy, oh boy. This is one glass-half-empty kind of dude, the Weeping Prophet. Everything goes from bad to worse all the time. But in one sense, he points to Christ, who likewise gives the Word of the Lord and is precisely disbelieved because he is speaking the truth. But there is one crucial difference.

In Jeremiah, the guilty, the Zedekiahs, the Malkijahs, the false prophets, the false priests, the guilty are finally put to death under Nebuchadnezzar. And Jeremiah, for all he is transported to Egypt, not only survives, in some sense, he’s vindicated, which is precisely why his work is left in our canon. But with Jesus, the innocent one is the one who is put to death. Not Pilate, not Herod, not the leaders of the Jews. Not then, anyway.

It’s the innocent one who’s put to death, precisely so he can vindicate others, he can justify others, which reminds us in the most powerful way Christ’s death is unique. Others have been called to suffer, not least Jeremiah. There is external, biblical tradition, probably correct, that Isaiah, as an old man in his 80s, is chased by the troops of King Manasseh. He hides inside a hollow tree and when they catch up to him, they see him inside the hollow tree, wrap ropes around the entrance into this hollow tree and then cut the tree down with Isaiah inside.

Oh, there were prophets who suffered long before Christ. Jeremiah was one of them. But when Jesus suffers, he suffers as the entirely innocent victim, bearing not his own guilt, for he had none, but ours. Immeasurably, the God-man takes on our death and our curse. The innocent dies, and the guilty are vindicated. Jeremiah’s part of this narrative that looks to the future and realizes prophetic words and God’s long-suffering with respect to the nation and even the law of God and the temple ritual …

None of it will finally work. We must have a Savior. Someone who bears our sins and gives us, not the renewal of the old covenant but a new covenant, purchased and sealed by his own blood, by which our sins are forgiven, on the ground of which he pours out his Holy Spirit upon us, and we are redeemed. Let us pray.

So teach us, Lord God, we beg of you, to take your Word most seriously; to reread it and reread it; to join in groups that study it and make it known; to hunger to understand it; where it gives commands to obey it; where it enlightens us to see clearly; where it describes you, our Maker and Redeemer, to return to you in worship; where it paints a picture of sin, to dread it; and where it promises judgment to believe it is coming so we turn to the cross where, alone, judgment has already been borne by another on our behalf.

Make us, we beg of you, by your Word, empowered by your Spirit, as holy as pardoned sinners can be this side of the consummation. Give us a hunger for your Word, for there is no famine in any country worse than a famine of the Word of God. Grant that we may learn to think your thoughts after you and so conform our wills, our hearts, our aspirations, our hopes, our affections to bring them into line with those of the Lord Jesus himself.

Grant, Lord God, upon those gathered here, most from Northern Ireland, a desire to be faithful sons and daughters of the living God in their generation. Give to some of them an unquenchable desire to become proclaimers, ministers, of this Word themselves to a new generation. Maybe with another 40 years of ministry to match those of Jeremiah. Who knows whether such ministry will be in times of reformation and revival and blessing? Who knows but that you may not have great mercy upon Europe in years to come?

Or it may be some of that ministry will be discharged in discouragement. So we do not pray, Lord God, for, then, easy success. We pray for faithfulness, clear thought, a deep understanding of your Word, and an ever-increasing fastening on the cross which alone finally addresses all the sins and rebellions and horrendous idiocies and anarchies of this race of God’s image-bearers who defy you to your face and want to do things their own way.

O Lord God, have mercy upon us for we know our own hearts perfectly capable of such drift and apart from your grace in our lives, apart from the gift of the Spirit convicting and constraining us, apart from the ongoing forgiveness we have because Christ died for us, as we learn to confess our sins and hear afresh you are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.… Apart from this, Lord God, we have no hope, and with it, we have every hope.

We have confidence. We know something of the joy the Lord had wanted to increase. We hunger for the day when we shall see Christ Jesus as he is and be conformed to his likeness. We, too, therefore, though we dread the time of final judgment, there is another part of us that cries out with the church in every generation, that sings, “Yes. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Vindicate yourself. Bring glory to your Son. Save your people and usher in the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness, for you alone can do these things.

So to you we bow, Lord God, and commit our paths to you individually and together and all of the diversity of vocation and experience represented by this group, this for the glory of your dear Son and for the good of the people for whom he shed his life’s blood. In Jesus’ name we bring our petitions, amen.