Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I'm going to have you turn in your Bibles today to the book of Jeremiah. So for some of you that have been in our church a long time ago, which was like 18 months ago, I was preaching through the Book of Jeremiah. But I'm going to return now. I just felt like after 38 chapters, it was a little intense. And so I just felt directed to go preach John for a season. And now we're back, and you'll see why.
[00:00:27] You know, it was interesting during the prayer and fasting. We're in chapter 39 in our prayer and fasting on Tuesday night. We were praying in small groups, or maybe it was Monday night, I can't remember which night. But anyways, Patty and I were praying with Deanna Morne and Shelly Kosakavage, and Shelly's getting an update from her daughter because her daughter now is flying back to where she lives, which happens to be Los Angeles, California, and totally unaware of this raging inferno that's occurring. So it must have been Monday night. But the pilot's now explaining to the people that they're going to be hitting incredible turbulence because there's these Santa Ana winds that are blowing. You can imagine flying into this. And so he's telling them, brace yourself, this is not going to be a pleasant landing. And so she's like. He's telling them ahead of time. So she's, I don't know, texted her mom and said, please pray. You know, we're heading into Los Angeles, this terrible wind, and this is not going to be an easy landing. So after she's landed, it took a while, but she texts back and she says this to her mom. She says, I'm coming back to evil. Literally. I look out the window, we're being tossed around. The ground below us is like a fiery hell. In other words, she was landing in the middle of those consuming fires, and everywhere she looked, all she could see was fire. And they were landing right in the middle of the fire. Fires. It was really quite intense. And I think that's kind of a powerful description of the devastation that she was witnessing before her. You know, we've kind of adopted the word hell into our vocabulary to speak of the worst kind of a situation. Isn't that true? We use that word. This is, you know, this is as bad as it can get, right? And yet, as to believing that such a place of existence is real, I would say most people that are alive today don't believe it exists.
[00:02:25] And what's really interesting is how many believers now are moving to a position in their thinking that, you know, maybe this is just a symbolic concept or it's not very real. But I want to just point out to us that, you know, when we deny the very existence of hell as a place of judgment, which was really designed for the devil and his fallen angels, but it's also reserved for the ungodly, which means people who are unlike God, people who are walking or have no thought of God or ignorant of God, have no interest in God, are living for themselves and allowing their behavior to be shaped in a certain way by the evil in our society today. And so if there is no hell, I want you to think about this for a minute. If we don't believe there's such a place as hell, we can dismiss the idea of eternal punishment or any sort of accountability for the wrongs committed in this life.
[00:03:23] Think about how profound that statement really is. What we're basically saying is people like Stalin and Hitler who did these great atrocities, and, you know, some people, a lot lesser atrocities, but people still doing terrible things to each other. These people, if they get away with it, in a sense, in this earthly life, then there's no sort of accountability. A lot of people believe that that's what's going to happen. These people just. It ends, their life comes to an. That's it. You know, there just seems to be a lack of a sense of real justice in all of that thinking. Yet Henry Buis points out, it should be noted that in the New Testament, gehenna, which is the Greek word for hell, is used only in the synoptics. The synoptics are, you know, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Those are the first three gospels.
[00:04:12] And except for one occurrence in the book of James, chapter three, verse six, and that in these synoptic references, the word gehenna or hell was only used by Jesus Christ.
[00:04:26] This is going to be a little shocking, but Jesus Christ actually spoke on hell more than anybody else. That's a little bit, you know, you think about it, that seems strange to us maybe a little bit. We say, oh, Jesus, he's so good, he's so loving, so kind. I know all of that. But Jesus is trying to help us understand something. And the reason I'm mentioning all of this is because it's an extremely important element. As a matter of fact, he goes on to say, in other words, the knowledge of hell comes almost exclusively from the teachings of Christ, who spoke emphatically on the subject a number of times.
[00:05:06] It's ironic. This morning I get up and I'm doing my devotional time I'm in Matthew and I'm reading verses on hell. I just went, wow. I mean, I feel like God is just, you know, impressing on me how important it is that we understand this idea of judgment. You know, Jesus warns us in the Sermon on the Mount against avoiding this place of judgment.
[00:05:31] He speaks of the anger of the.
[00:05:34] Sorry, the danger of the fires of hell in Matthew 5:22. And he warns against the danger of sinning to the point where he says, hey, listen, if your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. Now, he's not speaking literally there. He's speaking, you know, the severity of the problem needs to be addressed. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than to have your whole body to be thrown into hell. How many. What is Jesus saying? He's saying, listen, hell is so terrible that you don't want to go there. You want to avoid it at all costs. Does that make sense? He's just saying, you know, most of us, you know, unless Jesus had told us there was such a place, we wouldn't even believe it. But because many of us believe in what Jesus says, we say, okay, you're God in the flesh. You know, what's the future, you know, what's ahead of us. And so you're warning us of something that's very, very bad for us. And I think we need to heed that warning. So it's obvious that Jesus not only believed in hell, but he came to die in order for us not to end up. That's what we need to understand. As I was reflecting on this text in the Book of Jeremiah, it impacted me how much judgment is a fundamental theme of the Bible, but we rarely talk about it. I want you to think the number one theme of the Bible is redemption. God is in the business of redeeming the world, redeeming humanity. But with that thought of redemption, that suggests to me there must be a problem.
[00:07:12] Does that make sense? Why are you redeeming something if there's no problem? There's got to be a problem. And so the problem is just simply that this communication of Jesus is to motivate us, to avoid and to encourage us to share with others that they too can avoid or escape the consequences of this broken world. Because this world's going to be addressed, all the things we're seeing is going to be addressed. And so we're going to turn today to the book of Jeremiah. I left off in chapter 38, and I looked it up because you Know, after a while, time goes by. And I looked at the title of my sermon on chapter 38, and it said, living in the shadow of doom. So 39 is actually experiencing doom, you know, so how do you. You know, that's a very interesting place to start back up again. But I think it's important because I want just to recap a little bit about what the book of Jeremiah is about, because maybe some of you go, I have no idea what the book's about. You know, I've been in the church now for maybe seven months or, you know, 14 months, but I haven't been here for a year and a half. So what in the world is this book really all about? I'm going to recap really briefly. God had been warning the nation, his people, his covenant people, the southern tribes, Judah, as to the fact that they had rebelled against him, were not keeping the covenant. Oh, they were outwardly going through the motions, but inwardly their hearts were far from God. They were literally doing their own thing, and they were violating the covenant left, right and center. There was lots of injustice. Evil was prevailing. And Jeremiah was warning them, guys, you need to smarten up. You can't keep behaving like this. God's going to deal with it. And so God had been warning them even before the time of Jeremiah, probably for over a century, maybe a century and a half. Now, how many think that's a long time to be warning somebody? 150 years. There was people that passed away before the warning had actually taken an effect. You know, a lot of times when you get warned and nothing happens, what do you start to do? You just go, nothing's going to happen. Right? And then you get warned again. Nothing's going to happen. And how many times have we been warned? And I'm going to bring it home to maybe a real direct application. You know, sometimes we'll go to the doctor and he says, hey, listen, I'm going to warn you. You need to do this, otherwise you're going to have health issues. And a lot of times, some people take it seriously and start doing something about it, and other people just blow it off and don't do anything about it. And then later on, you come back and the doctor says, no, I'm serious about this. You're going to be suffering if you don't address these things. And again, blow it off and don't do anything. And eventually it catches up to you. And all of a sudden, now you're experiencing the consequences of ignoring that warning. Well, that's what These guys did. They just ignored it. They just kept ignoring it. And so at first, Jeremiah, you know, God revealed to him, I'm going to bring an instrument to discipline you from the north. And then eventually it became more specific because the Babylonian empire now had risen over top of the Assyrians, and they were getting stronger. And pretty soon Jeremiah is saying, no, the Babylonians are going to be God's arm to discipline you. And eventually they came and conquered the land, and they put in a puppet king, and Nebuchadnezzar, who was the king, put a puppet king in place. And finally, the last puppet king in there was this man, this king by the name of Zedekiah. And so now in chapter 38, we're going to see all kinds of things happening here.
[00:10:42] So as we look at chapter 39 here, the questions really, you know, the city gets destroyed is what happens. And chapter 39 is actually the description of the destruction. But there's one little part I want you to know. It's not all bad news, because God actually spares some people from the destruction. And I want to look at how did those people get spared? It's the same way you and I can be spared from God's judgment on our world that's rebelled against him. I'm going to talk about that this morning. So the question that arises in our minds is why? Why did God bring judgment to the nation? What may be more applicable is, will God judge our world?
[00:11:21] And considering God's love, why does he judge? Because, you know, a lot of people would say, well, if God's so loving, why was he going to judge our world? See, that's a thought that comes in people's minds. And I'm going to argue that judgment is actually an expression of God's loving nature. Because sin, which is a transgression against God's words, brings about destruction both to the person breaking God's word, those that are the victims of that transgression. Because what sin actually does, it diminishes us as a person, but it also causes pain and hurt in the lives of other people. And we all know that that's true. How could God be a loving person and not ultimately address human evil? You see, people always say, well, you know, if God's so good, why does he allow evil? I'm going, it's human evil for the most part. We're the ones that created. And so we're blaming God for something we are doing. And God's trying to fix the problem. And how he went about fixing it is Absolutely loving and incredible and marvelous and gracious and kind is that he came to earth and died taking the punishment of humanity upon himself. That's pretty amazing to me, you know, and I'm going to say that's going to give us a hint as to the escape that we can have.
[00:12:40] So that's what Jesus is all about. He said he came to seek and to save that which was lost. And John tells us that the Father, in sending his Son did so out of his incredible love. And I want to just remind us probably of one of the most well known texts of scripture in the New Testament. It says, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. There it is. God says, I'll let you escape this judgment. I'm going to give you life. Wow. Verse 17. He says, For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. So here's God's heart. I'm not interested in condemning a single person, but sin is of such a nature that if we persist in it, it destroys us. How's that? So it's not that God hates us. No, God's trying to rescue us from ourselves. How many know it's hard to rescue people from themselves? You ever tried doing that? Good luck. You know, it's tough going, you know, because everybody has a will and they're choosing to do things and you can only tell people things, you know, And I think, you know, even at times warning people. Sometimes people go, I don't want you to warn me. I'm going, what's the loving thing to do? I mean, if you knew somebody was going to fall over a cliff and they couldn't see where they were going and they were blind, wouldn't you kind of pull them back? Well, of course, if you're a loving person, you would go, well, they got their own freedom, Pastor. We don't want to mess with them.
[00:14:10] Down they go. But you know, really, we're blinded by our own sinfulness. We can't see where we're going, you know, and so we need people once in a while to say, hey, what are you doing? If you keep going in that direction, you're going to talk totally destroy yourself. And I love you so much. I've got to say something. I just can't be silent about it any longer. So why, you know, to state that our world needs to be saved suggests to me there's a problem and there's a need for being saved. But the question is, saved from what? Well, we need to be saved from our sin, which leads to separation from God, which leads to separation from others, which causes all kinds of fractured, broken relationships. Look around our world today, a lot of broken relationships. And what's the primary cause? Well, we don't want to admit it, but it's sin. It's our sin and their sin and other people's sin. It all affects our lives.
[00:15:01] And the consequence of our sin is a word we call judgment. Okay, but if God came to save us, why would people reject this amazing offer of forgiveness and receive God's offer of salvation? Isn't that a great question? I mean, who in their right mind? If you're in a burning city and someone comes along to rescue, who in your right mind wouldn't want to be rescued?
[00:15:24] But not everybody's in their right mind.
[00:15:27] Because I really do believe that people who are entrapped by sin are not thinking straight because it's self destructive behavior. Think about that. But listen to how scripture describes it here. In John chapter three says, this is the verdict. Light has come into the world. But people love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. In other words, we became enamored with our evil. We embraced it. And that's why I believe people are choosing hell rather than heaven, because they'd rather do evil than good. And they were going to live in a perpetual state where they're going to experience the consequences of their sin. They're going to live like that for eternity. And that to me is really tragic. So chapter 39 not only teaches of judgment to come, but it also talks about how God spares the righteous those who put their trust in him. So the life of the righteous are those who are in relationship to God and who are walking in obedience to his ways. And they experience God's delivering grace in the hour of judgment. So if God decides to judge our city, how many say, I want to be spared, I got my hand up, I want to be rescued. I want God's rescue plan to come in full effect. You know, fly in, Lord, take us out of here, right? I want to be delivered from what's about to happen. So let's pick up the story in Jeremiah 39. And we find two different outcomes there or consequences based upon people's response to God's word. And what we discover, I think is the means to escape the consequence of this world that is about to be destroyed. And certainly their world was about to be destroyed because God had Been warning them for a long time. He was going to destroy the city, but people weren't listening. Isn't that amazing how we can just turn a blind eye or a deaf ear or a hardened heart? That's how it all happens. So there are two truths about to transpire. That is, I think, a foreshadowing of what is about to happen in our world today. Isn't that true? You know, I don't know if you realize this, but we're heading towards judgment.
[00:17:26] I've read the Bible carefully now for five decades, and I can tell you right now, the Bible talks about judgment. It's one of the major themes of the Bible. I'll call it a sub theme. It's one of the basic sub themes of the Bible. It makes total sense because God's ultimate theme is to redeem us from judgment. So we have to understand judgment is very real. So after decades of preaching, Jeremiah has been calling, repent, change your minds, turn to God, obey his warnings, for the most part are ignored. And we pick up the story in verse one. 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 11th year, the city wall was broken through. They finally got through. Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came and took seats in the middle gate. Nergal Shazaraz of Samgar, Nebo Sharshakim, a chief officer, Nergal Sharezer, a high official, and all the other officials of the king of Babylon. So you go, okay, they're in the middle gate. What does this mean? Well, I don't know if you know anything about the Bible. When it talks about them sitting in the gates, that means that they're in the control of positions of authority. So as Tremper Longman writes, he says, in essence, their position in the gates indicated they now controlled and ran the city. So the Babylonians now are in control.
[00:18:55] So what does their fearless leader do? Well, we'll find out.
[00:19:01] I can give you a hint. He's going to run because he's in trouble and he knows it. Okay, so, but is he going to get away? That's the question. So how can we escape? Great question. Let's take a look at Second Peter. Second Peter brings out this theme of God's ability to spare the righteous in an hour of judgment. I want to just read these Verses. It's very powerful. Second Peter 2, 4. For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, we know he did.
[00:19:35] He didn't spare them. He sentenced them. He sent them to hell. Remember I told you Hell is a place for the fallen angels, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment. So they are now, you know. Restricted verse five. And if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought a flood on its ungodly people, but he protected Noah, preacher of righteousness, and seven others. So he's sparing some people, Noah and his family.
[00:20:03] And if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes and made them an example of what's going to happen to the ungodly. So Sodom and Gomorrah are, you know, everyone goes, well, they were the worst cities in the world. That's why God destroyed them. No, no, no, no. There's a lot of cities right now that are worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. But God destroyed them as an example.
[00:20:25] God will judge every city.
[00:20:28] Very interesting. And if he condemned those cities, and if he rescued Lot, which he did. A righteous man who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless, for that righteous man living among them day after day was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard. I love this story of Lot. Think about it for a minute. Abraham is his uncle and he's praying to God, Lord, if you can just find 10 righteous men in the city of Sodom, would you spare it, you being a righteous judge? God says, if I could find 10 righteous people, I'll spare the whole wicked city. If I could just find 10 righteous people.
[00:21:05] How many? That's sobering. God couldn't find 10 righteous people in that whole city. But I want to tell you how merciful God is. Abraham thought there had to be at least 10. He stopped praying. God sent two angels in there and they took out the one righteous family and pulled them out of there.
[00:21:22] Are you impressed with God? God will spare the righteous. That's what Peter's telling us here.
[00:21:30] And if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the Day of Judgment. What's Peter telling us? There's a day of judgment coming. God's going to reserve people to be judged for all of their actions. We need to know that. You know, this is what God is showing us.
[00:21:52] We've already talked about how many People are in denial when they're pointed out. They need to make a change in their life and they don't do do it. People are warned all the time. They just ignore it. And when it happens, they're just like, shock. Like, I can't believe this happened to me. Because it's almost like we all think we're the exception, but we're not.
[00:22:11] Let's look at verse 17. This is Zedekiah. This is like just before. The city has been, you know, besieged for 18 months. People are starving. The famine is so severe. I could have read all of that from Lamentations. I. I want to spare the gruesome details, but they're eating each other. That's how bad it is. Okay, Then Jeremiah says to Zedekiah, because Zedekiah said, do we have a word from God, Jeremiah? Jeremiah says, yeah, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says. If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be spared and the city will not be burnt down and you and your family will live. How many think, hey, this is a great offer, okay? But if you will not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, the city will be given into the hands of the Babylonians and they're going to burn it down, and you yourself will not escape from them.
[00:23:03] Who's telling him this? Jeremiah. But who's Jeremiah? Just God's messenger boy, Jeremiah. How can he say this with confidence? It's not that he wants to say this message. He has to say it because God's speaking through him to this king. And what does the king do? Oh, no, he continues to rebel. And then when the crisis is so bad, they've broken in and now they've taken over the city, he runs away. Isn't that a great leader? When everything is terrible, he runs off, great shepherd. Right then Zedekiah, King of Judah, and all the soldiers saw them. They saw whom? The Babylonians, now taking over the city. They fled. They left the city at night by way of the king's garden, through the gate between the two walls, and they headed toward the Arabah.
[00:23:44] Well, Tremper Longman describes the flight path of Zedekiah. He says this. The Arabah was a desolate area to the east and southeast of Jerusalem, that is to the Jordan River Valley or to the small wadis that drain into it. So if you've ever been to Israel, south of Jerusalem is probably one of the most bleak wildernesses you've ever seen. And a wadi is a little stream bed. And when there's actual flash floods or rains. It fills up with water, but generally it's a dry bed. And then you can just travel on these wadis. And that's how a lot of people travel even today, in these dry wadis, these flat areas where the rain usually pours through them. He goes on to say it may be significant that the text specifies that he departed from his garden, which is a cultivated and pleasant natural environment, to the Arabah, which is a wild and inhospitable area. Isn't that true in our lives? When we turn away from what God has for us, we end up losing out the good life. We end up in this desolate place. Sin always does that to us. It'll diminish you as a person. You need to know that. It says they may have been seeking refuge in the many caves in the area that served as places for refuges throughout the centuries or for refugees throughout the centuries.
[00:24:59] Now, how many know there's a time when it's evident that repentance will not occur, in that judgment will happen. And this is one of those times. It's when we keep rejecting God's message of forgiveness and grace, and our hearts become hard and we become indifferent to the warnings. This is the problem of hearing a warning and not paying attention. The more you hear it, the less interested you are. You just. You're hardening your heart toward it. And after a while you don't care anymore. You become totally desensitized and you just push yourself away from it. And you avoid anybody that's going to tell you that you know what you're doing is wrong. That's a hardened heart, and it's really difficult to reach people in that condition. But here we see the outcome of Zedekiah's rebellion against God. Verse 5. But the Babylonian army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. And they captured him and they took him to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, at Riblah, which was in Syria, a little further away. They took him off there in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced a sentence on him. Now he would have speared the city, but now they're going to burn the city. He would have spared the king and his family, but now he's not going to do that. Look what happens to him in verse six. There at Ribla, the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he also killed all the nobles of Judah. He's going to wipe out this rebellion. He's stamping it Out. He's becoming ruthless against it. Verse 7. Then he put out Zedekiah's eyes and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon. So what is he doing? He's making sure he sees all of his family destroyed in front of his eyes. And the last thing he's going to see is this, because this is. He's going to make sure you're going to remember this because this is the last visual image you're going to have in your life.
[00:26:40] It says, then the Babylonians set fire to the royal palaces and the houses of the people and broke down the walls of Jerusalem. And Zaradan, 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. What a terrible consequence. I want to say this sin has a price to pay.
[00:27:04] There's a consequence and if we persist in it, we will suffer. It's the way it works.
[00:27:10] So as I said, the last thing Zedekiah will see, his last visual memory is the destruction of his family. And then his eyes are blinded and he's taken a change to Babylon while others are experiencing a swift end to their suffering. How many know it might be better to just be killed immediately executed and not have to face the suffering, but not Zedekiah. He makes sure that this guy lives and he now suffers for the rest of his life.
[00:27:35] You know, it's kind of a warning to us. There's a price to be paid here. So what are the lessons? Perpetual rebellion and refusal to listen to warnings of impending judgment.
[00:27:47] Well, if we persist in rebellion, we'll suffer. That's the warning. There are some who argue that it just seems unjust for God to punish people for eternity for sins committed in time. But what we fail to realize is what sin does to us. We become our sin.
[00:28:04] People don't think of it this way. We go, well, yeah, I committed this act, okay? God can forgive us. But if we perpetuate a behavior, eventually we become that behavior. I'll give you an example. If I keep lying, eventually I become what I become, a liar. And eventually it becomes a part of my intrinsic being. I become what I'm doing. And if I'm doing the wrong things all the time, I become that. And I actually perpetuate that behavior for the rest of my life. But it doesn't end when you die. You're going to perpetuate that behavior all the way into eternity. And that's why, you know, God keeps punishing the punishment is that you're going to be, you know, basically unable to come to any help. But the sad part is you won't want to. You know, God actually realizes there's a line that people cross. They don't want to anymore. They get past this point where they don't want to and that. So they're going to spend all of eternity absent from God. It's a very strong situation. Okay, that's the negative side. I'm not going to leave you there, guys. I don't believe in that. I believe that there's a. There's an answer to this. There's a reason we need to understand these things. And it's that, you know, those who place their trust in God will be spared. That's what we need to understand. God wants to save us. God wants to spare us. God really loves us. God is for us.
[00:29:30] Are we following this? So we have an adversary, Satan. He's against us. He's the father of all lies. He wants you to believe the lies. He wants to lead you into captivity. He wants you to stay in chains and in bondage for all of eternity because that's his sentence.
[00:29:47] Misery loves company.
[00:29:50] Wow.
[00:29:52] So God delivered the poor and he released Jeremiah from his imprisonment. Look at verse 10.
[00:30:00] 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 gained the vineyards and fields. So the very, you know, the poorest people, the people that were probably the godly people that remained, they remained in the land and God gave them a blessing. They were, you know, basically taken care of. 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.
[00:30:33] Now, where was Jeremiah when this was all happening? Well, he was in trouble. He was in jail. Actually. They didn't like Jeremiah because he was telling them the truth. They didn't want to hear it. And so they were punishing him and they incarcerated him. But you know what? Now that the whole city is being destroyed, the Babylonians take him out and they treat him well. Isn't that interesting? Why? Because God spares the righteous.
[00:30:59] So Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guard, and Nebuzaraban, a chief officer, another interesting Babylonian name, 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 here's there was a very small remnant of godly people and this man Gedaliah is actually will eventually become the governor. He's actually a Jewish person and he's actually his fathers. They were living during the reign of Josiah, a godly king. And there was a godly remnant in the land. They weren't not on the same frequency as the majority of people who were in rebellion against the Babylonians. These people now are going to form a new group of people in the land, but we'll later on find out there's some other issues that will arise there. So we now have a contrast between what happened to Zedekiah, the man who continued to live in fear, disregarding God's promises and rebelling against his word, and Jeremiah. And outwardly Zedekiah seems to be the man, he's the king, a man in authority and power. But at the end he's brought down and judged and suffers. Jeremiah, though God's servant, who's obediently communicated God's word, though at a price of being imprisoned, threatened, is finally released and restored back to his own home. How many are getting a little picture? God says, hey, if you do the right thing, I'm going to bless you. And if you do the wrong thing, eventually you're going to be judged. And it may not always be in this life, but it'll happen. We need to understand that. It's happening, it's going to happen.
[00:32:36] That's the point I think, of what this whole message is all about is trying to give us that understanding Jeremiah's person as F.B. hewitt he writes this. Jeremiah's person now acts out of the positive option Jeremiah had announced for the community. You know, he had urged them submit to the Babylonians and live. And as one he himself had submitted, he's now permitted to live. In other words, he's not just giving people the message, he's living out the message. How many know living out something is powerful and now people that are remaining can see he was right because he was obeying God and he's experiencing what God promised. He's actually going to live what God promised. So beautiful. His personal destiny is presented as what might have been available for Zedekiah and for all of his cohorts had they not believed their own war propaganda, their silly false notions. Oh this Walter Brueggemann false notion of being, of well being or shalom, Shalom is the word for peace. You have to remember a little earlier, some of you weren't part of the series. The false prophets kept saying, hey, it's all going to work out. Peace. There's not going to be any war. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. Everything's going to work out. Everybody wants to hear that good news all the time. Oh, yeah, it's wonderful. You know, you can live like you want to and it's all going to work out for you. Hey, that's a lie. And that's what happened. It finally got revealed. Because eventually I'm going to say this about all of our lives. They're going to get tested. And everyone in this room, we know that this is true. We've all been tested. And in life, this is really about living through life's test to reveal the true nature of our hearts. And also, are we going to serve God or not? I mean, talk about Jesus walking in the wilderness. He was tested.
[00:34:31] Is he going to do what the Father wants him to do, or is he going to go his own way? We're all being tested at all times, and we have to make choices. Now, to those who trust in the Lord, they're going to be spared. This is the last four verses. Look what happens next. And it's not just Jeremiah that's spared.
[00:34:48] While Jeremiah had been confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the Lord came to him. And he said, go and tell Ibrahim the cushite.
[00:34:56] This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says. I'm about to fulfill my words against the city. Words concerning disaster, not prosperity. At that time, they will be fulfilled before your eyes.
[00:35:07] But I will rescue you on that day, declares the Lord. You will not be given into the hands of those you fear.
[00:35:16] I will save you, and you will not fall by the sword, but you will escape with your life because what you trusted in me declares the Lord.
[00:35:28] Okay, what's going on here? Well, back in chapter 38, this is actually this little segue. This little comment probably happened in chapter 38, when Jeremiah was still in prison.
[00:35:44] And chronologically, FB Huey says these verses belong in the narrative events before Jerusalem's fall. They may have been placed at the end of chapter 39 to avoid an interruption in the account of events leading up to the fall of Jerusalem. In other words, you know, you have to understand something about the Bible. It's not just trying to tell the story in a chronological order. The Bible may be historical history, but it's theological in its lessons.
[00:36:13] And the Writer is giving us a theological lesson. What he's trying to tell us is he was told ahead of time because you trusted in God. He's telling them, this is my promise to you, Eber Melech. I'm making this promise to you. You will be spared in the day of judgment. And now in chapter 39, when we're experiencing the day of judgment now, we're seeing it become realized in his life.
[00:36:39] More likely they conclude the account to highlight the veracity or the truthfulness of God's word of punishment regarding Jerusalem and salvation for the individuals.
[00:36:50] Well, individual, but individuals who trust. And that's the point.
[00:36:56] It's a message to all of us that when we trust God, God will spare us. Now, who is this guy? Well, he was an Ethiopian.
[00:37:08] It was a cushite, which is more of the Egyptian that descendants. And he was a servant to the court. And he was a guy that didn't totally agree with what was going on. As a matter of fact, some of the nobles wanted to kill Jeremiah. They threw him in a pit. And Ebermelech went to Zedekiah and said, hey, listen, if you leave him in that pit, he's going to die. You're cutting off God's message to the nation. And the king relented and told him, go ahead, take 30 men. You can tell this was a major operation, you know, dig one prophet out of it because it was a dangerous mission. And he went and rescued Jeremiah and they put him into the prison rather than stay and die in this pit. And God, you know, our faith isn't just a faith that says, well, I believe in God. Our faith, true faith, true trust in God acts on convictions. It acts on what we believe. It actually becomes doers and not just listeners, you know. And so sometimes as Christians, we get this attitude, you know, if we just believe the right things intellectually, we're okay, I'm going, no, it's not. It's more than that. You and I have to actually act on what God says. True. People of faith do what God says. It's not enough to just hear it. We got to respond to it and we got to act on it. And this man acted on it, and God spared him judgment. So I think it's interesting that he's not a Jewish person. So that gives us a lot of hope that, you know, God says, I'm going to spare anyone. I don't care what your background is, if you will trust me. He opens it up to all humanity. And I like that. I think we could easily Brush aside the significance of this historical account of judgment and think it has no bearing on our lives. But Scripture from beginning to end, challenge us to respond to God's loving message of salvation and grace.
[00:39:02] But to refuse that message leaves us only with judgment. And I think we need to understand that. And so I'm going to close by looking at the last book of the Bible, because the Bible does start at the beginning and tells us the story of the fall of man. But at the end we have. The end of the whole story is found in the book of Revelation where it all comes to a conclusion. And you know what's going to happen? Jesus is going to come back and defeat all of the things we're struggling with. He's going to destroy. He's going to defeat hell, Satan, he's going to defeat all of these death itself. He's going to defeat sickness and sorrow and all of these things. We read of that in the book of Revelation, but listen to what it says in chapter 18. He said, Then I heard another voice from heaven say, come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins. Now he's using.
[00:39:54] Who is he telling us to come out of? Well, when you read Revelation, it's Babylon, okay, come out of her. But Babylon is always a symbol. It's a code name for the society that's values are in rebellion against God. So what is he telling us? He says, come out of her so that you'll not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues or judgments. He says, for her sins are piled up to heaven and God has remembered her crimes. Therefore, in one day her plagues will overtake her death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who. What?
[00:40:36] Who judges her. And this is. I just close with this. Babylon, as I said, is a symbol for a society that's in rebellion against God and rejects God's values and ways to come out means that we are no longer living according to her values.
[00:40:52] Jesus said, I didn't take you out of this world. You're in the world, but not of the world. In other words, you and I don't embrace the values of our society, but we've embraced God as our Savior and are living a value system that pleases him, that we're living godly lives rather than ungodly lives. We're moving towards God, not away from him as a society. So let's stand as we close in prayer this morning.
[00:41:20] You know, I was just thinking Last week, you know, I preached from Isaiah. I talked about Jesus in the Book of Isaiah. It was so inspiring, comforting, and encouraging this week. How could you flip a switch like that, Pastor? Well, I'm explaining to. To us we can only experience the favor and the blessing of God if we listen to God's warnings. Does that make sense? We got to hear what God's saying. You know, I want you to have the full counsel of God. Listen to what Paul said to the Ephesian elders. He said, I warned you day and night for three years with tears. He warned. So we need to hear how to live. We need to be instructed. We need. We need to be encouraged. We need to be comforted. But also there's times we need to be warned. We need to hear what God is saying. You know, there's people today that live a very. What I would call a very relaxed lifestyle. They're indifferent. Think about it. Does hell exist?
[00:42:20] Yes, it does. Why do you believe that, Pastor? Because Jesus said it did. And Jesus told me it was a terrible place and it's something that we want to avoid. Okay? Now, if I believe that there's an eternal punishment and I really love people and I know that they're headed in that direction, it would be very unloving of me not to say anything and just let them plunge into an eternity apart from God. You see, I think the church today is quite indifferent to the plight of the lost.
[00:42:50] Let's be honest. You know, do we. Do we ever weep over the plight of people that we love, knowing that they're going to perish? See, I think we've lost that. You know, what we do now is we complain about how bad society is. And I'm going to say something to us that the reason where we're at is because as a church, we're not doing what we should be doing. Because we are the light and we are the salt. We're the ones that can change our society. The society can't change itself. They're dead in trespasses and sins. Friends, it's you and I who have to get a little bit more serious and awaken to our responsibility. We have a responsibility to share this amazing love and good news and the gospel of Jesus Christ with people. So I'm speaking to us as believers now, and maybe we need to take a moment and pause here and say, lord, would you forgive me, where I have been indifferent to the needs of people around me. No, can we just take a moment? Just pause for a moment. Say, lord, would you forgive me? Maybe I haven't really been so concerned. I'm happy I'm saved. I'm happy I'm going to heaven. But am I unhappy about those that are perishing? That's a concern we should all have. And maybe you're here today and you don't know Christ. Listen, this is a warning. There is judgment coming. I don't think those people in Los Angeles had any clue that one day their city would burn the way it's burning. And it happened just like that.
[00:44:16] I'm sure there were warnings. They probably knew about, you know, water issues and the kind of winds that they have. People were warned that this could happen, but they just kept living life.
[00:44:27] That's what we tend to do, don't we? We dismiss the warnings.
[00:44:32] So, Father, I pray today that you would help us heed the warning. That you would help us as believers, first of all in our own lives, not to live careless lives. That we would live a life that we would be coming out of Babylon. We'd live a value system and a lifestyle that would evidence that we're not being swept in by the things that you're going to judge in the end for. Because we're all going to stand before you one day. And the only way we're going to be alleviated and spared from judgment is the fact that we've put our trust in you, number one. But number two, I pray that we will not live a life indifference, but that we would live a meaningful life. Because you're going to evaluate the way we spent our lives. And Lord, you've gifted so many of my beautiful brothers and sisters in this room. And I pray that we will use our strengths, gifts and abilities to bring honor and glory to your name. Help us to be more effective and more fruitful than we've ever been before. Help us to have a greater impact on the culture in which we are living in today. And if you're calling us to something, Father, help us not to run away from it, but to embrace it and to obey your call and to do your will. And we thank you for that. In Jesus name, amen. God bless you as you leave today.
