Just keep speaking out…

Warning to Zedekiah, King of Judah: This is what the Lord says: I am about to give this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down. You will not escape from his grasp but will surely be captured and given into his hands. You will see the king of Babylon with your own eyes, and he will speak with you face to face. And you will go to Babylon.  Jeremiah 34:2-3

Promise to Zedekiah, King of Judah: This is what the Lord says concerning you: you will not die by the sword; 5 you will die peacefully.  Jeremiah 34:4

Some consolation, I guess.

Zedekiah had proclaimed freedom for all slaves – all Hebrew slaves. The people had gone along with it, freed their slaves and then ‘changed their minds and took back the slaves they had freed and enslaved them again’ v11. This is outright disobedience to God’s commands – and will not go unpunished.

Jeremiah invites the Rekabites to join him.

Jeremiah: Drink some wine

Rekabites: We don’t drink wine. Our forefathers told us not to and none of us ever have.

Now that’s a lesson for the people right there. Even though their world is falling apart all around them, they will not disobey this command. Even though Jeremiah, a man of God, invites them to drink wine, they will not break their covenant.

To this day they do not drink wine, because they obey their forefather’s command. But I have spoken to you again and again, yet you have not obeyed me.  Jeremiah 35:14

Sometimes we do the right thing when it suits us and then find a good reason not to when we don’t want to. Or is that just me?

A decade previously (it all seems very jumbled up in the narrative for some reason), in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, God got Jeremiah to write down everything He had ever said to Him on a scroll. Jeremiah dictated. Baruch wrote. Baruch took the scroll to the temple (as Jeremiah was not allowed in) and read from the scroll. He took the scroll to the city’s officials and read it aloud to them (who warned him to take Jeremiah and hide). They took the scroll to the king. As each page was read aloud, the king threw it onto the fire. He called for the arrest of Baruch and Jeremiah but they could not be found. God instructed Jeremiah to write everything down again on another scroll (which must feel a whole lot worse then losing a whole page of work when your computer crashes and you haven’t saved it – and that feels pretty bad!).

And then we are back with King Zedekiah again –

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.  Jeremiah 37:1-2

Zedekiah sends for Jeremiah to pray for him and his people. This is back before Jeremiah was put in prison. This is back before any warnings about the Babylon invasion and the exile. When Jeremiah tries to leave the city, he is arrested on suspicion of deserting to the Babylonians.

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 delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon.’  Jeremiah 37:16-17

Jeremiah’s life is not one to be envied, is it? Yes, he’s a messenger of the one true God, but he has had to remain faithful to his God and keep speaking out, even though he has been ignored, ridiculed, punished, threatened and imprisoned. That takes a special kind of courage.

He’s speaking a message that is counter intuitive for all the people. People whose motto has always been ‘We stay and we fight. Fight to the death if necessary. We will never give in.’ No wonder his message is so unpopular.

“Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine or plague, but whoever goes over to the Babylonians will live. They will escape with their lives; they will live.”  Jeremiah 38:2

His words are discouraging to all the soldiers who are left to defend the city. He has to be silenced. He’s lowered into a cistern and sinks down into the mud. No one can hear him any more. An official tells the king who orders Jeremiah to be lifted up out of the cistern before he dies of starvation. He gives Jeremiah another chance and promises not to kill Jeremiah, whatever his message is. Jeremiah again tells the king to surrender. He reassures him that all will be well. It will take a lot for the king to trust these words.

So this blog has served to fill us in a little on the narrative of the life of Jeremiah. A man who spoke out for despite everything. This man who would not be silenced. Who clung to the truth.

It’s a challenge, isn’t it? We so want to be liked and approved of that sometimes we hold back. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. We don’t want to stand out. We don’t want to be seen as controversial. We know we have something to say but we are silenced by fear and embarrassment. We want to fit in. We want to belong. And so our message becomes diluted.

If we want to be God’s messenger (and as a follower of Him, that’s part of the deal), then we have to keep speaking out His message over and over and over again.